It’s not going to win any awards for being overly pretty, gorgeous or even memorable necessarily, but it will go down as the one that at least stopped the bleeding. Notre Dame beat Cal, 24-17, at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday.
The win came in what was [autotag]Drew Pyne[/autotag]’s first career start and in the early parts of the contest it was fitting he was wearing green with some of the mistakes and misfires. He calmed the nerves, however, and finished the day 17-of-23 for 150 yards and a two touchdowns.
[autotag]Chris Tyree[/autotag] had seemed underutilized in the first two games but came up large on Saturday, scoring on a 21-yard touchdown reception in the first half. The junior speedster finished with 108 yards while [autotag]Audric Estime[/autotag] led all rushers with 76 yards. He also hauled in three catches for 43 yards.
[autotag]Michael Mayer[/autotag] had two receptions, but the second was huge. His six-yard touchdown reception put Notre Dame ahead, 24-17, the eventual final score.
The win is the first for Marcus Freeman as head coach at Notre Dame and a building block. We’ll have plenty of postgame reaction at Fighting Irish Wire as the Hail Mary for Cal wasn’t answered as time expired.
Notre Dame-Cal Postgame Reaction Links:
5 stars: best and worst from Notre Dame’s 24-17 win over Cal
Twitter reacts to Michael Mayer’s go-ahead touchdown for Irish
Everything Marcus Freeman said after first career victory as head coach
[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbz1mmy7gev0xbr player_id=none image=https://fightingirishwire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]