As we near the end of the 2019 calendar year its a good time to look back at everything that went on in 2019 both personally and for our favorite sports teams. We’re counting down the 10 best plays of Notre Dame’s 10-2 regular season.
We will unveil the plays now through Friday – feel free to leave comments in our forum if you agree or disagree or are just looking for some general Notre Dame or college football conversation.
Here’s what we have so far:
No. 10 – Cole Kmet Gives Notre Dame the Lead at Georgia
No. 9 – Kyle Hamilton Announces His Arrival
No. 8 – Finally, A Perfected Executed Screen Pass
Which brings us to number seven:
Some days you show up to the office and you’re just dragging. Maybe you were out late the night before, maybe you’re playing out the round for the week and just trying to make it to 5pm or maybe you’re just exhausted from a bunch of travel. Whatever the reason though, you’re struggling and just need a shot in the rear.
That was what Notre Dame went through early on in the regular season finale at Stanford. Their opening drive offensively ended when a screen pass to Tony Jones, Jr. wound up finding the end zone but pretty much everything after that was going bust for the Irish.
That is until a freshman stepped in and turned the tides of the afternoon with one extension of his right hand.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsOCE4_ros?start=24&w=560&h=315]
Redshirting freshman Isaiah Foskey blocked the punt in what was only his fourth game played of the year. From there the Irish scored quickly, got another stop and scored again when Ian Book found Chase Claypool just before halftime.
Does Notre Dame win the game without the blocked punt? Very possible, but that swayed things 180 degrees immediately as Stanford looked like a bunch of zombies walking through the rest of the afternoon, being outscored by Notre Dame 38-7 from that point forward.
It was nice to see the punt get blocked and something dumb not occur literally seconds later like what happened at the end of October at Michigan.