Game Ball Awards for Notre Dame’s Win over Stanford

I still think the Irish win Saturday had Isaiah Foskey not blocked the punt late in the first half because Notre Dame was simply too dominant afterwards to think it was only that play.

A look at the final score and you might not think Saturday’s 45-24 Notre Dame win over Stanford and think they dominated for the entire afternoon.

Although domination eventually came on, for 27 minutes or so in the first half things were anything but for the Fighting Irish.

So who gets the reward of the game balls in today’s win that wraps up a 10-2 regular season?

Let’s check it out:

Offense:

I could go a couple different ways here with Chase Claypool scoring twice and providing the go-ahead touchdown or Tony Jones scoring and putting up 90 total yards but to me it was Ian Book that offensively was the biggest star.

Four touchdowns and no interceptions, his ground game wasn’t as strong today but it was just as lethal when it absolutely needed to be, his fourth down run for 26 yards to the Stanford three while still only leading 21-17 was a huge play by the quarterback who Brian Kelly had big-time praise for after the game (more on that, later).

Ian Book: 17/30, 255 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT, 29 rush yards

Defense and Special Teams…

Another Pair of Notre Dame Stars Headed to Senior Bowl

Pride has 33 tackles on the year along with one interception, as he recorded his first last-Saturday at Duke.

It seems like just about every hour at this point another Notre Dame player accepts an invitation to play in the Reese’s Senior Bowl

We’ve given you the stories on both Chase Claypool and Jalen Elliott but that’s not enough as a couple of other Notre Dame seniors accepted their invitations to the annual Mobile, Alabama event today.

Enter Troy Pride, Jr. and Khalid Kareem.

Pride has 33 tackles on the year along with one interception, as he recorded his first last-Saturday at Duke.

Kareem has four-and-a-half sacks on the season and 11 for his Notre Dame career.  The defensive lineman has totaled 31 tackles this season.

That brings the total to four for Notre Dame players headed to Mobile, a sign of a strong program.