I don't know if an outgoing senior graduate student has ever been serenaded by Whitney Houston's, I will always love you, as Sam Hartman was today in the fourth quarter when he exited the game.

But that shows the embrace the crowd

had for him in his only season in South Bend, 45-7 today on Senior Day, John.

This is Tim O'Malley of Irish Illustrated with John Bryce of FootballScoop.com and Irish Illustrated,

and maybe it's not fair to say a slow start, but it wasn't a fast start.

They had to get on track a little bit, and when they did, John, I think the turning point was the crossover from end of first half to beginning of second half where Notre Dame took six points away or did a six point swing and then also created the biggest turnover of the game.

Yeah, I thought significant that Notre Dame recaptured some of its

aggressiveness starting with Marcus Freeman on down late in the first half, calling the timeouts,

forcing weight to attempt a field goal, getting the block by Giovante Jean Baptiste. And of course,

Mr. Magnet, Xavier Watts picks it up, scoops and returns the block kick 20 yards. Notre Dame puts together a 10 play, 51-yard drive to kick a fill goal,

Pat its lead at the half, comes out, onside kick.

More aggressiveness doesn't lead directly to points, flips the field, and then bam.

Notre Dame gets a turnover, scores immediately thereafter,

and the Irish were off to the races in a 45-7 win in which they

had four consecutive offensive possessions score and five consecutive offensive possessions

with a chance to score. And once again, the defense made it easy for the offense because if

you're going to hold of your opponent to under 100 yards passing, as someone mentioned postgame

in a non-triple option affair in modern college football.

That's some quality defense.

That's what the Irish played, especially at home.

As a colleague pointed out, eight touchdowns allowed in six home games this year, and you can say, well, they played some teams that weren't good at home.

That's two for USC, two for Ohio State.

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