Welcome to the next edition of the Shamrock. I'm Pete Sampson, joined literally right next to me by Matt Fortuna as he pops in another cough drop.

After Notre Dame's 35, 20 victory over Virginia, Irish moved to 3 and 1 on the season, Cavaliers dropped to 4 and 1.

Matt, it was, it's kind of one of those games where if you just checked out the box score, you would have thought that Notre Dame probably controlled it a little bit. Being here live, there were definitely moments at halftime and sort of taking a very informal unscientific poll of other reporters. This felt like a game that, frankly, I thought Notre Dame was going to lose. It felt that way. We play hurt here, by the way, Pete. If the first ever edition of this Shamrock recorded from Notre Dame Stadium, we would not pass this up for the world. However, I'm with you. I mean, first half did not exactly go Notre Dame's way. They got some calls that went their way, and they still found themselves down by four, and then you had the onside kick to open the game, and it just felt like one of those games. I mean, it was a really dreary day until about the fourth quarter. The sun wasn't out.

The atmosphere was kind of meh. I don't know if that's a hangover from last week or what it was,

but it felt like a game when you saw Bryce Perkins making some of the throws of those receivers that he

made that Nordame was going to find itself in really down the stretch.

And it just didn't bear out that way.

I mean, eventually their talent and their depth up front on the defensive side of the ball won out.

Bryce Perkins got blessed him.

Was still on both feet and walking and said he eats his greens and he feels fine. But you got to feel bad for that guy because he played his butt off. And he just did not have a whole lot of protection. He didn't have a whole lot of chances when Julian Acquare and the rest of those linemen were bearing down on. Yeah, I mean, Notre Dame finished his game with eight sacks. They were dominant up front. It was sort of the kind of performance you thought that you

were going to see a little bit earlier in the season. 13 tackles for loss. Virginia could not run the

ball at all. They finished, I think, with what, one yard rushing? Four. Four yards rushing,

excuse me. You know, so much of the, obviously, sack yardage, but I think even if you

subtracted that,

they're leading rush around 10 carries for 31 yards.

They had absolutely nowhere to go up front.

And so it's interesting because one of the thing I really wanted to get into

with Brian Kelly and the players somewhat unsuccessfully is just like,

did anything change in the second half?

Because to hear Brian Kelly tell it, it did not.

When you hear a head coach say that he challenged his coaching staff to be stubborn,

usually stubbornness is a pejorative.

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