Clean the Mess: Notre Dame Beats Boston College, And Themselves

Notre Dame took care of business in Chestnut Hill yesterday, beating Boston College 25–10 to move to 6–2 on the season and extend its winning streak over the Eagles to ten straight. The Irish were the better team all afternoon — more talented, more balanced, and more explosive — yet the way they got there left plenty to be desired. Style points were non-existent for the Irish in a game marred with mental miscues that left its head coach looking for some answers to questions that have been lingering for weeks now.

Marcus Freeman’s message after the game was blunt: “We know there’s a lot to clean up,” he said. “Most of those things are things we control.” And that’s what makes this one both frustrating and encouraging — the mistakes are all self-inflicted.

Penalties Continue to Stall Progress

Notre Dame’s discipline problems reared their head again. The Irish were flagged seven times for 67 yards, a number that doesn’t fully reflect how disruptive the timing of those penalties was. A questionable first-half personal foul on Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa extended a drive that likely would have been a stop. Later, a defensive delay of the game and an inexcusable personal foul on Jaylen Sneed in the fourth quarter extended another drive that was over.

Freeman didn’t hide his frustration. “You can live with aggressive penalties,” he said, “but the ones that are undisciplined — jumping offsides, pushing a guy out of bounds — we can’t have those.”

This wasn’t a one-time blip either. It’s the third time in four games that Notre Dame has logged at least seven flags, and those self-inflicted wounds continue to hold the Irish back from putting together four clean quarters.

The one penalty Freeman got furious over for a different reason was the phantom face mask call on Josh Burnham on Boston College’s marathon drive to start the second half. Freeman lit into the officials for what might have been the worst flag I’ve ever seen thrown as ACC officials continue to show an utter lack of competence week in and week out.

Ball Security Still a Problem

The offense’s biggest blemish came midway through the second quarter when Jadarian Price fumbled inside the Boston College five-yard line, ending a 59-yard drive that could have pushed the lead to two touchdowns. It was Price’s third fumble of the season (all in the redzone) and Notre Dame’s seventh lost fumble overall — the most for the program since 2018.

“He’s earned our confidence,” Freeman said, “but we’ve got to attack it in practice. We can’t be insane and not say anything about it.”

That kind of lapse didn’t cost the Irish on Saturday, but against a team better equipped to capitalize, it absolutely could. For all of the good from Price this year, the fumbles have become a problem that needs to be corrected for this offense to be its best version of itself and for Price’s own NFL aspirations. NFL teams lose confidence in a running back who fumbles much faster than Freeman and Notre Dame right now.

Kicking Game Remains a Mess

Freeman’s most pointed comments came when discussing the kicking situation. The Irish rotated through three different kickers — Erik Schmidt, Noah Burnette, and Marcello Diomede — and still finished 1-for-3 on extra points and 0-for-1 on field goals in one of the worst displays of placekicking ever seen in a Notre Dame football game.

“The issue was the ball not going through the uprights,” Freeman said matter-of-factly. “If you’re rotating three kickers, you don’t have one.”

Through eight games, Notre Dame kickers are now 9-for-15 on field goals and 34-for-38 on PATs. For a team that relies on defense and ball control, that inconsistency is untenable. It has almost reached the point where Notre Dame can’t trust a PAT attempt at all, let alone a field goal. Noah Burnette has had success at this level before getting to Notre Dame, but injuries have derailed his season. Notre Dame is running out of time to get this shored up. Given the final four upcomining opponents, it might not matter much in the regular season, but for this team to reach it’s ultimate goals, they need to find a solution ASAP.

Inconsistent Offensive Execution

CJ Carr’s final stat line — 18-for-26 for 299 yards and two touchdowns — looks terrific, but it masked an uneven offensive rhythm. Notre Dame opened with two empty drives and didn’t reach the end zone until the first play of the second quarter.

Freeman summed it up: “We didn’t execute enough to get points on the first two drives. We scored enough to win, but not enough to our standard.”

The numbers back him up. The Irish went just 3-for-10 on third down and managed only 24:33 of possession time, while Boston College dominated the clock with long, plodding drives. Notre Dame’s offense averaged 8.3 yards per play — proof of its explosiveness — but lacked consistency in sustaining drives.

Red-zone execution also faltered again. The Irish were just 1-for-3 on red-zone chances with a fumble and a missed field goal leaving points on the field. Boston College stacked the box to stop the run and succeeded other than Jeremiyah Love’s electric 94-yard touchdown run. Mike Denbrock and the Irish offense struggled to adjust outside of relying on the deep ball to produce points. Other defenses will liekly mimic BC’s approach so the offense needs to find a way to sustain offense when the run game isn’t there outside of just throwing it deep.

Defense Dominant but Not Disciplined

Statistically, the defense was excellent. Notre Dame held Boston College to 12 rushing yards on 33 carries, picked off three passes, and sacked Boston College quarterbacks five times. Linebackers Drayk Bowen and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa were everywhere, combining for 23 tackles. Safety Tae Johnson added two interceptions, bringing Notre Dame’s streak to four straight games with multiple picks — its best since 1995.

Still, the defense’s intensity sometimes boiled over. Viliamu-Asa’s unsportsmanlike flag was one example, and Freeman was quick to call it out: “Whatever he did to get 15 yards, we can’t do it.”

The group’s relentlessness isn’t in question — but as November football tightens up, composure will matter as much as aggression.

Notre Dame also allowed a 21-play drive to start the second half. A defense of Notre Dame’s caliber can’t allow drives like that against opponents as bad as Boston College. Even if you remove the three extra plays that Boston College got after the egregiously bad face mask flag, it would have been an 18-play drive that kept the Irish offense off the field for more than half of the quarter.

Jeremiyah Love, Game-Breaker

If there was one play that symbolized Notre Dame’s talent advantage, it came early in the fourth quarter. Leading just 18–10, Jeremiyah Love took a handoff from his own six and sprinted 94 yards untouched to the end zone — the second 90-plus-yard run of his career.

Love finished with 136 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries, and in the process tied Vagas Ferguson for sixth in Notre Dame history with 35 career touchdowns. His explosiveness continues to be the best offensive weapon the Irish have, but his performance also underscored how few sustained drives Notre Dame generated without him breaking one.

Fixable Flaws

Freeman’s postgame tone struck the right balance — pleased with the win, but demanding more. “We’re greedy,” he said. “There’s more in terms of reaching our full potential.”

The good news? Everything that went wrong in Chestnut Hill is fixable. Ball security, penalties, red-zone finishing, special teams execution — all of it comes down to focus and fundamentals, not talent or scheme.

And when the Irish did execute, they looked every bit like the top-10 team their ranking suggests: CJ Carr stretching the field, Love breaking long runs, a defense suffocating against the run, and opportunistic through the air.

Notre Dame’s 25–10 win over Boston College wasn’t art, but it was another lesson. The Irish are winning games they used to let linger. Now the next step is cleaning them up.