Micah Gilbert’s Breakout Gives Notre Dame Football The Downfield Threat It Needed

Notre Dame’s first offensive snap Saturday night went deep down the middle to Micah Gilbert for 61 yards. The last throw that mattered was a back-shoulder ball down the boundary that Gilbert hauled in at the Michigan State 3 and all but ended a game the Irish had spent three quarters failing to put away. In between, he caught six more, finishing with eight on nine targets for 170 yards in a 27-10 win.

The opener was by design. Notre Dame scripted the first play of the night to Gilbert, and he knew it before kickoff.

“I found out pretty early before the game and I was excited that that ended up being the first call,” Gilbert said. “I trust myself a lot and I was excited to be able to go out there and make that play.”

Carr Kept Going Back to Him

Nine of Notre Dame’s 24 pass attempts went Gilbert’s way, and he caught all but one.

“It felt easy with him. He was open a ton,” Carr said. “Winning the one-on-one battles, obviously to start off the game the way we did was really exciting. And just super happy for a guy like that who just puts in the work day in and day out and is one of the most consistent guys on the team to come out and have a day like he did today.”

“Yeah, I didn’t realize he hit 170 till after the game and they were interviewing him and that stat popped up. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a good deal we had today.’ It felt easy with him. He was open a ton,” Carr said. “Winning the one-on-one battles, obviously to start off the game the way we did was really exciting. And just super happy for a guy like that who just puts in the work day in and day out and is one of the most consistent guys on the team to come out and have a day like he did today.”

Gilbert caught three passes in the first quarter, none in the second, and three more on the 17-play drive that ate most of the third. That drive got Notre Dame a field goal and a 20-10 lead, and it was where he crossed 100 yards for the first time in his career.

The Throw That Put It Away

The throw that settled things came in the fourth. Carr went to him on second-and-12 with man coverage on the outside, and Gilbert came down with it at the 3.

“I mean, we saw man coverage and Micah had been winning all night long and missed him on a four verticals earlier in the game, kind of started to the field and didn’t get back to him,” Carr said. “And so we originally had kind of curl-flat called, not a great man beater. So wanted to give him a shot to go get a ball and that’s exactly what he did. Super exciting to see that. We were juiced after that one.”

The ball got low enough on the way down that Marcus Freeman spent the next several seconds on the sideline trying to figure out whether it had been caught.

“Oh, yeah. That was good. And I was a little bit concerned right there. I was like, ‘Oh, did the ball hit the ground? We got to go tempo, tempo, tempo.’ And then CJ starts checking. I’m like — but the ref, they didn’t replay it or they didn’t stop the game, so it means it was a catch,” Freeman said. “It’s just hard to see out there in the moment, but that was a heck of a throw and an unbelievable catch. It was really good to see.”

The receiver had no such questions.

“Yeah, I for sure knew I caught the ball,” he said. “Again, I was just excited I was able to make a play. I’m excited CJ trusted me to let that one go and I was able to go get it.”

Freeman framed the shot plays as a group effort rather than a receiver simply having a night.

“I think we capitalized on some shots,” Freeman said. “You know, CJ did a good job of putting the ball in a place where he can go make it. Then he’s got to go make it, right? It’s twofold. O-line’s got to protect, quarterback’s got to throw it, and wideout’s got to catch it. And we did that pretty well a few times today, and Micah was the recipient of a lot of those.”

A Box Notre Dame Needed to Check

Gilbert’s 170 yards accounted for 73 percent of the 234 Carr threw for, and no Notre Dame player had gone for more in a game since Chase Claypool in 2017. It came a week after his 39-yard touchdown catch against Rice. Through three games, he’s at 13 catches for 251 yards, already past the nine catches and 93 yards he managed across all of last season.

“Yeah, it’s a constant build every single day,” he said. “Just every day in practice, every day he throws the ball out there to every receiver. That’s all it is out there, is building trust within every player, building trust within the coaches to go out there and execute every single play.”

The scripted first snap and the fourth-quarter shot with the game still live are the two throws a staff spends the week deciding on. Both went to Gilbert. Notre Dame needed to find its vertical threat, replacing what Malachi Fields gave them a year ago, and Gilbert certainly looked like the answer the Irish were looking for.

The Notre Dame offense has a lot of work to do following a game in which they wasted numerous opportunities and just looked slightly off most of the night. Finding a deep threat in Gilbert, however, checks off a big box for the offense if it is sustainable for the junior wide receiver. Hopefully, with a vertical passing game developing, it forces defenses to back out of the box a bit and jump-starts the struggling Notre Dame rushing attack. And if it doesn’t, Gilbert certainly looks ready to keep taking advantage of one on one situations down field.