This one was destined to end this way for Notre Dame football | Instant analysis
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PROVO, Utah — This one flipped in a hurry.
All of it. In every aspect. Not only in this game for Notre Dame football, but maybe the entire season.
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From seemingly headed for loss to No. 1 to likely headed toward being ranked No. 1 for Notre Dame football to a crushing defeat after allowing a late score in a frustrating, frenetic and unforgettable night far from home against No. 8 Brigham Young.
Those last few minutes were bewildering. That last Irish drive breathtaking. Until the end. Until the field storm.
Brigham Young 28, Notre Dame 24. The post-game fireworks shook the press box.
Down 21-10, Notre Dame made just enough plays and scored just enough points at just the right times to get out of LaVell Edwards Stadium to take a 24-21 lead in the fourth quarter. One bad defensive series cost the Irish this game, and maybe the rest of this season.
Brigham Young took the 28-24 lead with 1:47 left. It was a game of catch-up for most of the night. The Irish just couldn't catch up. Or keep up.
Notre Dame trailed after the first quarter. It trailed after the second. It trailed after the third. Then the script flipped. Everything on both sides of the football again started to make sense, some for the first time all night, and the No. 2 team in the country looked like the No. 2 team in the country.
Trailing 21-10 at halftime to an opponent and in a place where the emotions never wavered, Notre Dame was faced with having to deliver the whopper of all comebacks in the second half or be saddled with a loss that it could ill afford.
Deliver it did. Until it didn't.
If it could go wrong in the first half, it did go wrong in the first half. CJ Carr's seemingly spiking of the football with six seconds left and the Irish likely headed for a touchdown – overruled to be a fumble capped a forgettable first half.
The buildup – and the backdrop – to this one were nothing like the previous six weeks for Notre Dame. It often felt like the Irish could simply roll into a stadium, either home or on the road, and give something less than an all-out effort and still win. And win easily.
That wasn't expected to be the case with this one. College GameDay was in town, which made it a bigger deal to many on the outside of Notre Dame football. To the Irish, the buildup, the backdrop, everything about this one, was simply another big game.
If everything that went into this one pre-game wasn't enough, the stakes were raised about 44 minutes before kickoff when Georgia – No. 1 Georgia – lost at home to Auburn. Few on the Irish sideline may have known it at the time, or even at half, but a win would take Notre Dame to football heights it hadn't hit in the month of October of a regular season since 1990.
We needed all of five plays to see that this one might go in a direction few had planned. The sight of defensive end Boubacar Traore, arguably the team's best defender, slowly walking off the field with his gold helmet in hand was bad. Really bad.
A helmet to helmet targeting hit on quarterback Bear Bachmeier and an ejection for Traore, who's too experienced, too valuable to have put himself, to put the defense, in that situation. He must know better.
For the second time in three weeks, and for the second straight game outside Northern Indiana, Notre Dame fell into an early 7-0 deficit. It climbed out in the rain of North Carolina. It would have to do the same even before the sun set in Provo.
Maybe that first drive was an anomaly – the home team riding emotion and the crowd and everything else to play so far above its collective heads against the nation's top-ranked defense. Maybe it was a preview of what was to soon follow.
That Irish defense for much of the first quarter looked like a group of tourists trying to decipher a New York City subway map. Where's the No. 7 train going? The D train? Which way to Central Park? Brooklyn? Too much confusion when much clarity was needed.
They looked like that early in the half. They looked like that late in the half, when they were tagged with an illegal substitution penalty that helped keep alive a third BYU scoring drive.
That defensive area of the Notre Dame locker room likely wasn't a pleasant place to be at halftime. Nor should it have been. The Irish were beat on a throwback pass to the quarterback for touchdown No. 2 and nearly beat by a reverse flip and run for the third. Brigham Young got in soon enough. It was enough to hand Notre Dame a 21-10 deficit.
How'd that first half taste, fellas?
Same as the second half. Not good. Won't be for a long time. Opportunity lost. Maybe more.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: This one was destined to end this way for Notre Dame football | Instant analysis