Notre Dame Avoids The Trap On A Weird Day In College Football

It's a fairly difficult game to digest. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish gained 710 yards of offense, but also gave up 587 yards to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in a 48-37 victory. It was a weird game with weird things happening all over the place, so is there much we should take away from this game that will make fans feel pretty good?

Sure.

TRAP ATTACK

THIS WAS THE WEEK. It was one of the trappier games that Irish fans and media had circled for the Irish this season, and for the most part... they were right. It was the most uncharacteristic game the Irish have displayed this season.

• Wimbush passes for 280 yards
• Defense gives up a buttload of yards
• 3 rushing TD's against the defense
• Josh Adams gains 22 yards
• Defense gives up more than double its average
• Ian Book was 8 for 8 passing
• 2 failed 4th down conversions
• Missed FG by Justin Yoon
• 2 FG's by Yoon

And that's just a short list of what had Irish fans on edge. The play-calling, and a game that ended up being closer than the 20+ point wins we have been accustomed to in 2017 gave it a feel of 2015.

See... it wasn't like we went back to 2016 in one day.

There are a ton of different reasons for how this game went down. I'm sure that Wake Forest's familiarity of Mike Elko's defense, and the fact this was John Wolford's 41st start at quarterback for the Demon Deacons, helped make it look and feel the way it did.

What if the Irish hadn't allowed that last garbage touchdown by Wake? The score would have been 48-30. An 18-point win in a game that had a 14.5 point spread. That seems about right, doesn't it?

Look, a game like this was going to happen this season one way or the other. This way, the Irish still got a double-digit win and stay very much alive for the college football playoffs (a subject in which I promise I will get much more in depth about before Tuesday).

Until then, don't let the joy that this season has been be wiped away by a day of rain and pain. We won... the Ohio State Buckeyes and Penn State Nittany Lions can't make that same claim. Like I said, it was a weird day in college football.