Box score aside, the Notre Dame vs. Wake Forest game was kind of a snooze. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every single one of those 710 offensive yards but the Notre Dame Fighting Irish handled the Wake Forest Demon Deacons without too much drama. It’s good to see the Irish “taking care of business” against unranked teams, especially while the rest of college football is imploding (ahem...Ohio State).

GOOD

Chase Claypool

Claypool’s nine receptions for 180 yards stole the show on Saturday...and that doesn’t include a couple drops for big gains that he just barely missed. If you were tuned into NBC you also may have heard that he was a basketball player in high school and averaged 48 POINTS PER GAME. [insert Swaggy P meme here]

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

BEAST. MODE.

QB1 + QB2

Wimbush had his best game of the season by far, despite getting hurt in the second quarter. Luckily, a left hand contusion won’t keep him from the Miami game, but seeing him go down was heart-stopping to say the least.

Wimbush finished with almost 400 total yards and 3 touchdowns... and again he didn’t even play the whole game. If you still would like to complain about how he doesn’t know how to pass or sucks or whatever please write it in an email and send it to nobodyfuckingcares@shutthefuckup.com.

It helps to have a solid backup when your starting QB is known for getting knocked around a bit, and Ian Book has been a spectacular backup this season. He came into the second quarter after about three seconds of warming up and threw a perfect touchdown to a wide open tight end.

Tevon Coney

TBT.

Coney has probably played the three best games of his career these past three weeks. Saturday alone he had a defense-leading 1 sack, 3 tackles for loss and 12 total tackles. Maybe it’s the new strength trainer, maybe its the new defensive coordinator, maybe its just experience and hard work paying off. Either way, the kid is a beast. (I can call someone a kid even though I’m only like two years older than them, right?)

BAD

Wake Forest isn’t a bad team. In fact, I commend Dave Clawson for turning their program around the past couple years, even while the whole world was reeling after Wakeyleaks. That’s gotta be a morale killer! Even so, WE GAVE UP 587 YARDS AGAINST WAKE FOREST. That is the most the Irish defense has given up all season. In fact, that is almost a hundred more than the 496 yards that Michigan State managed against the Irish. (By the way, that’s 12th ranked and potential Big-10 Champion Michigan State.) While I don’t think that the margin of victory is really indicative of how dominant the Irish actually were in this game, it might not bode well for the Irish in the eyes of the playoff committee.

(ADDENDUM: the new rankings came out after I typed this. Notre Dame is still ranked 3rd.)

INJURIES

Notre Dame BARELY ESCAPED this game healthy. Brandon Wimbush’s hand was head-butted and Josh Adams??? I don’t even know what happened to him. Talk about Saturday Scaries.

IRISH

The Demon Deacon

No disrespect to our dear leprechaun, but the Demon Deacon is a pretty sweet mascot. I almost regret that we did not let him motorcycle onto the field.

Side note: somehow, this video of the Demon Deacon’s motorcycle breaking in 2014 only has 2,000 views.

Football Weather <3

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s back. FOOTBALL WEATHER in South Bend. “But it was cold during the NC State game last weekend, too!” you say. “Ah yes,” I respond, “But it wasn’t thunder-storming as well!” You see, true South Bend weather is not just so frigid that your nose hairs seize inside your nostrils, but is also so wet and miserable that the possibility of ever being dry, warm, and comfortable again completely fade from the horizon and you accept that in the future you will never again feel joy.

It’s like gold duuuuust

This is the second time paint flecks have flown off of Deon McIntosh’s helmet this season. Notre Dame should try putting whatever solid gold rub they use on the Golden Dome on these helmets, because whatever they have now is simply not sticking. Either that or Deon McIntosh is being hit that hard, which...... is probable.

MIAMI WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget Wake Forest, it’s Miami week. It’s Irish vs. Hurricanes. It’s Catholics vs. Convicts. It’s good guys vs. bad guys (lol). I remember my junior year of high school when I told my dad I wanted to apply to Miami and he laughed in my face and told me that I couldn’t go to college in Miami because it’d be like “a vacation.” Instead I wound up in South Bend where I learned which combination of wool clothing would keep me the least frozen as I scraped ice off my windshield before class each morning.

Getty Images

Go Irish, Beat Canes.