Notre Dame Football: Top Irish Player Performances In Victory Over Michigan

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football is finally back. And so is your favorite weekly article highlighting three important player performances. These can be either positive or negative. After a big win against the Michigan Wolverines, you can bet your life savings I’m doing three positive reviews. Let’s get it started:

Alohi Gilman. What a start to his Notre Dame football career. The safety was all over the field making plays. Something that was desperately missing last year. He finished the game with 7 tackles and two huge pass breakups, which both came on 3rd down. A rather encouraging performance from Alohi Gilman.

Jafar Armstrong. He carried the ball 15 times against on the of best defensive lines in the country. As a first time running back! The workload is what impressed me the most. The converted wide receiver also found the end zone two times, which I probably should have mentioned first.

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We all knew Dexter Williams would be sidelined for this game with a university suspension. Jafar Armstrong stepped up big time in his place. The running back position was a question mark coming into this game. I think those questions have mostly been answered.

Khalid Kareem. The most dominant player on the field was the big man himself, Khalid Kareem. Just your average 9 tackle, 2 sack game. Oh, and he forced the fumble to seal the game. Shea Patterson is going to have nightmares about Khalid Kareem. The junior defensive end has now put himself in the national conversation. Kareem was named the Walter Camp Defensive Player of the Week. Definitely trending the right direction.

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Obviously after a big win you can choose any number of players. But as I watched the game, these three stuck out the most.

Some people will ask why I didn’t pick Brandon Wimbush. That’s because I don’t think we learned a whole lot about him. He was good last year slinging the deep ball, an elite runner and had some inconsistencies with touch passes. That’s exactly what we got Saturday night. He’s a good player and it was nice to see him get his confidence back.

Notre Dame is 1-0 and welcomes Ball State to town next Saturday.