Notre Dame Destroys Oregon State: Instant Takeaways

Notre Dame dominated Oregon State in every aspect of Friday’s Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.  Some might even say the Fighting Irish closed their 2023 season by playing grrrrrrrrrreat!

Sorry, I had to.

Notre Dame stopped Oregon State quickly on the game’s opening possession and immediately marched down the field to take a 7-0 lead.  That would be rinsed and repeated for most of the afternoon to the tune of a 33-8 Notre Dame victory.

The win puts Notre Dame at 10-3 to finish the 2023 campaign while Oregon State falls to 8-5 with the loss.

Here are our instant takeaways for the final time in 2023.

Angeli Time

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He wasn’t perfect by any means and there isn’t a quarterback controversy entering the 2024 season but Steve Angeli did everything and more you could have asked a first-time starter to do.

Angeli completed 15 of 19 passes for 232 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for another 27 yards.  He wasn’t perfect as he held onto the ball a bit long on a couple of sacks, misfired on a couple end zone pass attempts, but all-in-all it was a mighty impressive performance for his first time out.

Defense Dominates

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Notre Dame’s defense flat-out dominated the afternoon.  As good as Angeli and the Irish offense was, Notre Dame’s defense was easily the best unit of either team all day.

Notre Dame had a shutout pitched until backups finally allowed a touchdown late in the contest but it took Oregon State until late in the third quarter to pass the 100-yard mark of offense for the game.

Notre Dame played aggressive, fast, and confidently.  It was apparent very early on that it wasn’t going to take the Irish more than a couple of scores to put things out of reach.

USA TODAY SPORTS

Jordan Faison went from lacrosse player and walk-on to a household name and scholarship player…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/notre-dame-destroys-oregon-state-225514309.html

Author : Fighting Irish Wire

Publish date : 2023-12-29 22:55:14

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