At some point this season, it was inevitable that a football movie-themed article would be needed. Given the religious affiliation of the Don’s opponent, Bishop O’ Dowd, I figured this was the perfect time to reference arguably the most famous football movie of all time, “The Waterboy” starring Adam Sandler. Oops, scratch that. I meant to say “Rudy”, the movie about an undersized and not particularly athletic young man who ultimately achieved his dream to play football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Speaking of Notre Dame, I promise that none of this story will be imaginary, unlike the girlfriend of a certain famous linebacker from the school recently featured in a Netflix documentary.
The coaching staff did an excellent job dialing up the right plays on both sides of the ball, and the team cleaned up the penalties and turnovers that plagued them in the last game. On offense, Jake Colaco started the game at QB. In the three quarters that he played, he delivered the football equivalent of a perfect game, completing all 16 of his passes for 255 yards and 6 TDs, which were spread around to 5 different players.
The TDs included a 5-yard slant to JB Frolich with a defender draped all over him, a 33-yard post route to Niko White that split two defenders, a 21-yard pass down the sideline to Tyler Kim, a 33-yard rollout pass to Alek Adolphson who found the end zone after breaking a few tackles, a 6-yard pitch and catch to Alek, and finally, a 40-yard swing pass to running back Eitan Romick who broke a few arm tackles with ease. Beyond the TD plays, a couple of other passing highlights included a 25-yard pass down the sideline between two defenders to Tyler, and a SportsCenter-worthy one-hand snag of a pass over the middle by Alek that set up one of the TD passes that followed.
The running game was also strong. In addition to Eitan’s 7 carries for 85 yards, Faisal Nabulsi got into the action with 3 carries for 34 yards, including a 20-yard run on an inside handoff at the end of the first half. None of the plays on offense would have been possible without the pass protection and run blocking provided up front by the offensive line, including Andrew Tresser, Drew McKenzie, Eli Laird, Jack Manful, and Luca Premo.
The defense dominated again, giving up a single TD over the course of the entire game (the other TD allowed was on a kickoff return). The defensive line, anchored by the same group as the offensive line plus Avyn Morales, wreaked havoc on the O’ Dowd offense and had the QB running for safety. Behind them were the linebacker group of Griffin Ames, who led the team with 4 tackles, Brady Wall, Jake Hawkins, Brody Greenfield, Nicky Fosina, Jake Yoshinaka, and Cruz Lopes, who got his first action of the season after recently joining the team and nearly recorded an interception. In the secondary, Drew Hansen, Colby Ebner, Griffin Rotundo, Brendan Miles, Brody Darin, and David Gonzales did a great job breaking up the deep passes. Colby showed great closing speed at cornerback, making several solo tackles. David had a touchdown-saving tackle in the second quarter.
On special teams, Niko White continued to dominate, including a 60+ yard kickoff return where he bounced off a few players that unfortunately got called back after a penalty. Alek also had a stellar kickoff return. Eitan continued to excel in kickoffs and punts, and Lucca DeBiasse easily connected on all six of her extra point conversion opportunities.
