Georgia 23, Notre Dame 17: Everybody get their money’s worth? (Watch: Kirby got craycray)
Photos: ND Insider, Chicago Tribune, gallery
Georgia 23, Notre Dame 17
The line was a little more than two touchdowns and pair of PATs.
It went down to the last minute, exhausting the more-than-listed 93,246 – granted, only 500 more than regular capacity - in the building and no doubt a huge national TV audience watching a pair of top-10 teams.
That issues for both teams were exposed is for the teams to deal with. Fans got a thoroughly entertaining game in which Notre Dame pulled within a possession with 3:12 left and basically ended with a fourth-down incompletion with 48 seconds left. The Irish blew through timeouts early in both halves, hampering their ability to take a lead or win.
Georgia didn’t dominate the line of scrimmage as predicted, running 33 times for 152 yards, far below average. Notre Dame managed 3.3 yards a carry, 1.3 a try below Georgia, which gained 18 more yards total offense on two more plays.
Not new to big stages, Notre Dame hurt itself with scores of pre-snap five-yard penalties, finishing with 12 flags for 85 yards, meaning most flags came on pre-snap five-yard violations. Georgia fumbled four times, lost only one, and each team punted four times, and had a time-of-possession advantage of almost 10 minutes.
