Notre Dame cooks Rice for a 52-0 win in the home opener

It didn’t take long for Notre Dame to flex all over Rice. On the second play of the game, Adon Shuler forced a fumble on the Rice running back, and Boubacar Traore picked the ball up and made a 24 yard dash for the end zone to put the Irish up 7-0 after 14 seconds of gameplay.

It was all we really needed to see on the day, but of course, they still play the game and Notre Dame really put it on Rice from the jump, and it led to a final score of 52-0 for an Irish win.

Things came in pairs after the Traore score. CJ Carr found Jordan Faison for a touchdown on back-to-back drives to make the game 21-0 at the end of the first. The next pair of scores came from running back Nolan James, who ran in 1 yard touchdowns on back-to-back drives to make the game 35-0.

CJ Carr’s third and final touchdown pass of the first half was a beautiful redirect by Carr to Micah Gilbert in the back of the end zone from 39 yards out to make the game 42-0. As the first half wound down to a close, Rice finally made a positive pass completion to give them 18 yards for the first 30 minutes. Before that play, the Owls were sitting at -6 for most of the game.

Early in the third quarter CJ Carr got one final touchdown pass on the board when on Notre Dame’s first drive of the half when he found tight end Cooper Flanagan for a 2 yard score. Carr finished the day 16-20 for 263 yards and 4 touchdowns. Three of the four incompletions were drops by the intended receiver.

Rice threatened to score on Notre Dame late in the 4th quarter with the Irish deploying 2nd and 3rd string players, but Kahanu Kia forced a fumble (his second of the season) and Rodney Dunham jumped on top of it to save the shutout.

It was as solid of a win as a team can get against an opponent that was nowhere near the level the Irish are on. The Irish were able to get a lot of backups some real minutes, and now the Irish are 2-0 on the season.

More to come on OFD.