It was slow-going, but a fourth-quarter touchdown put Notre Dame on top and secured a narrow 17-14 win over BYU on Saturday.
BYU vs. Notre Dame 2012 results: Irish come back to win, 17-14
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish came back to best the BYU Cougars, 17-14, on Saturday.
Matt Cashore-US PRESSWIRE
The No. 5 Irish were trailing 14-10 heading into the final quarter, after giving up a pair of touchdowns to BYU in the second.
A Theo Riddick rush of 19 yards helped that fourth-quarter scoring drive along, though it got started with a Tommy Rees completion to TJ Jones for 32 yards.
BYU took over following that scoring drive and drove 50 yards in 13 plays, but ultimately elected to punt with six minutes left. They were at the Notre Dame 34-yard line, pending a 51-yard field goal that would have tied the game.
Notre Dame took over and went nine plays and 48 yards, effectively killing off 5:48 from the clock, so BYU didn’t have much of a chance at all to have a comeback. Riley Nelson was intercepted by Danny Spond, and the Irish killed the clock at that point.
The winning touchdown:
Box Score Hero: Theo Riddick had a great day for Notre Dame, contributing 143 yards off of 15 carries, good for an average of 9.5 yards per carry.
Rankings Ramifications: The Irish are now 7-0 on the season and were ranked No. 5 coming into this game. After struggling mightily against un-ranked BYU, it’s unlikely they move up further, but they likely won’t be going in the other direction.
But Did They Cover? The over/under for this game was set at 41.5 by most of the top odds makers, so if you took the over, you made a big mistake. Notre Dame was favored by two touchdowns in this one, though the line did move closer to about 11 points by game time. Still, they didn’t cover in either scenario.
Next Week's Schedule: The Irish will take on the current No. 9 Oklahoma Sooners on Oct. 27, while BYU will have a significantly easier matchup in unranked Georgia Tech on the same day.
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