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    • Notre Dame football had its hands full in every way in its home opener
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    Notre Dame football had its hands full in every way in its home opener

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    SOUTH BEND − Hold on and pray. Hold on and breathe. Hold on and don’t let go.

    The Irish let go.

    Nowhere was that expected for No. 5 Notre Dame football, but that’s what we got Saturday at home against Northern Illinois. Just when you think you know this Irish program, you don’t.

    This one should be easy. Should be a piece of cake. Should be a day where a lot of Irish come into the game. Nobody expected Northern Illinois 16, Notre Dame 14. That’s what we got. That’s what the Irish deserved.

    Allowing Northern Illinois’ Kanon Woodill to kick a 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds left in this game was a punt straight to you-know-where for Notre Dame. Frankly, the Irish didn’t do enough to earn this one. Northern Illinois went and took it.

    There’s too much money in this roster — in the players, in the head coach, in the coordinators, in the support staff, in everything — to look at what we saw in the first half of Saturday, and sometimes in the second. Turns out money can’t buy happiness. Or pave a seemingly clear path to the College Football Playoff. Just when you think Notre Dame is good and right and back where it belongs, it happens Saturday.

    Fancy a disappointment during Saturday dinner?

    Notre Dame elite? That was a good story for a week. Maybe again in October. Or November. Step away from the national spotlight and get better, if better is possible.

    Somewhere, someone had to tell someone else to start the half-time promo on the video board ASAP. NOW! That helped drown out much of the cheering that followed the Irish from the pitch, through the tunnel and into the locker room.

    They were right. What the #$%&$ was that we saw in that first half? From that team? After the opener at Texas A&M to play like that? Whatever the standard of that team, it wasn’t anywhere near being achieved early. The question is, would it be late?

    Whatever those first two quarters were, it wasn’t the nation’s No. 5 team. It wasn’t even the nation’s No. 35 team. It was uninspired football. Questionable defense. Terrible offense. That the first half ended with Northern Illinois blocking a 48-yard Mitch Jeter field goal attempt was fitting.

    And to think that Notre Dame looked like it was going to roll through the home opener after going 75 yards in 13 plays on the day’s opening drive. It felt like it was one of the that days when Notre Dame would score a lot of points and get a lot of players some snaps.

    By halftime, that idea and that drive — Notre Dame’s only damned points before halftime — seemed like a week ago. It was getting late for the Irish. A fun day, sure, but not a fun product on the football field. Hey, at least the bookstore made some money, right?

    Northern Illinois dominated the rest of the early game. It wasn’t that the Huskies took a 13-7 lead at halftime, it was the way the Huskies did it. With big plays on offense. With determined defense. With everything on the field that Notre Dame expected. Northern Illinois ripped off offensive plays of 83, 28 and 43 yards. The Irish were lucky to be down 13-7. It should have been 21-7.

    Notre Dame didn’t know how to sustain its success. Defensive end Boubacar Traore would return the Huskies to Antario Brown for a one-yard loss deep in NIU territory late in the first half, only to have Brown get it all back — and another first down — with an 11-yard run on the next play.

    What could Brown do for the Huskies? Everything. Everything. He was a problem all day long.

    For the second game in a row, we had to wonder early about the Irish defense. Who were these guys? Northern Illinois opened the day with its first drive from its own 2. Safety, many predicted from upstairs in the press box. Ninety-eight yards later, it was a tie. The Huskies amassed 218 yards in the first half. Most of them seemed effortless.

    Whispers of 2022 (Marshall) grew louder as this game deepened. No one saw that coming. We all should have seen it. Expected it. Expected it. And then we saw how the Irish dodged it. This should be a more experienced, more seasoned Irish team and coaching staff.

    Notre Dame football is never uninteresting, we’ve only learned that after two weeks. What will next week bring?

    Won’t be boring. Maybe we need boring.

    Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.

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