Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Boston College Eagles

No. 12 Notre Dame escapes Boston College with 25-10 victory

Love's 94-yard touchdown run on the first play after an interception squelched a potential game-tying drive helped the Fighting Irish win 25-10 on Saturday against a surprisingly stout, one-win Boston College team.

“We know there's a lot of things to clean up,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said after earning his sixth straight victory. “The challenges will get tougher. ... As you move farther into November, everything is magnified.”

Although Notre Dame (6-2) had been a 28 1/2-point favorite coming into the game against the only other Catholic school in FBS, the game was scoreless through one quarter and the Irish had a 12-7 lead at the half.

BC (1-8) trailed just 18-10 early in the fourth quarter — thanks to three missed Irish kicks — and had a chance to tie it before Adon Shuler intercepted Grayson James inside the Notre Dame 5-yard line with 11:21 left.

On the next play, Love went up the middle before heading for the left sideline and outracing the defenders to the end zone.

“I don’t think we were perfect tonight, but we were relentless,” said linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, who had nine tackles and 1 1/2 sacks. “And we never stopped playing hard.”

Love ran for 136 yards and two touchdowns for the Irish, who haven't lost since Sept. 13, when they dropped their second straight to a ranked team, by a combined four points. They beat BC for the 10th time in a row since 2008.

CJ Carr completed 18 of 25 passes for 299 yards with a 40-yard touchdown to Malachi Fields and a 44-yarder to Will Pauling in the second quarter.

Grayson James returned to the field and completed 25 of 37 passes for 240 yards and a touchdown. He was also sacked five times, and his interception under pressure with 11:21 left killed BC's last chance at a victory. He also threw an interception on the first play of the Eagles' final possession, when they took over at their own one-foot line after a punt.

Dylan Lonergan started his seventh game of the season, but was replaced by James after throwing an interception on the first drive of the second quarter.

The game known as the Holy War began with players having to be separated during warmups and featured roughing the passer penalties and personal fouls against each team. BC tried to fire up its fans by bringing out former kicker David Gordon, whose field goal as time expired in the 1993 against unbeaten and top-ranked Notre Dame game gave the Eagles the victory and spoiled the Irish's chance at a national championship.

Kicking woes Notre Dame had three different kickers miss attempts.

Noah Burnette hit the right upright after the Irish scored on the first play of the second quarter on a 40-yard to Fields. The Irish got the ball back with just 17 seconds left in the second quarter and took advantage of a pair of 15-yard BC penalties to advance to the Eagles 17. But Erik Schmidt’s kick was wide right as time expired in the half.

Marcello Diomede’s extra point was wide right in the third quarter, leaving the Irish with an 18-10 lead.

Asked what the kicking issues were, Freeman said: "The issues were, every time we kicked the ball, it did not go through the field goal posts. So that’s the issue.

“And we’re going to keep putting guys in there until we consistently have somebody who can put the football through the field goal posts,” he said. “And we have three kickers. But if you rotate three kickers, you don’t have one.”

The takeaway The Irish were never in danger of losing, but it was an unconvincing victory over a one-win team. With no ranked teams left on the schedule, the Irish need only to avoid a more serious stumble to make the expanded playoff a year after losing in the national championship game.

“We had a really good team last year, really good players,” said Carr, who was redshirted last year. “We feel like we have the same talent, if not better this year. Our ceiling is really high.”

Already eliminated from bowl qualification, the Eagles could have made their season with a victory against the only other Catholic school in FBS. Instead, they are still in danger of their worst season since 1978.

Up next Notre Dame: Hosts Navy next week before finishing the regular season against Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Stanford.

Boston College: Has a chance to play spoiler against SMU and Georgia Tech before finishing the season against Syracuse.