FootyChatter.com

NCAAF College Football Week 10 Notre Dame got big performances from CJ Carr, Jeremiyah Love and its defense in Saturday's win. Maddie Meyer / Getty Images CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Behind a defense that produced five sacks and two turnovers, Notre Dame pulled away to defeat Boston College 25-10 on Saturday for its sixth consecutive win. But the Fighting Irish (6-2) didn’t make it look easy against an Eagles (1-8) team that has now lost eight in a row. Two Jeremiyah Love touchdowns helped Notre Dame get some distance in a game that was 12-10 late in the third quarter. Love finished with 136 yards on 17 carries, and quarterback CJ Carr passed for 299 yards and two touchdowns. Notre Dame outgained Boston College 458-281, but a missed field goal and a fumble in the red zone kept the game close until Love’s 94-yard touchdown run with 11: 07 to play in the fourth quarter. SAY IT WITH US. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ? 9️⃣4️⃣ YARDS TO THE HOUSE#Go Irish☘️ | @Jeremiyah Love pic. twitter. com/ex LTja Nvh1 — Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 1, 2025 Ultimately, Notre Dame scored its 10th consecutive win over Boston College, and a key one before the first College Football Playoff rankings are released Tuesday. With the win, Notre Dame’s Playoff odds increased to 71 percent, according to The Athletic’s Austin Mock. Advertisement On a day when No. 9 Vanderbilt lost at Texas and No. 10 Miami lost at SMU, Notre Dame at least avoided the unthinkable, losing as a four-touchdown favorite to a team riding a seven-game losing streak. Ahead of the first CFP rankings, stumbling at Alumni Stadium would have killed the season right when it should be getting good. But for Notre Dame to keep hanging around in the bracket chase, it can’t keep playing like this. Jadarian Price’s fumble at the goal line took points off the board. The kicking game is broken. The defense committed three brutal personal fouls that kept Boston College drives alive, even if two of them felt dubious at best. This was all the Irish at their undisciplined worst. Marcus Freeman likes to talk about Notre Dame not beating Notre Dame. That’s what seven penalties for 67 yards looks like. The only question is whether Notre Dame can survive its final four games without getting that part of its game fixed. The Irish will likely be 20-point favorites against Navy, Syracuse and Stanford. They might be double-digit favorites at Pittsburgh in two weeks. These aren’t the kind of contests where a clean performance is necessary to win. But when Notre Dame is being held up against other CFP contenders, ceding the idea that the Irish are getting better in November might be a painful reality check. A game after struggling with his accuracy on the short stuff and failing to push the ball vertically because USC’s schemes took it away, Carr looked like his old self at Boston College. That’s if a redshirt freshman quarterback has played enough football to have an “old self, ” considering he’s eight games into his starting career. Carr finished 18-of-25 passing, but it was the explosive plays that made the Irish offense go in a game in which it needed all of them. Carr hit touchdown passes of 44 yards to Will Pauling and 40 yards to Malachi Fields in the first half, and he also connected with Jordan Faison for a 46-yard gain. During Notre Dame’s critical touchdown drive midway through the third quarter, Carr lofted a perfect pass to tight end Eli Raridon for a 30-yard gain. Advertisement It was all a statement performance by Carr, even if he wasn’t perfect. Notre Dame needs its quarterback to make defensive coordinators pay for putting an extra defender in the box to take away Love and Price. Love was at least productive, even if this performance won’t make a Heisman Trophy case. Price was a nonfactor, benched for most of the game after his red zone fumble in the first half. He finished with nine carries for 12 yards. The Irish don’t want to live this way every week, but Carr’s deep shots were a reminder that they can when necessary. Bill O’Brien dared Freeman to attempt a field goal at the end of the first half, essentially playing prevent defense from the Boston College 31-yard line. Boston College knew Notre Dame didn’t have any confidence in its kicking game, so it let Carr play pitch-and-catch with tight end Raridon for a 14-yard gain. Want to get closer for that field goal attempt? Be our guest. And sure enough, freshman Erik Schmidt pushed the 35-yard attempt wide right. That was after Noah Burnette missed an extra point, compounding Notre Dame’s mess of a place-kicking situation that has been simmering almost all season. It’s not clear whether Freeman or special teams coordinator Marty Biagi has a solution. Schmidt did make an extra point in the fourth quarter after Love’s 94-yard touchdown run. The only other option on the roster is walk-on Marcello Diomede, who’s yet to get a game day look on field goals, although his missed extra point in the third quarter was so bad that it would have been laughed off Pat Mc Afee’s kicking challenge on “College Game Day. ” For the season, Notre Dame’s kickers are 34-of-38 on extra points, which includes the fumbled hold by Tyler Buchner against Texas A&M in the fourth quarter that proved to be the difference in a 41-40 loss. Schmidt is 0-of-2 on field goals. Burnette, whose lingering hip injury dogged him all October, is a respectable 5-of-6 on field goals, but Notre Dame doesn’t seem to trust him, considering he has made just two field goals since that A&M loss, both against NC State. Saturday was supposed to be a game when Notre Dame’s kicking issues could be swept under the rug of a blowout. Instead, they looked like a trip wire that might keep the Irish out of the CFP. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Pete Sampson is a staff writer for The Athletic on the Notre Dame football beat, a program he’s covered for the past 24 seasons. The former editor and co-founder of Irish Illustrated, Pete has covered six different regimes in South Bend, reporting on the Fighting Irish from the end of the Bob Davie years through the Marcus Freeman era.