Laugh Now Cry Later

Chapter 8: Savage Mode

Author's Note: SCT relies on defense, for a change, to fend off Florida.

Adrift went an offbeat game Saturday night at the West End, a game that promised some theatrics but delivered mostly small-ball, a game of Florida defensive mastery and SCT offensive drudgery, a game that lumbered into the fumes of the third quarter with the Irish ahead by three. Most of the 60,000 spent the evening worrying if not drinking and worrying. The Wolfpack would have to solve this knot of a thing to start recovering from their unspeakable season of 2021 but they went 70 yards in 10 plays, then 95 in 14. They won, 21-10 over the No. 7 Florida and they looked maybe even the better for it. Their gaudy offense had not seemed to enjoy busying itself with obtaining little chunks of yardage, not as much as the 562 yards per game that topped the nation last year. Quarterback Lawrence Sullivan who should be in the heisman conversation did not amass highlights. Their great corps of receivers, always populous and NFL-bound, did not roam the field with the football as accustomed. Yogi Jordan, the biggest draw among the pass-catchers these days, left early after two catches, three yards and one hard hit. The Wolfpack got to halftime with 159 yards, violating several local statutes and ordinances. They got to the five-minute mark of the third quarter still stuck on 184. To get through this particular barbed wire, they had to squeeze out Lawrence Sullivan 24-yard touchdown pass to tight end Austin Anderson with 17 seconds left in the third quarter and Amaru Carter two-yard touchdown run with 4:51 left in the game. We just beat the No. 7 team in the country by 11 points," SCT Coach Gillis would say, soon adding, "It's not easy thing to do," and noting the related toughness and the fact some had questioned that general toughness. He said, "I think this game is going to pay off down the road." That's how it went for a long while Saturday night as two teams that operate in adjacent states brought their famed helmets together for only the seventh time. Then the visitor, considered an underdog, started sticking its golden helmets into everything. It gave a sense that Coach Belk had something in mind to shock the home side for which he used to play linebacker. "We've got a good football team," Belk said. "We've got to learn how to win when it matters most and that's what I've just told the group." That was the day SCT started learning its defense would not knock the stuffing out of opposing offenses to the degree the locals would prefer. It gave up 260 rushing yards to in that loss, and 297 rushing yards to Michigan State in a cataclysmic road loss which is not to mention the 203 to Kentucky in a win, or the 226 to Oregon in a win. The program did not enjoy these numbers, so it did what anguished programs do nowadays: paid about $2 million per year for a coordinator. On the first play of Jim Belk tenure Saturday night, Florida quarterback Matt Lorenzo threw short toward the right sideline to Kadeem Johnson, who shirked a hapless charging defender and went loose for 54 yards of prairie. The ball went 15 yards further with a blow-to-the-head penalty on the play, and the locals felt an old little pang. The defense cleared it up anyway with tackles from Nasir Banks. and Caleb Jordan and Notre Dame got Blake Hills 33-yard field goal. "Maybe last year we would have put our heads down, but we didn't," Belk said. It made further stout tackles on the next series, especially Lathan Ransom's third-down thump of tight end Elias Mayer, one yard from a first down. It tackled well all game. Defense would not become the problem. No, after breezing 54 yards in four plays with a pass interference mixed in, and with Lawrence throwing short to Diamanté James for a 31-yard touchdown trip up the left sideline, the offense stalled. Nothing much would happen until halftime unless you count Noah Styles missed field goal attempt (39 yards), something that happened only once on 21 occasions last year. Something had happened, though, with the still-life Florida's offense, which suddenly had found things to do across 87 yards of unforeseen driving from late in the first quarter through early in the second. It had gone from dawdling along to running the ball pretty well when, from Florida's 35-yard line, Lorenzo sent a hopeless third-down pass deep left toward Anthony Price, who seemed tangled in one-on-one coverage until he reached back for the ball, fell down backward, traced it still, made sure it never hit the ground and caught it for 31 yards. Then the middle opened up as Lorenzo threw 22 yards to tight end Kevin Harper. Soon the Irish were in the end zone on Aubrey Maddison one-yard leap, and $2 million for a coordinator could seem steep to those who judge things with haste (or, in other word, fans). Then, it didn't. Florida would spend the second half grinding and grunting for 72 yards after 181 in the first. The story of the night was the defense," Harris said. The harder part of the night was the offense, and five straight possessions through the middle of the game (not including a half-ending kneel down) revealed four punts and the missed field goal. The stadium started to take on that soundless sound of mass fret. Then as the third quarter waned and the Wolfpack threatened, still down 10-7, a chop-block call seemed to stall them. They faced a third and 11 from the Gator's 24-yard line. From the great stash of players Lawrence calls "the underrated wide receiver room in America" came the unheralded a graduate former walk-on and special teams type who suddenly made a first-rate cut toward the middle and fielded Lawrence's pass in the middle of the end zone. He then made the tackle on the ensuing kickoff. It seemed to wake the joint, and seemed to loosen the offense, which spent 14 plays and seven minutes traveling its 95 yards for the clincher. It left the coach saying, "If we're able to win like this, and we can win different ways, then that's going to help us down the road."