Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman deemed his team’s 27-24 loss to Miami on Sunday night in South Florida worthy of being a “top-10 fight.”
The No. 6 Irish charged back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to tie it but ultimately lost to No. 10 Miami on Carter Davis’ 47-yard field goal with 1 minute, 4 seconds to play.
It was an exciting punctuation on college football’s Week 1, during which area teams turned in some good — and not-so-good — performances. Here are some takeaways from their season openers.
CJ Carr had some big moments — and some mistakes — in his Notre Dame starting debut.
When Notre Dame fell behind 24-14 with 9:42 left in the fourth quarter, CJ Carr rose to the occasion on the next two drives.
He led the Irish on a field-goal drive and followed that with the tying touchdown drive, highlighted by a 65-yard pass to Eli Raridon and a 7-yard touchdown run.
After Miami’s field goal to go ahead, the Irish had one last chance with 1:04 left. But Carr was sacked twice — called for intentional grounding on one of them — and Notre Dame’s chance ran out on a false-start penalty.
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Carr, who hadn’t thrown a college pass before Sunday, was 19-for-30 for 221 yards with two touchdowns and an interception and also ran for 16 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s going to be a really good quarterback, everything that I thought he was going to be,” Freeman told reporters at his postgame news conference. “His ceiling looks so high. He’s going to have to learn to take this loss and not let it beat him up too much because he’s an ultra competitor.
“But he’s a gamer, man. He performs when the lights are on. He prepares his tail off. He had answers for questions myself or Coach (Mike) Denbrock would have. And he’s going to do great things, man. It’s just the start for him.”
His first touchdown was a wild one. Carr ran about 20 yards back from the line of scrimmage before racing forward and finding Micah Gilbert for a 7-yard touchdown. He also hit Jordan Faison for a 1-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.
But Carr threw a fourth-quarter interception into a crowd. The ball was tipped twice before Rueben Bain Jr. pulled it down, and the Hurricanes turned the takeaway into a field goal that put them up 24-14.
Freeman said his inner dialogue on the first touchdown was chanting: “Throw it away.”
“I said, ‘Throw it away,’ and then, ‘Oh, great job,’” Freeman said. “He kept his eyes downfield and made a play. We don’t draw ‘em up like that, but those are plays that CJ Carr can make.
“He made a good amount of them tonight. Made some mistakes like any first-time quarterback will make. But his ceiling is extremely high and his future is bright.”
Outside linebacker Gabe Jacas got off to a good start to what Illinois hopes is a big season.
ESPN named Jacas, a 6-foot-3, 270-pound senior, a preseason All-American after he had eight sacks, 13 tackles for a loss, 10 quarterback hurries, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery last season.
In a season-opening 52-3 win against Western Illinois on Friday at Memorial Stadium, Jacas looked like he was on a different level.
In the first quarter, he slipped through a hole to take down Leathernecks quarterback Chris Irvin from behind, knocking the ball loose. Defensive back Kaleb Patterson recovered, and the Illini scored their second touchdown five plays later.
Photos: No. 12 Illinois routs Western Illinois 52-3 in season opener
“I just feel like we feed off energy,” Jacas said. “So me making that play, like everyone just fed off the energy and the rest is history. Everyone was making plays and flying around.”
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In the second quarter, he rang up another sack, bending by WIU offensive lineman Michael Forney to wrap his arms around Irvin and bring him down.
Illinois coach Bret Bielema called Jacas “a freak of nature” and said he thinks being elected captain helped build even more confidence heading into this season.
“Highly motivated,” Bielema said. “He’s a big playmaker. He’s a guy that’s never satisfied. It’s fun to see his energy and juice kind of fall out to other people as well.”
Northwestern didn’t just suffer a rough 23-3 loss to Tulane on Saturday. It also found itself in the middle of a uniform controversy.
Tulane honored the 2005 team that played in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by wearing plain green helmets with no decals. Tulane coach Jon Sumrall said the team also wanted to wear white uniforms as the 2005 team did, but Northwestern, which wore its white road uniforms, denied the request.
“I’m not trying to take a shot, but we requested to wear white jerseys because that’s what that team wore,” Sumrall said in his postgame news conference Saturday. “They got denied by the other team. That’s their prerogative.
“But when you show disrespect to the city of New Orleans, that’s what’s going to happen to you. You’re going to run into a team like this. They had a chip on their shoulder. … We might have used that for a little bit of motivation to represent the city. So don’t disrespect New Orleans ever.”
A Northwestern source said the teams had agreed on which uniforms to wear well in advance of the game, but Tulane asked Aug. 17 to switch to its white jerseys. The source said such swaps are usually made months in advance, and given the short window of time for the Wildcats equipment staff to make the change, the request was denied.
For reference, Northwestern made a similar request in May to an opponent to wear white uniforms at home and had it denied.
Northwestern has not released a statement on the matter, but coach David Braun will hold his weekly news conference Monday.
Northwestern coach David Braun stood by quarterback Preston Stone despite a bad first start.
Stone’s first game with Northwestern after transferring from SMU was a hard one to swallow. He threw four interceptions — including three in the first half — and lost a fumble as the Wildcats fell behind 20-3 by halftime.
Northwestern had one of the worst offenses in the FBS last season and was looking for a spark from Stone, who replaced Jack Lausch, last year’s starting quarterback who left to focus on baseball.
“Preston Stone didn’t play his best football game today, but I said it boldly in that locker room,” Braun said in his news conference. “Believe in that guy. That’s our quarterback. And the second I said it, the locker room echoed that. We’ve got a locker room that believes in that guy, will ride with that guy.”
Braun said he will frame the week ahead as an opportunity to respond on a short turnaround before hosting Western Illinois on Friday.
“Unwavering resolve in the fact that one game does not define us as a football team,” Braun said.
Illinois’ Hank Beatty wasn’t the only one with a return touchdown this weekend.
Northern Illinois’ Dev’ion Reynolds returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown in a 19-17 win over Holy Cross.
Reynolds is a redshirt freshman cornerback who played at Carmel.