Notre Dame starts slow, crushes UMass

Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, IND.

Notre Dame punter Tyler Newsome pinned back Massachusetts, and returner C.J. Sanders got the sixth-ranked Fighting Irish going.

After Newsome placed a 52-yard punt on the Massachusetts 1, the Fighting Irish defense held the Minutemen to a yard on three plays and Sanders answered with a 50-yard punt return that helped spark Notre Dame to the 62-27 victory Saturday.

Sanders cut at the 35 to avoid two Minutemen and made another cut at the 10 before racing into the end zone with 3:21 left in the first half to give the Irish a 28-20 lead.

“The special team work was outstanding,” said Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, pointing out Sanders especially. “He’s a very shifty runner. He’s got great vision. It was a big play. It gave us momentum, certainly.”

Defensive lineman Sheldon Day agreed.

“Just to see that little guy run, it definitely brought us a lot of excitement on the defense,” he said.

UMass safety Trey Dudley-Giles said it had the opposite effect for the Minutemen.

“It just killed our momentum,” he said.

DeShone Kizer threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Chris Brown with 6 seconds left in the first half to give the Irish a 35-20 halftime lead. C.J. Prosise, who rushed for 149 yards and two touchdowns, added a 16-yard scoring run and freshman Dexter Williams added a 14-yard TD run to break open the game.

Marquis Young had an 83-yard touchdown run for the Minutemen, and Sekai Lindsay and Jamal Wilson added 1-yard TD runs and Shakur Nesmith added a 33-yard TD catch in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame improved to 4-0 for the second straight season, the third time in six seasons under coach Brian Kelly. Massachusetts fell to 0-3 for the fourth straight season since moving up to the FBS level.

The 62 points were the most by the Irish since a 62-0 win over Rutgers in 1996 in Lou Holtz’s final home game as Notre Dame coach.

“Their varsity was better than our varsity, and their JV was a little better than our JV,” Massachusetts coach Mark Whipple said. “We kind of put a little shock into them and woke them up I guess at the end of the second quarter.”

The Irish rushed for 457 yards, marking the fourth straight game of rushing for more than 200 yards.