No. 8 Irish Book-end Wake Forest

Associated Press

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.

No. 8 Notre Dame threw the Book at Wake Forest.

Ian Book rushed for three touchdowns and threw for two more in his first start of the season, leading the Fighting Irish past Wake Forest 56-27 on Saturday.

Book replaced Brandon Wimbush in the starting lineup and was 25 of 34 for 325 yards with touchdown passes covering 3 yards to Brock Wright and 7 yards to Chase Claypool, along with three short TD runs.

“Every week, I’ve tried to prepare like I’m the starter, and when my name’s called, I need to go in there and play at my best and make sure the offense can succeed,” Book said.

He helped the Fighting Irish (4-0) more than double their previous season high for scoring and roll up a season-best 566 total yards, surpassing the previous high midway through the third quarter.

Before this one, Notre Dame hadn’t scored more than 24 in a game , and its wins over Michigan, Ball State and Vanderbilt came by a total of 20 points.

Coach Brian Kelly said he made the switch because he was concerned that the offense’s struggles were starting to weigh on the other parts of the team.

“I didn’t sleep great last night, because that’s a pretty big decision to make when you’re 3-0 and your quarterback that was leading your football team was 13-3 as a starter,” Kelly said. “But I had a lot of confidence in Ian and I thought our offense played to the level that it was capable of. That certainly showed itself today.”

Jafar Armstrong had TD runs of 1 and 30 yards, and Tony Jones Jr. added a short scoring run for the Irish, who will ride their best start since 2015 into next week’s showdown with No. 7 Stanford.

Matt Colburn had a 2-yard touchdown run and Nick Sciba kicked two field goals for Wake Forest (2-2), which has lost two straight. Freshman Sam Hartman was 12 of 24 for 110 yards before he exited after taking a hard hit midway through the third.

“Notre Dame outplayed us. They outcoached us. They outprepared us. They were just more ready to go than us today, and they showed it,” Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson said. “The score’s probably closer than the game was.”

This was the Irish’s highest-scoring road game since a 59-26 rout of Stanford in 2003. The last time Notre Dame had as many as 500 total yards was in its previous meeting with Wake Forest last November.