Notre Dame sweeps Wake Forest 45-7
SOUTH BEND, Ind – The Irish not fazed by Wake Forest in their final home game of the season, advancing to 8-3.
Notre Dame’s win over Wake Forest was not only a win for all 31 seniors, but an additional victory quarterback Sam Hartman, who spent five years as a Demon Deacon.
The sixth year QB managed to throw for 277 yards and four touchdowns in the win.
“I was just happy to see us go out there and execute as a football team. I think we've been, especially on offense been dying to do that for the past really three, four weeks. And, you know, for our fans to get a performance by us, that is I felt noteworthy,” Hartman said.
Hartman connected with freshman receiver Rico Flores Jr eight times for 102 yards and matching the impressive offensive production was running back Audric Estime.
The junior back rushed the rock 22 times for 115 yards to give the Irish offense a boost after what some consider a disappointment in the loss to Clemson.
“It is cool to hit that mark every game. But that's honestly not the goal. The goal is I want to reach our full potential. We had some of the offensive lineman still in there. We had Blake. We had Joe, Joe Al tin there. So honestly, it was just a staple of how I play. Now I've been I came in with those guys and I just wanted to finish with those guys, Estime said.
In the end, it was all for the seniors in the final home game of the season at Notre Dame Stadium.
Players like Sam Hartman who’s officially in his final year of college football.
As leaders JD Bertrand, Cam Hart, Chris Tyree, and others, it remains to be seen if they will return to Notre Dame after yet another successful season, but today’s game was a chance to honor them until that decision is made.
“Really proud of our seniors in the way they went out there and performed for 60 minutes. It's a special group man and that that led us in his pass, you know, 14 days since the last time we played, they led us to practice the way that we had to prepare to give us a chance to be successful, out there today,” head coach Marcus Freeman said.
“So, it's a special group that obviously played their last game and Notre Dame Stadium. You know, we wanted to get him over 100 yards and I think he end up having 115 and that was important to us to you know, possibly his last game at Notre Dame Stadium to be able to get him over 100 yards,” Freeman added.