This is what the 2017 ND football team hath wrought: The Irish just tied the school record for offense in a game, and the vast majority of ND’s fan base is annoyed with the result of what was a 48-37 win over Wake Forest.

Unfortunately, it probably won’t matter to many on the outside that this game was essentially in garbage time for a quarter and a half and that Wake is really good at garbage-time offense. The optics aren’t great. The good news is that ND was probably long overdue for a ‘stinker’ by their standards. If it comes today and not next Saturday, that should work out just fine.

Full disclosure: My day job kept me from watching the first half. I had to dig up a shoddy webstream of the ND student radio broadcast. (To put it as nicely as I can, those guys haven’t come close to scratching their ceiling as broadcasters.) However, most of what I heard was good.

No Adams? No problem

Well, we all wanted Josh Adams to win the Heisman Trophy. It seems hard to believe that will happen after an injury knocked him out of the game and ND made the wise move to keep him out, even after he was medically cleared, due to the Irish’s big lead. What this game did show off was that ND has a pretty impressive amount of depth. Not many offenses set school yardage records while playing without their best players.

Five different Irish ran for 30+ yard gains, and none of them were Adams. Chase Claypool put on a monster show, going for nearly 200 yards receiving. Tony Jones Jr. and Deon McIntosh both showed that they’re more than capable. Ian Book even came in and performed well in extended duty. #33Trucking might not win a Heisman, but the motto is very fitting.

It’s very fortunate that Adams appeared to be alright and that Brandon Wimbush was able to return to the game after taking a shot at the goal line late in the first half. Both, you’d imagine, will be good to go for next week’s battle at Miami, which was just announced as a Saturday Night Football telecast.

Brandon Wimbush is becoming a monster

Wake Forest caveats apply, but Brandon Wimbush was absolutely terrific today. He only completed 50% of his passes, but in the second half alone I saw a few drops. And in any case, 50% is less troubling when you’re going for over 9 yards per attempt.

And on the ground? My goodness. I told my wife that the difference between Wimbush and our old pal Everett Golson was that Golson could run if he had to. Wimbush can run whenever he wants. I wasn’t watching during the Tony Rice era, so it’s safe to say Wimbush is the best running QB I’ve ever seen at ND. He had 110 rushing yards.

The drive Wimbush helped put together at the end of the second quarter, when he led the Irish 99.87 yards down the field for a backbreaking score, was a thing of beauty and exactly what ND fans wanted to see from their quarterback.

Brian Kelly said postgame that Wimbush’s injury was a ‘hand contusion’. One would assume that he’ll be fine next week.

Let’s just not talk about the defense

As I said, a stinker was probably due, especially from a defensive unit that had played so impressively the past 2 weeks in particular. Let’s just chalk up Wake Forest’s mostly garbage-time offensive success to familiarity with Mike Elko’s system and never speak of it again.

Don’t look now, but the carnage is coming

An 11-1 ND would probably have an excellent argument for getting in the College Football Playoff regardless of what else happened. But some chaos never hurts. While not everything good that could’ve happened today did (NC State…illegal shift…c’mon man), the B1G East essentially eliminated itself with Ohio State’s befuddling no-show at Iowa and Michigan State (hey, we remember you!) edging Penn State at the buzzer. The entire conference is basically down to Wisconsin – who even at 13-0 would have a pastry-soft resume given what’s going on out East. With the Pac-12 all but eliminated as it is, a second league playing itself out would put ND in a very enviable position going forward. There are 3 games to go, and those are the most important. I think the Irish will get in if they win them all.

(Photo credit: USA Today)