Halloween in Philly: The Night Notre Dame Survived

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There are games you remember because everything went right. Notre Dame’s Halloween night trip to Philadelphia in 2015 was not one of them.

The No. 9 Irish arrived at Lincoln Financial Field on October 31 carrying a 6-1 record and legitimate College Football Playoff aspirations. Waiting for them was one of the best stories of the college football season. No. 21 Temple was undefeated at 7-0, playing in front of a sold-out home crowd and enjoying a level of national attention rarely seen around the program. ESPN’s College GameDay was in Philadelphia, the stadium was electric, and the Owls had an opportunity to earn the biggest victory in program history.

For Notre Dame, the mission was straightforward: win and keep moving toward the postseason. But nothing about the night would prove straightforward.

By the time it was over, Notre Dame would squander scoring opportunities, watch its normally productive running game disappear, lose a starting safety to an ejection and surrender 10 unanswered points in the fourth quarter. With 4:45 remaining, the Irish found themselves trailing 20-17, their playoff hopes suddenly depending on whether they could produce one more response.

Fortunately for Notre Dame, responding to adversity had become something of a defining characteristic of the 2015 season.

By Halloween, the Irish had already experienced their share of moments when a season could have unraveled. At Virginia in September, starting quarterback Malik Zaire suffered a season-ending ankle injury, forcing sophomore DeShone Kizer unexpectedly into the spotlight. Kizer responded by finding Will Fuller for a dramatic game-winning touchdown in the closing seconds. At Clemson, Notre Dame nearly erased a 21-point deficit in miserable conditions before a potential game-tying two-point conversion came up short. Against USC, the Irish again found themselves locked in a fourth-quarter battle before finally pulling away.

Those experiences seemed to be creating an identity. Notre Dame could be hurt. It could make mistakes. It could find itself backed into a corner. But this team was proving remarkably difficult to put away.

Head coach Brian Kelly saw that quality in his players, describing a collective demeanor of a team that simply refused to give in. It was an intangible belief that somehow, when a game reached its most critical moments, someone would find a way to make the necessary play.

Against Temple, that belief was tested repeatedly.

Notre Dame moved the football throughout the night, eventually outgaining Temple 467-295, but the scoreboard never reflected that statistical advantage. Kizer opened the scoring with a four-yard touchdown run, and Temple answered with a field goal. Then, twice in the second quarter, Notre Dame marched inside the Owls’ 20-yard line. Twice, Kizer threw an interception.

The first mistake proved especially costly. Instead of Notre Dame adding to its lead, Temple took possession and drove 94 yards, finishing the drive with P.J. Walker’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Shippen. Suddenly, the Owls led 10-7.

For a young quarterback playing in a hostile environment with Notre Dame’s postseason ambitions hanging over every possession, it would have been easy to allow those mistakes to linger. Kizer didn’t. Kelly later described him as a resilient player who did not carry mistakes from one play to the next, and that ability became essential on this night.

With 4:51 remaining before halftime, Kizer found an opening in the Temple defense and took off. Seventy-nine yards later, he was in the end zone, giving Notre Dame a 14-10 lead heading toward halftime.

Kizer’s legs became especially important because Temple had accomplished something few teams had managed that season: the Owls took C.J. Prosise almost completely out of the game. Prosise entered the night as one of Notre Dame’s biggest offensive weapons, having already produced five 100-yard rushing performances. Temple held him to just 25 yards on 14 carries, an average of only 1.8 yards per attempt.

With the conventional running game neutralized, much of Notre Dame’s offense fell onto the shoulders of its sophomore quarterback. Kizer finished with 299 passing yards and another 143 on the ground, accounting for 442 of Notre Dame’s 467 total offensive yards through his arm or his legs. He also played a role in all three Irish touchdowns.

Yet the two interceptions remained part of the story, and that contradiction perfectly captured both Kizer’s performance and Notre Dame’s night. Neither was perfect, but neither stopped responding.

Justin Yoon’s 23-yard field goal extended Notre Dame’s lead to 17-10 in the third quarter, but seven points would be the largest advantage either team enjoyed all night. Temple had no intention of quietly allowing Notre Dame to escape Philadelphia.

Early in the fourth quarter, the Irish appeared to have stopped the Owls on third-and-goal when Walker’s pass fell incomplete. Instead, senior safety Elijah Shumate was called for targeting after a hit on receiver Romond Deloatch. The call was upheld after review, Shumate was ejected, and what appeared to be a fourth-down decision for Temple instead became first-and-goal.

The Owls capitalized. Jahad Thomas scored from one yard out to tie the game at 17, and the loss of Shumate created another challenge for a Notre Dame defense already under pressure. Nicky Baratti initially stepped in before Matthias Farley helped stabilize the secondary, but Temple had seized the momentum.

With 4:45 remaining, Austin Jones connected on a 36-yard field goal.

Temple 20, Notre Dame 17.

For all Notre Dame had accomplished statistically, none of it mattered anymore. The 467 yards of offense didn’t matter. Kizer’s spectacular 79-yard touchdown run didn’t matter. The missed red-zone opportunities certainly couldn’t be recovered. With less than five minutes remaining, Notre Dame needed to score or risk watching its playoff aspirations suffer a devastating blow on Halloween night in Philadelphia.

There was, however, something strangely familiar about the situation.

Kizer had already been there. At Virginia, he had learned what it felt like to deliver when almost no time remained. At Clemson, he had experienced what it felt like to come one play short. Now he had another opportunity, and this time Notre Dame needed 75 yards.

The drive’s biggest play is sometimes overshadowed by the touchdown that followed. Kizer connected with freshman tight end Alizé Jones for 45 yards, immediately moving Notre Dame deep into Temple territory. A few plays later, on second-and-10 from the 17, Kizer looked toward the front corner of the end zone and found a familiar target.

Will Fuller had experienced an unusually quiet night. The Philadelphia native, playing in front of a hometown crowd, had been held to only 46 receiving yards. But Fuller had already demonstrated throughout the season that he did not need many opportunities to change the outcome of a game.

Kizer delivered the football. Fuller made the catch.

With 2:09 remaining, Notre Dame was back in front, 24-20.

The Irish had traveled 75 yards in six plays and just 2:36. When Notre Dame absolutely had to answer, it did.

But Fuller’s touchdown only felt like the ending. Temple still had time, and the Owls had spent the entire evening refusing to disappear. They now had one final opportunity to produce the biggest win in program history, meaning Notre Dame’s defense needed one more play.

Senior cornerback KeiVarae Russell provided it.

With 1:08 remaining, Russell read Walker’s throw, broke in front of the intended receiver and came away with the interception at the Notre Dame 35-yard line. Only then could the Irish finally exhale.

Notre Dame 24, Temple 20.

The Irish had survived.

The victory moved Notre Dame to 7-1 and kept its College Football Playoff hopes alive, but it did not erase the questions surrounding the team. Contemporary reaction reflected the strange position the Irish occupied. Was Notre Dame truly one of the best teams in the country, or was it simply a good team repeatedly escaping situations that a championship contender should have avoided in the first place?

Those questions were understandable. Notre Dame had left points on the field against Temple. Its star running back had been neutralized. Its quarterback had thrown two interceptions in the red zone. The Irish had multiple opportunities to create separation and instead allowed an undefeated, confident opponent to take the lead with less than five minutes remaining.

There was another way to view those close calls, though.

Perhaps surviving was itself a quality worth recognizing.

Three years earlier, the 2012 Irish had turned a season filled with narrow escapes, clutch plays and moments of good fortune into an undefeated regular season and a trip to the national championship game. The 2015 team seemed to possess some of that same stubbornness. The Irish did not always make things easy on themselves, but they had developed an unmistakable belief that the game was never over until the clock said otherwise.

That belief was evident throughout the night in Philadelphia. Kizer threw two interceptions and responded by leading the game-winning drive. Fuller endured one of his quietest games of the season and made the catch that mattered most. Notre Dame’s secondary lost Shumate at a critical moment, regrouped and allowed just one completion the rest of the way. Russell waited until Temple’s final possession to make his biggest play.

On a night filled with reasons Notre Dame could have lost, the Irish found just enough reasons to win.

Looking back more than a decade later, the 24-20 final score doesn’t completely capture what happened that Halloween night. Notre Dame did not dominate Temple, nor did the Irish leave Philadelphia having made an overwhelming case that they belonged among the best teams in college football. What they demonstrated instead was something that had increasingly come to define the 2015 season: resilience.

With 4:45 remaining, Notre Dame trailed an undefeated, ranked opponent in a stadium desperate to witness an upset. Kizer had already thrown two interceptions. Prosise had nowhere to run. A starting safety had been ejected. Temple had the lead and all the momentum.

Still, the Irish believed there was another play to make.

Kizer found Jones. Then he found Fuller. And when Temple was given one final opportunity, Russell found the football.

Notre Dame left Philadelphia with plenty of questions about where the season might ultimately lead and whether surviving close games was evidence of championship toughness or a warning of vulnerabilities that would eventually catch up with the Irish.

But on Halloween night, there was only one question that needed an immediate answer.

Could Notre Dame find a way to survive?

Just barely.

But sometimes, just enough is enough.

Cheers & GO IRISH!

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