By SCOTT NOVAK
Dowagiac Daily News

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – It was set up to be an offensive showcase, but who would have thought it would be the running game that was the star of the 81st annual Blue Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday afternoon?

On a day that resembled a late October afternoon instead of late April with cool temperatures and rain at times, the Gold team led by Nate Montana defeated the Blue team led by Dayne Crist 27-19.

While both quarterbacks played well at times and not so good at other times, it was the running game that caught the attention of both the fans and the coaching staff.

“You know, I thought that we had some very good depth at the running back position, but I thought today Jonas Gray ran hard with low pads, played physical, ran through, showed very good speed; Cierre Wood; Armando Allen was electric early on,” Kelly said. “So I thought that that from my end, I wanted to see more of them, and we got a chance to run the ball quite a bit and get them in that position. So I would say that the running back position is one that I feel really good after this game about the depth and the ability of that position.”

Statistically, Wood, who never saw the field last year for the Fighting Irish, was the best as he rushed for 111 yards on 10 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns.

Gray added 54 yards on eight carries with a score.

Woods opening the scoring in the first quarter with a 3-yard run that capped a 70-yard, 11-play drive.

The Gold answered with a 4-yard touchdown pass from Montana to Mike Ragone, but when the kick failed, the Blue still led 7-6.

Montana, son of Notre Dame and San Francisco 49er legend Joe Montana, drove his team 94 yards in eight plays, using up just 2:46.

The Blue turned that one-point advantage into a 13-6 lead late in the opening quarter as Crist connected with freshman TJ Jones from 18-yards out.

The Gold seized control of the game in the second quarter.

A pair of touchdowns allowed the Gold squad to take a 20-13 lead into the locker room.
Montana hit Duval Kamara with a 37-yard touchdown pass with 5:40 remaining in the opening half and then Theo Riddick, who switched from running back to slot receiver, hauled in a 14-yard pass from Montana with 1:34 left on the clock to make it a seven-point contest.

“I thought he was pretty good,” Kelly said of Montana’s performance. “He did some good things. Nate does some things really well, and then I’ll lose him for a couple of plays. It’s more about him playing. He hasn’t played a lot of college football, obviously, and consistency is the one area that he has to show, and that is he can’t – he can’t have two or three really good plays and then I lose him and he makes some major mistakes.

“But he’s made progress and we’ll continue to work with him. But I’ve got to tell you, at the end of the day, he wasn’t even here when I first got here. He was at a junior college, and he comes in and took a lot of snaps and did some pretty good things,” he added.
After playing a full 30 minutes of football in the first half, it was decided at halftime to cut the quarters to 12 minutes and use a running clock in the second half.

That didn’t allow for much scoring, but it did allow Kelly to showcase the running game, which responded with the final 14 points of the game.

Wood was sensational on a 44-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, while Jonas Gray capped the scoring with a 38-yard burst through the middle of the Notre Dame defense.

“Well, today for us was an opportunity to take all that work relative to the weight room and conditioning and apply it to the actual game itself, because as you know, you can look good, you can run fast, you can do all those things; can you play the game of football?” Kelly said as he opened up his postgame press conference. “So today we intentionally – obviously we wanted a competitive situation by balancing off the teams so we could let our guys compete out there today so we can find out who of those guys have that inate ability to play the game. As you can tell, we’re still in the evaluation process.

“Today was a good evaluator for us relative to all our players and finding out more about them. It’s the first coat of paint for us. This is a process that we’re entered into, and we know that this is not a destination for us. But we got a chance to see some things today obviously that we can build on, and I think those are pretty evident. You know, we tried to do a little bit more offensively today because I felt like we were behind. So we tried to do more offensively with formations and plays, and we really didn’t want to do a whole lot defensively today. We kind of lined up in stack and played one coverage or two coverages.”

The Blue team actually outgained the Gold squad in total offense 398-346, but the Gold got the best of it in the passing department 263-173. The Blue held a 225-83 advantage on the ground.

Montana finished the game 18-of-31 for 223 yards and three touchdowns. He was picked off once. Crist was 20-of-32 for 172 yards, a touchdown and two picks.

“I feel confident in what I’ve done during the spring,” Montana said, “I’ve progressively gotten better, I feel at least, and hopefully that’s the way the coach will see it, too.”

Crist felt his performance was solid, but there are areas that still need to be addressed.
“I thought it went pretty good,” he said. “Definitely some things need to be corrected, forced a couple that I’d like to have back. But that’s football, and that’s us progressing as a team. I think we’ll do that, but I think overall we took a real good step in the right direction.”

The Fighting Irish can now begin to start focusing on their season opener Sept. 4 when Purdue comes to Notre Dame Stadium to officially kick off the Kelly era.

Gold 6 14 7 0 – 27
Blue 13 0 6 0 – 19
B – Cierre Wood 3 run (David Ruffer kick)
G – Mike Ragone 4 pass from Nate Montana (kick failed)
B -TJ Jones 18 pass from Crist (kick failed)
G – Duval Kamara 37 pass from Montana (Brandon Walker kick)
G – Theo Riddick 14 pass from Montana (Nick Tausch kick)
B – Wood 44 run (pass failed)
G – Jonas Gray 38 run (Tausch kick)