Notre Dame Pummels BYU 49-23

By Thomas Hanson  |   Saturday, October 22, 2005  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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Behind Quarterback Brady Quinn and his assault on the Notre Dame record books, the Fighting Irish garnered their first home win of the season in a 49-23 rout of the BYU Cougars.

With Quinn tossing a school record six touchdown passes and throwing for 467 yards, the Irish offense put another 500 plus yards of total offense on the board in avenging last year's loss to the Cougars. Four of Quinn's touchdown passes went to wide receiver Maurice Stovall who caught a career high 14 passes in the contest, good for 207 yards. Wide receiver Jeff Samardzija added 10 catches for 152 yards and two touchdowns.

In the win, Quinn broke the mark of five TD passes he had set earlier in the season in an overtime loss against Michigan State. Quinn was 25-of-30 passing in the first half, throwing for a school-record 287 yards. Quinn also extended his record of consecutive games with at least one TD pass to 12 and moved into second place on Notre Dame's career passing yards list. Quinn's 6,769 career yards total trails only Ron Powlus with 7,602.

For BYU, its two-game winning streak came to an end with the loss. The Cougars did make things very interesting in the second half, pulling within 28-23 on a John Beck 10 yard scoring pass to Todd Watkins. But after a two point conversion attempt failed, the Irish quickly regained control, scoring on their next two possessions.

Beck led BYU, who have now lost 12 straight to ranked opponents, with 317 passing yards and two touchdowns. But the Cougars quarterback was also picked off twice, the second time by Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski who returned the interception 83 yards for Notre Dame's final touchdown.

Like it did a year ago, BYU kept Notre Dame's running game in check, holding the Fighting Irish to just 44 yards on the ground. Last year BYU held the Irish to just 11 rushing yards in pulling off their upset of the Irish.
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