Jeremiyah Love ran for 137 yards and two touchdowns and Riley Leonard threw three touchdown passes to lead host Notre Dame to a comfortable 35-14 victory over Virginia on Saturday night in South Bend, Ind.
The No. 8 Fighting Irish (9-1) won their eighth consecutive game and inched closer to securing a playoff berth. Notre Dame has two games remaining as it faces No. 24 Army next Saturday at Yankee Stadium in New York and travels to Los Angeles to face USC on Nov. 30th.
Virginia (5-5) was unable to carry over the momentum from last week’s upset win over Pitt and got off to a poor start immediately due to turnovers.
Chris Tyree muffed the opening kickoff and Notre Dame’s Max Hurleman recovered four seconds into the game. This led to Love scoring from four yards out to open the scoring for the Fighting Irish. It was Love’s 10th consecutive game with a touchdown and he joined Jerome Bettis, Autrey Denson and Wayne Bullock as the only other Notre Dame running backs with such scoring streaks. Love would add another score in the third quarter when he broke loose for a 76-yard score down the sideline to put the Irish ahead 35-0.
Leonard threw all three of his touchdown passes in the second quarter to help the Irish break the game open, and take a 28-0 edge into halftime.
The scores came off three of the four turnovers Virginia committed in that quarter. Three of those giveaways were interceptions thrown by Cavaliers’ starter Anthony Colandrea. Virginia committed five turnovers — all in the first half including a muffed punt.
Virginia benched Colandrea, who completed only 8 for 21 passes for 69 yards, replaced him with Tony Muskett in the second half. Muskett scored the Cavaliers’ only two touchdowns, first on an 18-yard run with 7:52 left in the third quarter and later a 2-yard sweep to the corner of the end zone with 18 seconds left in the game.
A couple of Virginia defensive players left the game with injuries as linebacker James Jackson suffered an apparent leg injury and safety Corey Thomas Jr. left the game in the first half as well.
