Senior day 'special' for Kiser in possible final game at Notre Dame Stadium

Nov. 20—SOUTH BEND — Jack Kiser and the Notre Dame football team enjoyed a successful senior day Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame Stadium.

The fighting Irish dominated Wake Forest 45-7 in what could be the final home game for the 31 seniors that were honored before the game.

It was a one-sided affair as Notre Dame outgained Wake Forest 450-232 in total yardage.

Senior quarterback Sam Hartman, playing against his former team in his final home game at Notre Dame, led the Irish offensive attack with 277 passing yards and four touchdowns. Junior running back Audric Estimé earned his fifth career 100-yard rushing performance of his career with 22 carries for 115 yards and a touchdown.

The Irish defense shut down the Wake Forest offense, led by the front seven. Kiser finished with four tackles, which was the fourth most for the team for the day.

"It was a big day," Kiser said. "Early on I think the defense was trying to figure out what their strategy was. Historically Wake Forest has been a big slow mesh team and we didn't see much of that at all. So we really had to adjust our game plan and settle in that way. But once we did settle in I thought we played a lot of good ball."

Kiser, a Royal Center native who led Pioneer to back-to-back state championships his final two years of high school and was named IndyStar Mr. Football in 2018, was honored before the game when his name was announced as he ran out to midfield to meet up with his parents, Aaron and Deborah. He said it was a good day overall.

"It's always special when you can experience a senior day and coach [Marcus] Freeman makes it even more special. He really tries to emphasize to the seniors what a unique experience it is to play at Notre Dame Stadium and not to take it for granted," Kiser said. "It was a great afternoon, weather was beautiful, very sunny, so it just made the occasion all that more special."

The big question for Kiser and several of the seniors is whether or not it was indeed their final game at Notre Dame Stadium. Kiser does not plan for his football career to be over after this season so he essentially has three options: stay at Notre Dame for one more season, transfer to another school or try to make an NFL roster.

"I went through the process and took everything in and made sure that if it is my last game at Notre Dame Stadium that I wasn't going to regret missing out on anything," Kiser said. "But some conversations need to be had with coach Freeman and the staff and figure out what next year's outlook looks like. But that's conversations to be had for after the season. As of right now that was my final game and I made sure to soak in every moment and really not take it for granted."

Notre Dame (8-3) has one game left in the regular season at Stanford Saturday night and an upcoming bowl game yet to be announced.

The Irish have been good on both sides of the ball this season. Their scoring defense is seventh best in the nation, their pass efficiency defense fifth, their turnovers gained 10th and their red zone touchdowns allowed fifth. Their team averages 37.5 point per game, the program's highest since 1968. The offense is averaging 6.83 yards per play, which is second all-time at Notre Dame and 10th nationally this season.

But the three losses to Ohio State, Louisville and Clemson will cost them a shot at winning a national championship. They probably could have only afforded one loss to reach the College Football Playoff.

"The defense played really well this year," Kiser said. "Statistically I think we were a top 10 defense in almost every category. I think we knew going into the year that we could do something special. We had a lot of older guys coming back and a lot of guys who played a lot of ball. Offensively there were a lot of question marks coming in. You lose guys like Michael Mayer so you don't really know what you're going to get but you know that Sam Hartman is going to lead the offensive charge and you see the body of work that he's put together in his career. So it was really exciting to see the offense build an identity and grow as the season's gone on. As an entire team we've played really good ball and we're a couple plays from doing something really special and who knows, being undefeated, being a one-loss team looking at the playoffs. We've had a really good season and we've got two games to kind of finish it off. This was a really good team and we were a couple plays away from doing something really special."

Kiser's game against Wake Forest was a good summation of his season against most of the opponents in that he's the team's starting Rover linebacker but he didn't start the game because Notre Dame went to a nickel defense to counter Wake Forest's spread offense, but he still had a productive game. Kiser ended up splitting series with Marist Liufau at Will linebacker while playing some Rover linebacker in situations.

Kiser said it's a close-knit linebacker group.

"When you look at the linebacker crew there's three fifth-year linebackers," he said. "And you don't really get that very often any more, especially with the transfer portal, it's very rare that you have three guys that come in together, grow together, play scout team together and at the end of the day you're the three guys walking on the field and are there for all five years. So I really grew a special bond with those two, enjoyed playing with them a ton and it was special to be able to have a senior day with those two and go through the emotions with them."

Kiser added all three have hopes of playing in the NFL.

"That's the goal. It's cool because you can talk to each other about it and see what other people are thinking, what their plans are and where are you going to go training at and what agents are you talking to and all that good stuff. It's nice to have a sounding board with those two."

All three linebackers are in the same boat in that each one of them could possibly utilize their COVID year to play another season at Notre Dame.

"I think everybody's kind of with an open mindset what next year could hold," Kiser said. "But at the same time realistically Notre Dame can't bring all three of us back just because of scholarship number restrictions. So I think all of us went into Saturday with the idea that that would be our last game at Notre Dame Stadium."

Kiser added that safety DJ Brown and long snapper Michael Vinson went through senior day festivities last year and this year as well.

"DJ Brown was one of them that ended up coming back who didn't know, and Michael Vinson our long snapper. But it's something that you kind of see more of but I think coach Freeman prides himself in really trying to make senior day special and so his big thing is if you know you're going to come back, let's not put you through senior day. Let's only put you through senior day if there's a good percentage chance that you're not going to come back," he said.

"Obviously people will change their minds or something will come up and kind of change that, but I think that's a great thing that coach Freeman does is to make sure that senior day stays important and you don't have guys doing two, three senior days. We'll see what happens in my case but I went into Saturday with the expectation that that would be my last home game so I made sure to make the most of it."