Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Zaire's season-ending injury overshadows Notre Dame's comeback win over Virginia

Published Sep. 12, 2015 7:37 p.m. ET

Zach Dillard

Very little went right for Notre Dame in Charlottesville on Saturday.

The ninth-ranked Fighting Irish were able to come up with an improbable late touchdown to seal a 34-27 road win against Virginia, a 39-yard heave from backup quarterback DeShone Kizer with time winding down, but the cost was devastating: Starting quarterback Malik Zaire will miss the remainder of the season with a fractured ankle.

Zaire left the game late in the third quarter after his right ankle was severely twisted under a Cavaliers defender, pushing Kizer, a redshirt freshman with one career pass attempt, into action and calling Notre Dame's College Football Playoff hopes into question. Zaire's emergence was the primary reason for former starting quarterback Everett Golson's transfer to Florida State, leaving the Irish short on depth at the position.

Zaire is the second significant injury the Notre Dame offense has suffered in its first two games. In the decisive win over the Texas Longhorns, starting running back Tarean Folston suffered a season-ending MCL tear.

Now, Notre Dame's lofty expectations fall on the shoulders of a redshirt freshman.

Kizer, a former four-star recruit from Toledo, Ohio, did well just to preserve the undefeated season for another week. After Virginia nearly closed the fourth quarter on a 13-0 run, he came up with the final touchdown toss to star wideout Will Fuller with just 12 seconds left on the clock.

"We had a couple of plays in mind, couple of things for DeShone that he had done well. Again, we're playing a quarterback that we didn't expect to play today (after) losing Malik," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said in his postgame interview. "So we went to some things that we thought he could execute. He's a big, strong kid, and one of them was to push the ball down the field.

"We made a play when we needed to late. ... We made one more play at the end."

Where this leaves Kelly's team in the coming weeks depends on a variety of factors, including Kizer's development, but there's zero questioning that the nation's No. 9 team looked completely disjointed without Zaire running the show on Saturday.

"You never want to lose in back-to-back weeks your starting running back and your starting quarterback. But that's college football, and we'll persevere. ... DeShone's going to be the guy that we're going to rally around."

Kizer finished the game completing eight of his 12 passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

With top-15 opponents Georgia Tech and Clemson coming up in the next three games, Notre Dame will need to find answers on that side of the ball.

The Irish defense had its own issues, too. Barring the final drive of the game, Virginia was the better team for much of the fourth quarter. (This despite the fact that Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith was wreaking havoc all over the field.) The Cavaliers pieced together two scoring drives behind quarterback Matt Johns to take the lead with six minutes remaining. The ACC challengers just couldn't hold on in the final seconds, which, from the other end of the equation, is not good news for Virginia coach Mike London.

London needed a win of this magnitude -- almost desperately so. Particularly for a coach who now owns a 1-7 record against top-15 opponents since arriving in Charlottesville, the Cavaliers' non-conference schedule was an uphill battle from the start. Games against UCLA, Notre Dame and Boise State left open the possibility for Virginia to enter conference play 1-3 with precious little momentum -- one win out of that slate was optimistic.

Depending on how well Boise State holds up, London's team might have just let that one win slip away. To a redshirt freshman quarterback thrust into action. At Scott Stadium. None of that spells out good news for someone who finds himself on an indefinite public hot seat.

Virginia is looking for its first bowl appearance since the 2011 season and while its played better than an 0-2 record -- although UCLA true freshman quarterback Josh Rosen carved up the Cavaliers defense in Week 1 -- that scary non-conference slate could stack the odds against it. The ACC schedule in the Coastal Division is light, but London is still looking for a recent signature win to hang his recruiting success on.

All in all, though Notre Dame remained undefeated by a few seconds and a prayer, there was bad news on both ends of the spectrum in Charlottesville on Saturday evening.