Notre Dame needed another dominating performance for their College Football Playoff hopes and that’s what they got, rolling on the road at Stanford 49-20 to close out the regular season with 10 straight wins and a 10-2 record.

The Irish were ranked 9th in the latest College Football Playoff Rankings but now must wait for the conference championship games to know for sure if they will make the playoffs a year after playing for the national championship game.

“So proud of them and how much they’ve improved from week 1 to now and how consistent they are playing,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said after the game.

Heisman trophy candidate Jeremiyah Love rushed for 54 yards on the opening drive and capped it with his Notre Dame record 21st touchdown, surpassing the previous mark set by Jerome Bettis. Love would leave the game on the next drive with an apparent rib injury. ESPN reported that Love went to the locker room and put on a rib protector. Freeman said doctors told him it was safe for Love to return and from there Freeman left it up to Love to decide what he wanted to do because while it was safe, Love was still hurting. Love returned for a few plays but came out of the game as the Irish built up their lead. Love said after the game that all the x-rays came back negative and it was just bruised ribs.

Without Love, Notre Dame’s running backs still made a big impact. Jadarian Price rushed for a touchdown on the 2nd drive of the game to make it 14-0. He also caught three passes for 40 yards and a touchdown catch. With Love out for most of the first half, little used 3rd string running back Aneyas Williams shined by rushing for 83 yards and two touchdowns.

After scoring touchdowns on the first two drives, Notre Dame appeared to have a 3 and out on the 3rd drive of the game but special teams coach Marty Biagi pulled another fake punt out of his bag of tricks with defensive lineman Josh Burnham finding safety Luke Talich who took off 84 yards for the touchdown to put Notre Dame ahead 21-0.

“It was something we had been working on for a couple of weeks,” Freeman said postgame. “We knew if we got a certain look, we’d check to it. We got the look we wanted, checked to it and executed it. Credit to Coach Biagi and the special teams unit and the punt unit–they’ve been practicing that for quite a while and they executed it just like they practice it. Really flawless.”

Freeman said the touchdown put Notre Dame is the driver’s seat going up 21-0.

The Irish led 35-3 at halftime. Notre Dame’s style points dwindled in the 2nd half as Stanford outscored the Irish 17-14 in the final two quarters.

CJ Carr was 17-of-22 passing for 205 yards and two touchdowns. Jordan Faison led Notre Dame in receiving with three catches for 68 yards and a TD.

Leonard Moore had an interception that setup a Notre Dame touchdown.

Notre Dame will learn where it stands in the latest College Football Playoff Rankings on Tuesday then the final rankings will be unveiled on Sunday following the conference championship games.

“You talk about a team that is playing as well as anyone right now, has won 10 games in a row and probably all of them by double digits–you want the 12 best teams right now,” Freeman said. “I know you have the conference champions and the Group of 5 highest ranked team but you talk about who are the best teams now not week 1, now, and it’s hard to argue we are not one of those teams.”