Year In Review: Top Plays Of Notre Dame's 2015 Season

During the next week, Blue & Gold Illustrated will review the top moments of the 2015 season, including all of the notable events, top game performances, top players and more.

We continue with the top five plays that defined Notre Dame’s 2015 season.

1. Irish lose at Clemson after two-point conversion falls short

Clemson went wire-to-wire with Alabama in the national championship in January, but that chance nearly vanished against Notre Dame on Oct. 3.

The Tigers controlled most of the game and led by as many as 18 points before allowing a late Irish rally. Ultimately, however, head coach Dabo Swinney’s group made the stop when needed.

After sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer found junior receiver Torii Hunter in the end zone for six to narrow the deficit to 24-22, Notre Dame found itself within a successful two-point conversion from tying the game in the closing seconds.

Kizer’s keeper, however, would fall two yards short of reaching the end zone.

"It was a run-pass option," Kizer said. "The run option was there. It's just at that point in time, it's man versus man, heart verses heart. We got there — we blocked it the way we were supposed to block it — we just didn't get the drive we were supposed to get, and I didn't lower my shoulder like I should have, and we didn't get the end zone."

The loss at Clemson wasn’t the final regular season heartbreaker for the Irish.

2. Kizer and Fuller connect late to beat Virginia

With starting quarterback Malik Zaire sidelined for the rest of the afternoon — and ultimately the season — Notre Dame called upon Kizer to lead a late rally to keep the Irish from suffering a blemish to their record in Week 2 of the season.

Trailing 27-26, Kizer led Notre Dame on an eight-play, 80-yard march that culminated in a 39-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Will Fuller with 12 seconds left for the win.

Following the previous play, a 1-yard completion from Kizer to senior running back C.J. Prosise, Notre Dame opted to let 15 seconds run off the clock rather than burn its final timeout.

With an incompletion on the Fuller score, the Irish might have called on freshman kicker Justin Yoon to attempt a 56-yard field goal as time expired with the Cavaliers leading by one point.

3. Stanford stuns Notre Dame in a thriller

Notre Dame traveled west the final weekend of the regular season with its College Football Playoff hopes still alive. While Oklahoma dismantling Oklahoma State made it unlikely the Irish would reach the four-team field in 2015, Stanford’s 38-36 win over head coach Brian Kelly’s squad officially eliminated Notre Dame.

In one of college football’s most exciting games of 2015, the two teams went back and forth most of the evening before Kizer’s two-yard scoring run — and subsequent extra point — gave the Irish a late 36-35 lead.

Returning the football to Stanford with 30 seconds, however, proved to be too much for senior quarterback Kevin Hogan in his third career start against the Irish.

The Cardinal traveled 45 yards in four plays — aided by a 15-yard face mask penalty by junior defensive end Isaac Rochell — to set up the game-winning kick by Stanford’s Conrad Ukropina.

A 27-yard pass from Hogan to Devon Cajuste keyed the drive leading to the 45-yard field goal.

An argument could be made whether the 27-yard pass or the ensuing kick represents the most significant play from that drive.

4. Kizer’s game-winning touchdown pass to Fuller at Temple

Seven weeks after Notre Dame needed a late rally to survive at Virginia, the Irish found themselves in a similar spot at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Temple entered the game as a surprise undefeated and looked to derail Notre Dame’s hopes of a playoff berth. The Owls’ defense held down the Irish offense for much of the game due in large part to the latter’s red zone woes.

For the second time in as many months, Kizer and Fuller connected for a late go-ahead score that helped Notre Dame survive.

On 2nd-and-10 from the Temple 17, Kizer connected with Fuller in a tight window to put the Irish ahead 24-20, a lead that would stick.

Making the score even more impressive, Kizer had audibled out of a run play at the line of scrimmage.

5. Josh Adams’ 98-yard touchdown run

While replacing the injured Prosise, freshman running back Josh Adams scampered 98 yards for the longest score in Irish history to break open a 21-0 lead over Wake Forest.

With the Irish leading 14-0 in the second quarter, Adams found the outside and ran those 98 yards to tie the Football Bowl Subdivision record for longest run by a freshman, previously held by Tulane’s Jerald Sowell (1993) and Middle Tennessee State’s Jordan Parker (2012).

Adams’ run joined Prosise’s 91-yard jaunt in the 30-22 win over Georgia Tech on Sept. 19 as the season’s two rushes for 90-plus yards. In the previous 126 years of Notre Dame football, the Irish had amassed two such plays overall.

Adams’ run did not have the season-altering impact like the previous plays, but it stands out as a remarkable individual feat.