It wasn’t quite the performance many hoped for, with Notre Dame football falling in Provo with a 28-24 loss against the No. 8 BYU Cougars. Head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish moved to 6-1 on the season.

With the Georgia Bulldogs losing to the Auburn Tigers earlier in the day, Notre Dame had the perfect opportunity to climb to No. 1 in this week’s AP poll, and they blew it.

Anyone who watched the game knows Notre Dame did a lot of things poorly. BYU is a good football team under head coach Kalani Sitake, but the Irish made the Cougars look great for most of the night. Notre Dame needed a big second half from its defense just to get back into the game.

An ugly affair like this one produces some underwhelming players and position groups. It also produces some key standouts, but not nearly enough. Here are the winners and “losers” from Notre Dame’s heartbreaking road loss to BYU.

The winners

Nolan James Jr.

It was curious to see what the running back rotation would look like after true freshman Jonaz Walton’s breakout performance against Stanford last weekend. Instead, Nolan James Jr. became the star of the game, especially in the first half.

His tough running made him arguably the biggest standout on offense for the Fighting Irish. James finished with 16 carries for 77 yards and a touchdown, adding three catches for 18 yards. His impact went beyond the box score.

Spencer Porath

The Notre Dame kicker had another great day. Porath made all three of his field goal attempts, including a 46-yarder, and converted his only extra point. In total, he accounted for 10 of Notre Dame’s 24 points.

A narrow game often comes down to a few plays. Having a kicker you can depend on in big moments keeps momentum alive even when drives stall out, and that could be huge for this team, but it obviously wasn’t tonight.

Interior run defense

BYU ran the ball solidly, but not between the tackles. The Notre Dame cornerbacks and linebackers allowed a couple of runs to bounce outside. Overall, though, the interior defensive line of Armel Mukam, Francis Brewu, and Tionne Gray was stout at the point of attack. There was rarely any running room inside.

Jaden Greathouse

It was an up-and-down first half for wide receiver Jaden Greathouse. He still produced one of the biggest plays of the day, a 38-yard gain on a scramble drill from quarterback CJ Carr.

Greathouse finished with eight receptions for 125 yards. It wasn’t perfect, but he made big plays at the most opportune moments to help the Irish climb back from a 21-10 halftime deficit before falling short.

Second-half defense

Defensive coordinator Chris Ash’s unit was bad in the first half but settled down after the break for the most part. There was clearly an initiative to mix up coverages and be more sound overall. Notre Dame didn’t miss many tackles and mostly eliminated explosive plays. That is the defense fans have come to expect, and it needs to show up for four quarters.

Joey O’Brien

The true freshman safety had a couple of big plays, including an early tackle for loss and a huge pass breakup in the second half. The 6-foot-5, 205-pound O’Brien is earning more and more confidence from the coaching staff. A movable chess piece like that on the back end is a huge bonus.

Luke Talich

One of the biggest plays of the game came when BYU tried a fake punt from its own territory. Notre Dame stopped it well short of the line to gain. Senior safety Luke Talich made the play. He has done a great job at safety this year, but he first made his mark on special teams. This stop helped the Irish capture momentum when it mattered most.

The losers

Preparation from Marcus Freeman

This isn’t a new issue. Notre Dame has come out flat far too often, and doing so against the better teams on the schedule leads to dogfights like this one in Provo. The Irish need to start faster and truly “leave no doubt.” This was a sloppy start and an ugly finish, and Freeman will take the blame as the head coach.

Chris Ash

The second half was better, but the first half was frankly horrible. Ash has had some struggles in the biggest games during his two years as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. In the first half, the defense was too timid, gave up too much cushion, and wasn’t ready for BYU’s trickery. Notre Dame needs to look a lot more like its second-half version, at least up until the final BYU offensive drive.

Mike Denbrock

This was an underwhelming performance from offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock as well. The offense was static and not aggressive enough. In the second half especially, Notre Dame seemed to shift into a conservative mode to avoid turnovers. I think that stole some momentum.

CJ Carr

This was one of Carr’s worst games as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback. His stat line of 27-of-49 passing for 261 yards doesn’t look horrible, but he missed multiple touchdown opportunities on bad throws. He also had a controversial spike at the end of the first half that was correctly overturned to a fumble. Carr left too many points on the field in a close game.

The pass rush

Star pass rusher Boubacar Traore was ejected for targeting on the first drive. After that, the pass rush was almost nonexistent against BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier. Some drop-off was expected without Traore, but the Irish needed more from Bryce Young, Keon Keeley, and Rodney Dunham.

The juice

For whatever reason, Notre Dame lacked energy as a team. When momentum isn’t breaking your way, you need players who either make a big play or rally the team to make one. That didn’t happen in Provo. Everything looked slow, and this team simply did not seem ready to play.