Notre Dame football put together a dominant performance in its home opener, defeating the Rice Owls 52-0 in Notre Dame Stadium.

As you can imagine, with this type of result, there aren’t too many “losers” and a whole lot of winners for head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish. This was a complete drubbing from the beginning, featuring incredible defense, turnovers, and explosive plays from the offense.

Several players could have made the winner column, and there were ultimately only two “losers” to identify, although nobody truly lost on Saturday. Here are the key contributors, the biggest winners from the day, and a couple of question marks that may still exist.

The winners

S Adon Shuler

As I mentioned last week after Notre Dame’s 41-13 victory over Wisconsin, Shuler is going to be a winner each and every week just by being on the football field. With the loss of his dad about a week and a half ago, it’s pretty remarkable to think that he’s even playing football right now. Then you turn on the film against Rice, and the second play of the game, he’s running the alley and forcing a fumble, which led to a scoop and score from star defensive end Boubacar Traore.

Shuler is a team captain and standout performer for this team. He set the tone early against Rice and made it certain quickly that this was not going to be a contest.

QB CJ Carr

After a slow first half against the Badgers in Week 1, CJ Carr put together a rhythmic second half, and he continued that against Rice, to say the very least. He completed 16 of 20 passes for 253 yards and four touchdowns, doing all of that while barely playing into the second half.

With top targets like wide receiver Jordan Faison, wide receiver Jaden Greathouse, and wide receiver Micah Gilbert, this passing offense was crisp from the very beginning. Carr made the routine look routine, but he also made a couple of downfield throws that we want to see more and more of around South Bend.

Wide receivers

As I mentioned previously, the Notre Dame wide receivers had a little bit of a slow first outing, but they shone on this day. Faison had a tremendous showing with four receptions for 52 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. He also was a dynamic punt returner for the team.

Greathouse got involved early with three receptions for 48 yards, while Gilbert added two receptions for 47 yards and a 39-yard touchdown. That isn’t even including depth players like Mylan Graham getting into the action, and younger guys like Elijah Burris and Logan Saldate. The Notre Dame wide receivers pretty much caught everything that went their way on Saturday.

The defense

On Notre Dame’s defense, you could pick pretty much anybody you want. Beyond Shuler, Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa recorded a tackle and 1.5 tackles for loss in his first live action since coming back from an ACL tear. Bryce Young was fantastic with 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack. Boubacar Traore had his scoop and score.

This was a complete level of dominance from the Fighting Irish defense, start to finish. They held Rice to under 100 total yards on the day.

The young guys

This is exactly what Notre Dame wanted: a dominant performance early in which the coaching staff had the opportunity to let some of its young players see a ton of action against Rice in the second half. That included quarterback Noah Grubbs, the true freshman signal caller who now sits as the main backup to Carr. He did some good things.

You also saw younger wide receivers like Jerome Bettis Jr. and Elijah Burress, as well as Saldate, get opportunities. Several young defenders got into the game and made an impact as well. This was the type of game Notre Dame needs in order to consistently create depth and develop players. Practice time is great and important, but you cannot substitute for game action.

Notre Dame got a lot of freshmen and sophomores into this football game in the second half, including on the offensive line.

The losers

The run game

There is some context to consider when you talk about the Notre Dame run game with how successful the pass was, but the Fighting Irish did not run the ball effectively against Rice. On the day, they carried the ball 32 times for 118 yards and two touchdowns, good for just 3.7 yards per carry.

With the amount of turnovers forced and the big plays in the passing game, the run game was not needed. However, you do want Notre Dame to start picking things up after a slow start in the running game a week ago against Wisconsin.

Look for Freeman, offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, and this offensive staff to focus on getting that run game going over the next couple of weeks.

My youth

Who else is a loser in this football game? It’s me. I had the most old man moment of all time watching Elijah Burress, the son of Plaxico Burress, Devin Fitzgerald (Larry’s son) and Jerome Bettis Jr., the son of former Notre Dame legend of the same name, make a ton of plays. As if I didn’t have to worry about seeing more gray hairs during every haircut, I now have to see the sons of NFL legends make a plethora of plays for Notre Dame each and every week.

When you win a football game the way Notre Dame did on Saturday, there are no real losers. The biggest loser was me, seeing my youth fading before my eyes when watching this new version of Notre Dame football.