Another MAC attack at home couldn't sack Notre Dame football, could it?

SOUTH BEND — So that’s what handling success at home against another seemingly overmatched Mid-American Conference opponent looks like for No. 18 Notre Dame football.

Fine.

Sluggish for stretches. Sub-standard for others. Too many special teams slip-ups. Just an Irish football team hoping to build on the previous performance, but not sure how to exactly use many of the tools on the belt.

The standard around this program is high, and there are games when it just won’t be reached. For whatever reasons. Like Saturday, which was a win. That’s it. Wasn’t pretty. Was, at times, as ugly as it was hot on the last day of summer. But after 60 minutes, it also was win No. 3.

Notre Dame 28, Miami (Ohio) 3

Miami (Ohio) really had zero chance of duplicating what its MAC colleague — Northern Illinois — did two weeks prior because, well, Northern Illinois happened. Notre Dame wasn’t falling into that MAC trap again at home, was it? Could it?

Well...

This one was too close for too long. And one half being too long. Miami even led because Notre Dame couldn’t score. The Irish eventually did what they had to do — they handled success. But, really, did they?

Even head coach Marcus Freeman seemed to grow short with those handling success questions. He was asked earlier in the week how the Irish planned to handle said success, how to build off the 66-7 pounding of Purdue the previous week. He answered with three words, and three words only — preparation, mindset, mentality.

That was it. Freeman went no further with his explanation. The message? Stop asking about it. They need to just go do it.

Early in the second quarter, Notre Dame seemed on its collective heels. The sun was out, but it was getting dark in the old stadium. No ghosts to muster up some of that Irish lore. Boos bouncing everywhere. There was an exact time and place when everything brightened. When a fog that hovered around town all morning finally seemed to lift.

Sixty-five seconds remained before halftime with three minutes before 5 when, boom! Everything changed. That balloon of amongst collectively burst. That’s when quarterback Riley Leonard dropped back, stepped up and delivered a 38-yard touchdown down the right side to fellow graduate transfer Beaux Collins.

It gave Notre Dame a 14-3 lead. It was Leonard’s first TD pass after nearly (does the math) 210 minutes of game action. It was the loudest Notre Dame Stadium had sounded in two home games. A collective sigh of relief. Like, Northern Illinois wasn’t happening again.

The pre-game flyover arrived a bit (OK, a lot) prematurely, but at least it arrived. Couldn’t say the same for the Irish, at least to start. Guess it was too easy too early the previous week down in West Lafayette. Handle success? How about having some success? A first down. A sustained drive. A chunk play. Something that would show that it would be all right.

How weird was that first half? At the 10:24 mark of the second quarter, with a commercial break in progress, there were no announcements bouncing out from the public address system and no music from the bands. No video playing on the big board on the south end. It was as if everyone sat there in silence wrestling with their thoughts of what they were seeing.

Again.

For nearly a half, this looked and felt and sounded like Northern Illinois.

The deeper the first two quarters went, the harder it was to rationalize that Steve Angeli shouldn’t at least get a look. If you can throw it better, if you can complete it better, if you can move the offense in the right direction better, you should at least get a chance, right?

Nope, nope, nope. Leonard was Freeman’s guy against Northern Illinois. He was Freeman’s guy to start at Purdue. He was Freeman’s guy to get a sputtering, coughing, wheezing unit eventually in gear late in the first half.

It’s Leonard then and Leonard now and Leonard for the near future. Save your hot air for something else.

You might need it.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Another MAC opponent looked for an upset for the ages at Notre Dame Stadium