Even with some offensive miscues, the Northwestern Tigers had enough bite to down Notre Dame 32-6, winning their opening game of the 2014 season. Harry Hall led the charge offensively with 139 yards rushing on 20 carries and the senior-laden defense did its job for Northwestern.

"We didn't know exactly what we were going to get from Notre Dame, obviously, with just the two scrimmages that we got on film, you don't know," said coach Josh Snyder. "Offensively, just some lack of execution, we left a lot of plays on the field and put the ball on the ground four or five times; that's unacceptable for us."

The Tigers defense didn't allow Notre Dame onto its side of the field until there was just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter. The Crusaders had negative yardage for their first-half total offense and the only points they put up came against primarily second string players late in the game.

"Our defense just played absolutely outstanding," said Snyder. "They played responsibility football, our guys in the middle played well."

Hall got the scoring started with a 34-yard scamper down the right side on the first drive of the season. Northwestern went for the two-point conversion, but failed, to keep the score 6-0.

A 28-yard field goal from Brandon Miller put the Tigers up 9-0 and a bad snap that got kicked around was recovered by Notre Dame in their own end zone for a safety as the Tigers had an 11-0 lead with just over two minutes to play in the first quarter.

Notre Dame's defense stiffened in the second quarter, but with 3:51 left to play in the half, the patient Northwestern offense had worked its way down the field and was knocking on the end zone door. Quarterback Frank Dangello faked a hand off to Hall and sprinted around the edge of the line for a one-yard score and the point-after gave the Tigers an 18-0 lead at the half.

Snyder made some offensive adjustments at the half, in an attempt to open up the passing game and the plan worked perfectly. Taylor Breininger caught two passes for 46 yards in the second half.

Breininger's two catches weren't the only contribution he made. On a 43-yard touchdown run by Hall, it was Breininger who delivered a strong block to cut down the last potential obstacle for Hall on his way to the end zone. Defensively, Breininger led the team with six tackles, three of which were for losses, and he also pulled down an interception.

"We were just trying to keep their defense off balance," said Breininger. "We were getting a good push up front from our line and Harry was doing a great job running the ball and we caught them in play action a couple of times and it worked out for us."

As for his other contributions, Breininger credited just taking what he has learned in practice and putting it into a game, especially when it came to delivering the block for Hall.

"I was just trying to stay in front and keep my feet pushing," he said. "We practice that and it worked out well."

Northwestern takes to the road for its second game of the season, traveling to Bangor to take on the 1-0 Slaters, who downed Catasauqua 31-18 in the opening week of the season.