How about, they choked! Or at least some of the key players did at the start and it quickly went downhill from there on. Unforced fumbles, false starts, dropped passes. and so on. The coach told em they had to make Clemson feel uncomfortable. Fact is, it was the ND players that came out uncomfortable, or at least some of them did, and never got comfortable. Give Clemson some of the credit, but the ND players never got into any semblance of "their game".
I hate it for the coaches and the players. They're far better than what showed up.