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Virginia Tech rallies past Notre Dame after trailing 17-0

Virginia Tech tight end Bucky Hodges, right, celebrates with fullback Sam Rogers after scoring a touchdown during the second half of the Hokies’ game at Notre Dame on Saturday. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
Associated Press

Jerod Evans threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another in intermittent snow and 20 mph winds, Joey Slye kicked a 20-yard field goal with 4:16 left and Virginia Tech rallied back from a 17-point deficit to beat Notre Dame 34-31 Saturday in South Bend, Indiana.

Evans threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Bucky Hodges to tie the score at 31-31 early in the fourth quarter and then led the Hokies (8-3) on a 51-yard drive for the game-winning field goal. The Hokies, who fell behind 17-0 to start the game, came back after falling behind 31-21 lead on a 67-yard touchdown run by Josh Adams.

It marked the third time this season the Irish (4-7) squandered a double-digit lead.

Virginia Tech shut down Notre Dame’s passing attack in the second half. DeShone Kizer was 13 of 18 passing for 199 yards in the first half and just 3 of 13 for 36 yards in the second half. Kizer was injured in the closing seconds.

The loss clinched a losing season for the Irish, just the 14th time in 128 seasons of playing football and the first since going 3-9 in 2007. They also failed to win back-to-back games for the first time since 1960.

Navy 66, East Carolina 31: Will Worth rushed for 159 yards and four touchdowns and Shawn White added 150 yards and three scores as Navy walloped East Carolina in Greenville, North Carolina.

It propelled the Midshipmen (8-2, 6-1 American Athletic Conference) into the AAC championship game, while the Pirates (3-8, 1-6) lost for the eighth time in their last nine games. Navy, which will be playing in its first conference title game, leads the all-time series 5-1.

The result spoiled ECU’s senior day celebration for Zay Jones, who passed former teammate and current Atlanta Falcons player Justin Hardy for the FBS career receptions record with 392.

Army 60, Morgan State 3: Andy Davidson ran for two touchdowns on 111 yards, Cole Macek added two more scores and 108 yards and the Black Knights (6-5) crushed Morgan State at West Point, New York.

Darnell Woolfolk added a score on 104 yards to keep the Black Knights in the hunt for their first bowl game since 2010.

Pittsburgh 56, Duke 14: James Conner scored twice to set a pair of Atlantic Coast Conference career touchdown records as the Panthers (7-4, 4-3 ACC) routed the Blue Devils (4-7, 1-6) at Pittsburgh.

Conner bulled over from 1 yard in the first quarter and again in the third to give him 50 rushing touchdowns for his career, breaking the previous mark set by N.C. State’s Ted Brown between 1975 and 1978. Conner now has 53 touchdowns in all, eclipsing the old ACC mark of 52 set by Wali Lundy of Virginia from 2002-05.

A year removed from a cancer diagnosis that forced him into months of treatment, Conner finished with 101 yards.

Yale 21, Harvard 14: Kurt Rawlings threw for two touchdowns and ran for 74 yards to lead Yale (3-7, 3-4 Ivy) to a victory over Harvard (7-3, 5-2) in the 133rd edition of The Game on Saturday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, snapping a nine-year losing streak against their archrivals and depriving the Crimson of a fourth straight Ivy League title.