78th TaxSlayer Gator Bowl was a classic on every level as Notre Dame, South Carolina put on a show

The 78th TaxSlayer Gator Bowl was a hit on every level on which bowl games are judged.

Two ranked opponents?

Check, with No. 19 South Carolina and No. 21 Notre Dame.

Fans in the seats?

Check. The 67,383 who attended the game on Dec. 30 at TIAA Bank Field is the highest of every bowl game except the two College Football Playoff semifinals and the Rose Bowl (beating the Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Citrus) and is the biggest crowd for a Gator Bowl since 68,325 at the 2011 game between Mississippi State and Michigan, and more than the previous two Gator Bowls combined.

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Heads in the beds?

Check. Almost every downtown hotel was sold out and some fans were staying as far away as Savannah.

Eyeballs on TV screens nationwide?

Check. The Gator Bowl averaged 5,766,000 viewers, making it the most-watched non-New Year's Day Six bowl game on ESPN since 2015 and the most-watched Gator Bowl since Penn State vs. Georgia in 2015 (5.8 million) and second-best in the past 13 years. The audience was up 66 percent from last year's Wake Forest vs. Rutgers game.

Classic game?

Check. Notre Dame's 45-38 victory, which featured the Irish's second-largest comeback in a bowl game, broke the Gator Bowl records for the most points (83) and touchdowns (11).

The 100-yard interception return by South Carolina's O'Donnell Fortune's in the fourth quarter, the second pick-six of the game for the Gamecocks (a first for one team in the Gator Bowl), was the longest scoring play in the history of the bowl, breaking one of the longest-standing records set by another Gamecock, Charlie Brembs, in the inaugural game in 1946. The combined total offense of 920 yards is the sixth-highest in Gator Bowl history.

It was also the first Gator Bowl since 1998 (North Carolina 42, Virginia Tech 3) that featured offensive, defensive and special teams touchdowns.

Gamecock fans flocked to Jacksonville

"It was a phenomenal night, not only for the teams involved and the Gator Bowl but for the city," said Gator Bowl president Greg McGarity. "I think it's a great example of why bowls will always be a vital part of college football."

McGarity expected as much when the game was announced on Dec. 4. South Carolina fans, energized by the team's second winning season under coach Shane Beamer — which included beating top-10 teams Tennessee and Clemson in the final two weeks of the regular season — prompted a run on tickets.

Conservative estimates are that the Gamecocks fan base gobbled up around 70 percent of the seats. But Notre Dame sold more tickets than Wake Forest did last year and with the Fighting Irish comes college football’s richest tradition, with the Notre Dame band playing the school’s famed fight song at two pep rallies and before the game, and the iconic gold helmets glistening in the late afternoon sun, and then under the stadium lights after it got dark.

Irish, Buchner, weathered the storm

But Notre Dame's diverse offense, which totaled 558 yards and 335 total yards and five touchdowns by quarterback and game MVP Tyler Buchner, finally outlasted the opportunistic Gamecocks.

South Carolina is the first team to score a combination of three touchdowns on defense and the kicking game in the Gator Bowl, with DQ Smith returning an interception 47 yards for a score in the first period, and punter Kai Kroeger throwing his third career TD pass later in the period. The Gamecocks got another interception by third-team defensive tackle Nick Barrett, which did not lead to a score.

But the Irish rallied from 21-7 and 24-10 deficits, setting the stage for a wild second half in which the game was tied three times. After O'Donnell's interception return with 7:32 left in the game, Buchner steered the Irish downfield on a 12-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 16-yard TD pass to tight end Mitchell Evans — who had not caught a pass all season, sitting behind consensus All-American Michael Mayer, who opted out of the bowl game.

“It's never how you foresee it on the front end. Right?” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said of the emotionally-draining game. “And all the days you can sit here before this game and daydream about how you think this game will go, it wasn't like that. But the ending was, right? And that's what we'll remember.”

After pulling out almost any ploy he could think of — the fake punt, using three passers, eight runners and nine receivers on offense — South Carolina coach Shane Beamer could only give Notre Dame props for weathering every storm.

“He’s [Freeman] got a heck of a team, and what a football game that was out there tonight, and what a great environment,” Beamer said.

Changes coming to bowl system

McGarity said he's realistic enough to know that a bowl on the Gator's tier can't guarantee a hit like this one every year, under the current system where the conferences assign the teams to the bowls.

"These games come around once a decade," he said, referring indirectly to the last time the Gator Bowl had national attention, a packed house and a marquee matchup, the 2010 game between Florida State and West Virginia that was the final game for Seminoles' coach Bobby Bowden. "We had a good game in 2019 [Tennessee vs. Indiana] but not of this magnitude. It's difficult for the conferences to make every bowl and every team happy but it worked out great for us and the city this year."

The game also marked the halfway point of the current six-year contract matching an SEC team vs. an ACC team (Notre Dame falls into the ACC rotation when the Irish don't make a New Year's Six game) and McGarity said discussions would be held in the coming year with conferences about the future of the bowl system.

The College Football Playoff will expand from four teams to 12 in 2024. The system calls for the top-four teams to get first-round byes and the other eight to play four games at the home fields of the higher-seeded team. But there is an expectation that those games would be incorporated into the bowl system beginning in 2026 and McGarity wants the Gator Bowl to be a part of it.

"We'd love to be in the discussion," he said. "We all want to participate in the playoff but what level has yet to be determined. We don't know the parameters, the priorities ... there are a lot of unknowns. We will be meeting with the conferences over the next six months and we might have some ideas then."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Notre Dame, South Carolina combined to produce a TaxSlayer Gator Bowl for the ages