What a great day this was for Notre Dame! The Seniors took the field for the last time at Notre Dame Stadium. Tyler Eifert broke the all time Irish record for catches by a tight end. Everett Golson threw for a career high 349 yards and three touchdowns. The defense continued it's dominance by shutting out Wake Forest. With the win, Notre Dame clinched a BCS bowl.
That is only the start of the good news. I would ordinarily not be interested in a game between Baylor and Kansas State or Oregon and Stanford. However with Notre Dame being ranked #3, one of them had to lose at some point. In about a twenty minute span, they both went down. Kansas State got dominated by the Baylor Bears. Then Oregon went down in overtime to the Cardinal.
What was sweet about the Stanford win was that all week Notre Dame heard that they needed overtime to beat Stanford and Oregon would dominate them. That proved false just by going into overtime. Then when Stanford won, it gave the pollsters no choice. They have to put Notre Dame as the #1 team.
The Fighting Irish will now control their own destiny as they go on the road to play USC. Today after the hot start in the first quarter with a great run by Cierre Wood, another Eifert touchdown, and a long bomb to John Goodman, I could see that the issue would never be in doubt. Therefore, I did a lot more game jumping than I would ordinarily do during an Irish game. That was because the Trojans were on FOX against their crosstown rival UCLA in not only a battle for LA but also for the division title.
I wanted to get a look at the next opponent. USC went down for the fourth time this year and may have also lost Matt Barkley for next week with a late Shoulder injury. One of the stars in that game was Notre Dame transfer Shaquelle Evans who caught 8 passes for 114 yards. That ruined the Trojans chances of a PAC 12 title. That actually makes them more dangerous because all they got left is spoiling Notre Dame's season.
It has been such a magic year for the Irish and it all began in Ireland. Even a USC victory won't change that. A BCS bowl is imminent. Even if Notre Dame doesn't win the national championship, that doesn't change the fact that for the first time in a very long time Notre Dame is 11-0 and #1. You can't take this day away no matter what happens the rest of the way.
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