Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1031117
www.BLUEANDGOLD.com OCT. 1, 2018 25 2:13 Minutes and seconds Notre Dame has been behind this season out of a possible 240. Wake Forest took a 3-0 lead in the first quarter, but at the 3:06 mark of the same quarter Notre Dame took the lead for good on Jafar Armstrong's 30-yard touchdown run. The Irish have not trailed for 99.4 percent of this season thus far. 4-0 Notre Dame has won the first four games at the start of a season for only the sixth time in the 29 seasons since 1990, or just after the school-record 23-game winning streak in 1988-89. The other years in that span in which they began 4-0 were 1993 (11-1 final record), 2002 (10-3), 2012 (12-1), 2014 (8-5) and 2015 (10-3). Notre Dame has achieved 4-0 starts four times in the last seven years after achieving it only twice in the previous 22. 13 Combined tackles by reserve inside linebackers comprised of freshman Bo Bauer (six), sophomore Jordan Gemark Heath (four) and junior Jonathan Jones (three) after not playing a single snap on defense in the first three games behind the linchpin tandem consisting of fifth-year senior Drue Tranquill and senior Te'von Coney. 32 Passes broken up in his career by junior cornerback Julian Love after recording another one versus Wake Forest. That ties him with 1969-71 standout Clarence Ellis, a consensus All-American and first-round NFL Draft selection, for No. 1 on the all-time Notre Dame chart. 49 Points scored by Notre Dame over the final three quarters at Wake For- est — 21 in the second, 21 in the third and seven in the fourth. In the first three games combined this season, the Fighting Irish tallied only 39 points over the final three quarters. During the 3-0 start, 44 percent of Notre Dame's scoring — 31 out of 70 points — occurred in the first quarter. Interestingly, the Irish failed to put any points up on their initial three possessions in this game after scoring on the opening march in each of the first three contests. 59 Consecutive games Wake Forest has lost to a football team ranked in the Associated Press top 10 at the time of the game, with four of them coming against Notre Dame since 2012: No. 3 in 2012 (38-0), No. 6 in 2015 (28-7), No. 3 in 2017 (48-37) and No. 8 this season. The Demon Deacons are 1-62 overall versus teams ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll, which began in 1936. The lone victory occurred versus No. 4 Tennessee on Oct. 26, 1946. 98 Rushing yards by sophomore running back Jafar Armstrong on only eight carries. That career-high rushing output marked the second straight week a Fighting Irish running back set a new personal standard, with junior Tony Jones Jr. doing so with 118 versus Vanderbilt. 305 Career points by senior kicker Justin Yoon after converting all eight extra point attempts at Wake Forest. Only 1982-85 running back Allen Pinkett with 320 points remains ahead of him. 325 Passing yards by junior Ian Book in his second career start, with the first coming at North Carolina last year. It is the most yards ever ac- cumulated through the air by a second-game starter at Notre Dame, breaking the previous standard of 313 by Malik Zaire (19-of-22 passing) during a 38-3 romp over Texas in the 2015 season opener. 31,092 Official attendance recorded for this game at BB&T Sta- dium (the first time the Irish went there in 2011 there was a capacity audience of 36,307). That represents the smallest crowd at a Notre Dame football game since the 1975 season finale at Miami when the official count was only 24,944. That's part of the reason why there was thought in the late 1970s that the University of Miami might drop football. BY THE NUMBERS BY LOU SOMOGYI 6 Catches (for 61 yards) by senior tight end ALIZÉ MACK, tying his career high that he had in the 33-10 win at North Carolina last season (for 38 yards). Interestingly, that was junior quarterback Ian Book's first career start, while the game at Wake Forest was his second. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA