Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1170354
www.BLUEANDGOLD.com SEPT. 30, 2019 9 UNDER THE DOME 1.1 Rating for NBC's coverage of No. 7 Notre Dame's 66-14 home win over New Mexico, per Sports Media Watch. That's the lowest for a Notre Dame home opener since at least 1997, and below the previous low of 1.2 they recorded for a home opener against Temple in 2017. Because the game kicked off at 2:30 p.m. ET, it faced competition from the end of the noon games and then the 3:30 p.m. starts, which included Alabama-South Carolina, Stanford-Central Florida and USC-BYU. According to Fighting Irish Wire, another factor that might have played a role is the usage of NBC's new skycam, which had more of an overhead view than the conventional side angle. The use of this innovation was widely criticized on social media by Notre Dame followers. 2 Father-son tandems in Major League Baseball history to hit for the cycle, with the Toronto Blue Jays' Cavan Biggio — who starred at Notre Dame from 2014-16 — this Sept. 17 joining his Hall of Fame father Craig, who did it 17 years earlier for the Houston Astros on April 8, 2002. The younger Biggio was 4 for 5 with four RBI, plus two stolen bases, during an 8-5 victory against Baltimore, and completed the cycle (single, double, triple and home run in the same game) with a ninth-inning two-run triple. Only one other player in the past 10 years, the Los Angeles Dodgers' Cody Bellinger, hit for the cycle within his first 100 games. The other father-son tandem to achieve the feat in the majors was Gary Ward for Minnesota on Sept. 19, 1980, and Daryle Ward for Pittsburgh on May 26, 2004. 3 Notre Dame players on the 2019 roster who are from the state of Virginia as the Fighting Irish prepare to host the Cavaliers for the first time this weekend (Sept. 28): Senior safety and captain JALEN ELLIOTT (Richmond), junior rover Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (Hampton) and freshman quarterback Brendon Clark (Midlothian). Against New Mexico, third-team signal-caller Clark's first career pass resulted in a 22-yard leaping catch-and-run by sophomore wide receiver Braden Lenzy, and Clark also added 24 rushing yards (third most on the team) on four carries. 11 Times since 1933 Notre Dame has eclipsed the 60-point scoring mark in a game, most recently with the 66-14 victory against New Mexico Sept. 14. Chronologically, the other 10 were 61-0 versus Carnegie Tech (1940), 64-0 versus Dartmouth (1944), 69-13 versus Pittsburgh (1965), 64-0 versus Duke (1966), 62-3 versus Army (1973), 69-14 versus Georgia Tech (1977), 61-29 versus SMU (1986), 60-6 versus Pitt and 62-0 versus Rutgers in back-to-back home games (1996), and 62-27 versus Massachusetts (2015). 100/1 Odds given by BetOnLine.com for Notre Dame men's basketball to win the 15-team ACC championship — joining Pitt and Wake Forest for the lowest same figure. Even Boston College — which has lost 13 straight to the Fighting Irish, including both last year — was at 50/1 with Georgia Tech and Miami. To no one's surprise, the top three consisted of Duke (5/2), reigning national cham- pion Virginia (11/4) and North Carolina (9/2), against whom Notre Dame opens the season at Nov. 6 (see pages 48-49). 1,041 Consecutive carries by Notre Dame run- ning backs — as given by the school's media relations department — entering the Georgia game Sept. 21 without having lost a fumble (incorrectly reported in the Sept. 23 edition as less). The breakdown dates back to the 19-16 victory at Fenway Park versus Boston College on Nov. 21, 2015, and included the first two games of 2019. It is the second- longest active streak, behind the 1,076 by Northwestern going into its clash against Michigan State Sept. 21. ✦ BY THE NUMBERS PHOTO BY ANGELA DRISKELL