Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com DEC. 19, 2020 7 UNDER THE DOME 1 Ranking by Pro Football Focus of Notre Dame's offensive line among 127 Football Bowl Subdivision teams playing this year heading into the month of December. The 89.6 run-blocking grade from PFF was tops in the nation, while the 87.7 pass-blocking mark was 13th. Only seven teams were in the top 15 in both categories, with BYU No. 2 overall and Buf- falo No. 3. "Not only does Notre Dame have the best offensive line of the 2020 college football season, but it also has one of the best offensive lines we have seen in the PFF College era [since 2014]," PFF's Anthony Treash wrote. The line's highest-graded player through nine games was fifth-year senior left tackle LIAM EICHENBERG (No. 74), with an overall mark of 88.3. Senior left guard AARON BANKS (No. 69) has the line's highest pass-blocking grade at 89.4, while senior right tackle Robert Hainsey's 90.8 run- blocking grade leads the team and ranks fifth nationally. 2 Placement of Notre Dame in the initial College Football Playoff rank- ings, released first on Nov. 24 and followed up on Dec. 1. That spot is the highest Notre Dame has earned in the seven seasons of the CFP rankings that began in 2014. The Irish had previously been No. 3 in 2017 and 2018, and No. 4 in 2015. 4 Quarterbacks in the Football Bowl Subdivision over the last 10 years who produced a better record as a starting quarterback — with a mini- mum of 20 starts — than Ian Book's mark of 30-3 (.909 winning percentage). All were or will be top-10 picks: current Clemson senior Trevor Law- rence (33-1, .971), Florida State's Jameis Winston (26-1, .963), Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa (22-2, .917) and Clemson's DeShaun Watson (32-3, .914). 314 Career tackles recorded by current Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly as a 1979-82 middle linebacker at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. That was a school record back then and still ranks seventh. On Nov. 30, Assumption University an- nounced that its multi-sport stadium will now be known as the "Brian Kelly '83 Stadium" in recognition of Kelly's contributions to build the school's football program and his overall support of the university. After graduation, Kelly stayed at Assumption and served as a line- backers coach and defensive coor- dinator for the football team, as well as head coach of the softball team from 1983-86. Serving as a commencement speaker for the university in 2012, Kelly announced the establishment of a $250,000 endowed scholarship for student-athletes in the football program. This schol- arship is matched by the university for female student-athletes. Kelly also made a generous donation to the university's "Light the Way" campaign, which was recognized with the naming of the Brian and Paqui Kelly Atrium in the Tsotsis Family Aca- demic Center. 1997 The most recent year among four pre- vious times when Notre Dame played a school twice in the same season. The fifth will occur when the Fighting Irish face Clemson in the ACC Championship Dec. 19 at Charlotte, N.C. On Nov. 7, the then-No. 4 Fighting Irish defeated the then-No. 1 Tigers 47-40 in double overtime at Notre Dame Stadium. In 1997 under first-time head coach Bob Davie, the 4-5 Irish upset No. 11 LSU 24-6 in Baton Rouge on Nov. 15 — still the lone game ever where the Irish committed neither a turnover nor were whistled for a penalty. A month later on Dec. 28 in the Independence Bowl at Shreveport, La., the Tigers gained revenge with a 27-9 victory. In November 1998, the two schools played again, making it three meetings over a 12-month period. The other three came during the program's infancy: Michigan in 1888, losing both one year after getting introduced to the game, Albion in 1894 (1-0-1), and in 1901 the South Bend Athletic Club to begin (0-0 tie) and end (22-6 win) the 8-1-1 campaign. 6,089,000 Estimated viewers for the Notre Dame at North Carolina game on Nov. 27, a 31-17 Irish victory. The data is from Network PR, ShowBuzz Daily, Sports Busi- ness Daily and Programming Insider. Among the 23 college football games televised Thanksgiving weekend, that clash on ABC finished second only to the Iron Bowl matchup with Alabama- Auburn (6,656,000) on CBS. That earned a 3.6 rating overall compared to Notre Dame's 3.5. A distant third was LSU at Texas A&M (4,154,000). ✦ BY THE NUMBERS PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS