Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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"The bodies are still the same on the inside. You've got big muscles and big joints, but the ball and socket, and the bones are all the same and the tissues around it are all the same." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Technology advances have made those surgeries more effective in the past decade. What's the next big leap in helping players recover? Ratigan: "I think there is a lot of biologics involved in the world of sports medicine now where you're looking at using the players' own tissue. You're taking their own stem cells and creating ways to give that back to them. "We're a ways away from that now, but the world of biologics and soft tissue engineering is pretty amazing." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What's your favorite Lou Holtz story from your playing days? Ratigan: "I'm sitting on the side of the field on a stationary bike pedaling [after his first surgery during fall camp as a freshman]. Lou Holtz walks by me, pauses for a second, looks at me and just shakes his head and says, 'That's too bad, son, you could've been a good player,' and kept walking. "You better believe I got right off that bike and looked for my helmet." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Did all of your injuries point you toward your current career? Ratigan: "I kind of always wanted to do it. Anybody who likes to lift weights, they love anatomy. If they care at all about what they're doing, they're going to look into it. That's just an interest I've always had, and being injured I learned, unfortunately, a lot about it before I probably wanted to. "In the end it really paid off for what I'm doing now." — Dan Murphy Notre Dame Eighth In Preseason Consensus Poll This summer, 247Sports assembled the 2013 "Preseason Consensus Poll" of 13 different media outlets for college football. Included are magazines such as Athlon, Lindy's, Phil Steele's College Football, Sporting News and USA Today, plus websites such as ESPN.com, SI.com and CBSSports.com, among others. Still to be included in August are rankings from 247Sports and Sports Illustrated, plus the Associated Press poll and USA Today coaches poll. One caveat: Many of these polls were released prior to the news that Notre Dame starting quarterback Everett Golson would not be available in 2013. Last year's top two in this poll were USC (7-6) and LSU (10-3), neither of which played in a BCS bowl. Eventual national champion Alabama was third. Notre Dame, which lost to Alabama in the title game, was 25th. Last year's BCS bowls featured: Sugar, Florida (23rd) vs. Louisville (28th); Fiesta, Kansas State (21st) vs. Oregon (fifth); Orange, Florida State (seventh) vs. Northern Illinois (unranked); and Rose, Wisconsin (11th) vs. Stanford (20th). The overwhelming BCS National Championship projection this year is Alabama vs. Ohio State, with the Crimson Tide — aiming for an unprecedented third straight national title and fourth in five years — receiving 11 of the 13 firstplace votes and the Buckeyes the other two. Here is this year's top 10 based on those 13 outlets, with point totals in parentheses: 1. Alabama (323 points) 2. Ohio State (304) 3. Oregon (278) 4. Stanford (273) 5. Texas A&M (263) 6. Georgia (248) 7. South Carolina (230) 8. Notre Dame (222) 9. Louisville (218) 10. Clemson (214) In addition to Stanford, other 2013 Notre Dame opponents in the top 25 are No. 15 Oklahoma (126 points), No. 17 Michigan (112) and No. 24 USC (34).