Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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7. Late Night At Purcell Notre Dame and Louisville should start charging fans extra when they play one another. In their last 10 games, the old Big East foes have played 12 overtime periods. That's six times that they have finished regulation in a tie since the start of the 2008 season. The longest started on a Feb. 9 Saturday night this winter and rolled right on through the early hours of Sunday morning. The Irish pulled away from the eventual national champions in five overtimes with a 104-101 triumph thanks to a series of unexpected performances. Junior Jerian Grant scored 12 points in the game's final minute to send it to overtime. Senior Garrick Sherman tallied all 17 of his points in the overtimes. "We've had a lot of good wins in this building, but I can't remember one more thrilling or dramatic with different twists and turns," head coach Mike Brey said. Louisville later ended Notre Dame's last Big East Tournament, but the two teams will meet again as ACC members in the future. 8. The Year Of The Tease It was a close-but-no-cigar kind of year for Notre Dame. The Irish fielded three No. 1-ranked teams this year and two others that reached No. 2 at some point in the season, but didn't claim any national championships. The football team's near miss was only one of the heartbreakers Irish fans experienced during the academic year. Senior Skylar Diggins and the No. 2 women's hoops team fell in the Final Four to UConn after beating the Huskies three times during the season. The hockey team picked up a No. 1 seed in its NCAA region before losing to St. Cloud State in the opening round. The men's soccer and lacrosse teams both held on to the No. 1 ranking at some point during the regular season, but neither made it past the quarterfinals in postseason play. If there's a theme that connects the 2012-13 sports year, it's that Notre Dame got to sniff glory frequently without ever tasting it. 9. Stadium Upgrades Shifting the hub of Notre Dame's 170-year-old campus is a massive undertaking, and while it will be years before the school potentially breaks ground, it made a major step to set those plans in motion May 2. The day after the 2013 school year ended, Notre Dame released a conceptual photo of what the Irish football stadium could look like in the future, with luxury boxes, meeting rooms, classrooms and a new media center. The last updates to the 83-year-old Notre Dame Stadium came in 1997 when the school created a bit of controversy by adding a second tier of seats above the original 59,000. "It's conceptual at this point. But the momentum and the enthusiasm is real," Swarbrick told The Observer, Notre Dame's student newspaper. "People are excited about the concept. They recognize the various needs that are being addressed, so I'm very optimistic about it."