Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 14, 2026 9 UNDER THE DOME ✦ BY THE NUMBERS PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS -7 Differential between Notre Dame's ranking in the Associated Press poll (No. 4) and its standing in the first College Football Playoff rankings (No. 11) released Nov. 3. Boise State at -5 (No. 20 AP and No. 25 CFP) and UCLA at -3 (No. 5 AP and No. 8 CFP) were also ranked lower by CFP selection committee. Meanwhile, Alabama was +4 (No. 9 AP and No. 5 CFP), Texas was +3 (No. 10 AP and No. 7 CFP) and Indiana was +2 (No. 6 AP and No. 4 CFP). For what it's worth, nine of the 10 SEC teams in the CFP rankings were ranked higher by CFP than they were in the AP poll. 1st Career three-pointer for Notre Dame fifth-year center LOGAN DUNCOMB came with 1:08 remaining to put Notre Dame up 70-68 over Villanova in a game the Irish went on to win 74-72 Nov. 1. Entering the game, he had taken only 3 career attempts from long range, all at Winthrop last year. 2 Notre Dame women's basketball players have recorded at least 27 points and 14 rebounds in a game this century. Sophomore forward Leah Macy joined Brianna Turner in producing such a stat line in her 27 and 14 collegiate debut against Villanova Nov. 1. Turner did it as a freshman, scoring 29 points and pulling down 18 rebounds in an 89-79 win at North Carolina on Jan. 15, 2015. 2.7% Rate of plays that have gained 20 or more yards against the Notre Dame defense through eight games this season, which ranked No. 1 in the country per ESPN. 4 Golden Domers were included on Sports Illustrated's list of the 25 greatest coaches in college football history: Lou Holtz (1986-96) at No. 21, Ara Parseghian (1964-74) at No. 17, Frank Leahy (1941-43, '46-53) at No. 8 and Knute Rockne (1918-30) at No. 3, behind only Paul "Bear" Bryant and Nick Saban. Notre Dame was the only school to place four coaches on the list. " The story of mass-market college football begins with Rockne, an immigrant from the rural town of Voss on Norway's west coast who went on to live one of America's richest sports lives," Patrick Andres of Sports Illustrated noted. "Raised in Chi- cago, Rockne enjoyed a productive playing career at Notre Dame and played early professional football before succeeding his own college coach — Hall of Famer Jesse Harper. By the third year of his career, he'd ripped off back-to-back 9-0 seasons in 1919 and '20 and put the Fighting Irish on the national radar — but what he did after that was far more interesting. "Like no college football figure before him, Rockne intuited what a technologically advanced, postwar society was doing to Americans' leisure habits, and structured Notre Dame as a capital-B Brand accord- ingly. Intelligent on the field (duh) and off it (he had a pharmaceutical degree), Rockne took his team to New York to play Army and Los Angeles to play USC — expanding the sport's media map in the process. "With a career record of 105-12-5 and three widely recognized national championships, Rockne died in a plane crash at the age of 43. The game he created outlived him." 11 Of the 12 national champions during the College Football Playoff era (2014-25) were ranked among the top four in the selection commit- tee's initial set of rankings. The lone exception was Ohio State in 2014, when it started at No. 16. Also of note, eventual national runner-up Miami was No. 18 in last year's initial CFP rankings. Notre Dame was slotted at No. 11 in this year's initial CFP rankings. 14 Was Notre Dame fifth-year guard Madison St. Rose's ranking on ESPN's list of the top 20 impact transfers for the 2026-27 women's college basketball season. "With her Ivy League eligibility over, St. Rose will play her final season as Hannah Hidalgo's backcourt running mate," ESPN's Charlie Creme noted. "Like former Irish point guard Olivia Miles and Hidalgo, St. Rose is also from New Jersey. She and Hidalgo were back-to-back state players of the year in 2022 and 2023. St. Rose bounced back from a 2024-25 knee injury to average 15.8 points, lifting Princeton to an Ivy League title." 73 Percent of the Notre Dame offense's third downs have required 6 or fewer yards to go through eight contests, yet the Fighting Irish ranked just 30th in the nation in conversion rate (43.5 percent) per ESPN research. Meanwhile, the Irish defense forced opponents into third-and-7 or longer on 61 percent of their third downs, yet ranked 76th in conversion rate on defense (38.4 percent). +550 Odds for Notre Dame — which was No. 11 in the initial 2026 College Football Play- off rankings — to win the national championship as of Nov. 4, per DraftKings, heading into its matchup with No. 1 Miami Nov. 7. Only No. 2 Georgia at +350 had better odds, while the top-ranked Hurricanes had the third-best odds at +620. 1,000th On-field v i c t o r y for Notre Dame football was recorded when the Fighting Irish defeated Navy 35-13 Oct. 31. The NCAA-adjusted total is 979, excluding 21 victories from the 2012 and 2013 seasons that were later vacated. — Steve Downey