Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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the fifth quarter lou somogyi Third, the casual observer (which can include pollsters) probably, in retro‑ spect, views Notre Dame's 2012 season as one of those once-in-a-generation runs where the stars seem aligned per‑ fectly (at least in the regular season) for bounces to fall your way. Until last year, no Notre Dame team had ever gone 5-0 in games decided by seven or fewer points during one season. The fourth reason is the most signifi‑ cant. Fair or not, Notre Dame is still suf‑ fering from its 18-year walk, from 19942011, in the college football wilderness. There is a "we've gone through this be‑ fore" skepticism that still exists outside the Fighting Irish football walls because of recent precipitous drops just when you thought all was well with Notre Dame again. Certainly the 42-14 annihilation against Alabama last January revived some of those ghosts. From a Notre Dame standpoint we like to think that the blowout will make the team hungrier and more resolute. We refer to the 1973 Orange Bowl when Nebraska administered a 40‑6 demoli‑ tion on the Irish — but then 12 months later Notre Dame was the national champion. Or how about the 35‑10 pounding from Texas A&M in the 1988 Cotton Bowl for a third straight defeat to end that season? Again, 12 months later, the Fighting Irish finished No. 1. Be that as it may, those are not the Notre Dame bowl failures the new gen‑ eration remembers. Lest one think that blowout bowl defeats provide inspira‑ tion, let's not forget: • The 2000 Notre Dame team also made the BCS and suffered a 41‑9 fiasco against Oregon State. It didn't provide much inspiration during an ensuing 5‑6 season that prompted the firing of head coach Bob Davie. • The 2003 "Return to Glory" cam‑ paign of Tyrone Willingham ended with a 28‑6 bowl loss to North Carolina State — and then a 5‑7 record the ensuing year. • The 41‑14 pounding from LSU in the 2007 Sugar Bowl was followed with a 3‑9 record. The 1973 and 1988 campaigns are ancient history. Pollsters today are more apt to recall the bowl floggings from the last 10-15 years, including the one from Alabama in January. Back in 2000, Virginia Tech dropped all the way to No. 11 in the preseason poll because it was still classified a nouveau riche in college football. It had to build a much larger body of work before it could be taken seriously. It achieved that by following with another 11‑1 record and then eight straight sea‑ sons of at least 10 wins from 2004‑11. Although Notre Dame's tradition is second to none, the generation that has grown up since the 1990s might classify the current Irish as merely nouveau riche. They need to put together two, three, four more top-10, BCS-like campaigns to be with the "in" crowd. Now is as good a time as any to continue that body of work, and that should be all the inspiration that is needed. ✦ Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com