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✦ News & notes By Lou Somogyi Run The Ball … The "Stat Of The Game" in Notre Dame's 30-13 victory as an 11-point underdog at Oklahoma last year was it outrushed the Sooners 215-15. It was football at its elementary core: Run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense. This year, the dynamics have changed some. A vital element to the Fighting Irish ground attack last year in Norman was Irish sophomore quarterback Everett Golson rushing for 64 yards on 11 carries. Such a threat this year is absent with Golson ineligible. During its 12-0 regular season last year, Notre Dame averaged 202.5 rushing yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry. After four games this season, it's at much more modest 114.2 yards rushing per game and 3.7 yards per carry. Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops and his brother Mike, the team's defensive coordinator, scrapped their four-man front this year and have almost exclusively run a 3-3-5 defensive formation to get more athletes on the field against the spread offenses faced in the Big 12. That alignment should give Notre Dame a better chance to establish its absent running game — although Bob Stoops indicated earlier this week that a four-man line might provide a better matchup against Notre Dame. Oklahoma has used a four-man front for the great majority of Stoops' 15 years at the school. "There's a good chance," Stoops said this week about using a four-man front. "But I'm not going to give you any percentages on it." Other than the final series at Purdue Sept. 14, Notre Dame's running game has been mainly a rumor with rushing efforts of 91, 91 and 82 yards the past three weeks against Big Ten foes. It marked the first time Junior George Atkinson III and the Irish have struggled to run the ball this year, averaging only 114.2 yards per game and 3.7 yards per carry after three subpar performances against Big Ten competition (91 yards against Michigan, 91 against Purdue and 82 against Michigan State). photo by bill panzica since the end of the 2008 campaign that the Irish had three straight games with less than 100 yards rushing: 41 yards in a 24‑23 loss to Syracuse, 50 in a 38-3 shellacking at USC, and 65 in a 49‑21 rout of Hawaii in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl to finish 7-6. The last time Notre Dame had four straight games with less than 100 yards rushing was during the 3-9 train wreck in 2007 … and you don't want to go there. "The last three weeks have been a real challenge for us in the running game," Kelly said. "We certainly have to run the ball better. We know that. I think ev✦ Page 12 erybody here in this room and America knows that." In addition to Golson, also gone from last season are running backs Theo Riddick and Cierre Wood, who rushed for 74 yards apiece at Norman last year, highlighted by Wood's 62-yard touchdown.