Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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in the trenches andrew owens talk about. I've got a football team here we're trying to develop and work with. You guys can have your own comments and decide what that means, and you can put us in whatever bowl you want. "We're dealing with our players. We've got to coach better, we've got to develop our players better, and we'll let you guys decide what that means." Moving forward — the Irish are at the halfway point in their schedule — the team has little margin for error to earn a spot in one of the four non-championship BCS bowls. Of the 134 teams that have qualified during the BCS era (1998-2012), only eight (5.9 percent) lost twice by the end of September. The list includes teams that benefited from being in weak conferences (Connecticut in 2010, Pittsburgh in 2004, and Virginia Tech in 2004 and 2010), a Wisconsin squad that snuck into the Big Ten championship game at 7-5 because NCAA sanctions eliminated Ohio State and Penn State from contention, and two other Big Ten champions (Wisconsin in 1999 and Purdue in 2000). If the Irish are to reach the BCS this season, it will require a near repeat performance of the eighth member of the list: the 2000 Notre Dame team that won its last seven games to earn a Fiesta Bowl invite (a 41-9 loss to Oregon State). Although the Irish could sneak into one of the marquee bowls with a 9-3 record and top-14 BCS ranking, proving their worthiness might be a tall task considering they have yet to earn a signature victory. With a defense struggling to resemble its 2012 form and a running game just starting to show signs of coming around, Notre Dame has bigger issues to tackle than its holiday plans, the team contends. "Right now, more importantly, we're just focusing on the loss in general, why we lost, how we lost," senior wide receiver TJ Jones said. "Our odds of making it to the BCS National Championship, that's not really the focus right now." In two recent seasons, the Irish faithful dreamt of running the table and reaching the BCS after two early-season losses. In 2009, a home loss to USC dropped Notre Dame to 5-2 with what looked like a manageable schedule the rest of the season against Washington State, Navy, Pittsburgh, Connecticut and Stanford. After topping the Cougars 4014 in the Shamrock Series matchup, the Irish dropped all four November games and fired head coach Charlie Weis. In 2011, after losing to South Florida and Michigan to begin the season, Notre Dame won four consecutive games heading into an October clash with USC. Again, BCS talks resurfaced until the Trojans flattened the Irish 31‑17. In the season finale, Stanford jumped out to a 21-0 lead and beat the Irish 28-14. While this year's Notre Dame squad is viewed as more competitive than its 2009 and 2011 versions, history has shown that these early-season struggles typically result in college football's version of Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a mountainside. ✦ Andrew Owens has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2013. He can be reached at aowens@blueandgold.com