Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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murphy's Law dan murphy that ended in a Pitt touchdown in the third quarter. These were warts that Notre Dame thought it had lanced by now. They were at least supposed to be frozen into submission in November, when Brian Kelly's teams so often round into form. The loss to Pitt was only the third for Kelly in the final month of the regular season in the past seven years. "You're not going to win football games when you turn the ball over. You have to execute in the red zone," fifth-year senior left tackle Zack Martin said. "It's just old things that we've gone through before, and we've gotten beat by it before." The miscues never completely disappeared from Notre Dame's game. Even during an undefeated regular season in 2012 there were plenty of errors. The Panthers, who for whatever reason are particularly adept at bringing out the worst in the Irish, witnessed its share of them last year. The difference was that Notre Dame team had a defense it could rely on to mask most of its shortcomings. Whatever corner the Irish backed themselves into, they swung their way out with turnovers or heroic goal-line stands a year ago. In its last two games, Notre Dame has faced nine plays from inside its 10-yard line. Six of them ended in touchdowns. What changed? "We have some different players," Kelly said. "Not to take anything from the guys that are out there battling, but it's a different team and different players." Yes, Notre Dame misses Manti Te'o, and the defensive line is threadbare at the moment. Yes, Everett Golson could have helped turn Notre Dame's offense into the group that bailed out its counterpart this season instead of the other way around. Both are wellestablished tropes by now. Those are valid excuses for losing games in September. Ten games into the season, though, personnel deficiencies shouldn't be a part of the discussion. "This is the team we've got," Kelly has said in some paraphrased way several times this season. To be fair, he said it again following the loss to Pittsburgh and stopped the buck at his own feet, blaming himself and the coaches for not getting the team they've got ready to execute. A good program weathers losses like Te'o and Golson and keeps moving forward, and Notre Dame is good enough to do that. That's not the problem. The players that took the field versus Pitt had enough talent and enough experience to win 10 games this season. Blame whomever you want. The Irish will be spending bowl season in Detroit or Shreveport or some other uninspiring corner of college football's postseason map not because they weren't good enough to go elsewhere. They'll miss the BCS because when they wrestled loose an opportunity to get back to the big stage in 2013, they failed to pick it up and run with it. ✦ Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com