Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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murphy's Law dan murphy "Executing a situation here or there, and it may be different. Hats off to Stanford, they're a great team." Rees threw two interceptions that killed potentially game-changing drives. So did Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan, and the turnover battled ended in a push. Hogan threw a 16yard touchdown. Rees threw a 14-yard touchdown. Stanford's defense stopped the Irish twice in the red zone and held them to field goals in the first half. Notre Dame returned the favor in the second half. Cardinal running back Anthony Wilkerson turned a third-and-long run into a 20-yard touchdown to start the third quarter. The Irish converted a pair of third-and-10 plays on highlightreel catches en route to a touchdown that ended the third quarter. Both teams made enough big plays to win the game, all the other plays in between made the difference. On those, Stanford handed to senior Tyler Gaffney 33 times for 189 methodical yards. The Cardinal plodded its way to manageable, boring down-and-distance plays and then prevented the Irish offense (24 carries for 64 yards) from doing the same. Notre Dame fell to 8-4 on the season, an unacceptable mark by its own new standards. It isn't hard to find the few big plays that might have made the difference. A missed open receiver here, a broken tackle there and the Irish are sorting through BCS possibilities this week. "Eight and four is not where we want to be," Kelly said. "We lost some tough games, but those are just excuses. We want to win football games. We come to Notre Dame to win football games." Since Kelly came to Notre Dame the model and measuring stick for winning football games has been the Cardinal. Stanford has won 45 games in those four years and never less than 10 in a single season. The Irish have won at least eight each season under Kelly, but only reached double digits once. "That's not an accomplishment," senior cornerback Bennett Jackson said. "It's a disappointment. We've got so much potential on our team, and things just didn't roll our way this year. I could easily have seen our team going 12-0, but stupid mistakes here and there caused us to lose." Footballs roll in funny ways. Stupid mistakes and dumb luck follow every team in the country. The good teams, the ones that don't worry about eightwin seasons, find a way to make sure none of that matters. It's not about getting the ball to roll your way. It's not about making one more big play than the other guys. Eventually luck will fall the other way in those games. The key is consistently converting enough mundane plays that you don't have to rely on the big ones. A few more yards under Rees' last pass might have sprung the Irish for a tying score. They might have won the game. But firing shots at flashes of hope is no way to sustain success. ✦ Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com