Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME ✦ GIMME FIVE Former Notre Dame wide re- ceiver Golden Tate (2007-09) became the 39th different Fight- ing Irish football player to win a Super Bowl ring when his Seattle Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII Feb. 2. Tate's Notre Dame teammate David Bruton (2005-08) also made his Super Bowl debut as Denver's special teams captain. Bruton was the first former Notre Dame football player to be a part of the opening coin toss since Justin Tuck captained the New York Giants in 2012. A Notre Dame player has par- ticipated in the Super Bowl on 74 occasions, which ranks tied for fifth all time among Football Bowl Subdivision schools accord- ing to Stats, Inc. USC is No. 1 with 94. Twenty-nine of the 39 former Notre Dame players to earn Su- per Bowl rings actually partici- pated in the game. That contin- gent has combined to capture 44 titles, which ranks third all time among FBS schools, per Stats, Inc. Here are the top five schools in that category: Team Super Bowl Wins 1. USC 56 2. Miami (Fla.) 49 3. Notre Dame 44 4. Penn State 43 5. UCLA 42 Notre Dame Finishes Fall Eighth In Directors' Cup Notre Dame finished eighth in the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup final standings in fall sports. Nine sports were measured during the fall, including the Football Championship Series (FCS), which was won by North Dakota State. Notre Dame scored points in five of the six fall sports in which it competes. • 45 points in women's cross country (29th-place finish). • 50 points in football for finishing 24th in the USA Today coaches' poll. • 51 points in men's cross country (23rd). • 64 in women's soccer (ninth). • 100 in men's soccer (national title), the maximum point total possible. Notre Dame does not offer two of the NCAA fall sports — field hockey and men's water polo — and it did not score in women's volleyball. Five of the top 10 teams are from the Atlantic Coast Confer- ence, Notre Dame's new league. Stanford, which has won the Directors' Cup each of the last 19 years, was at its familiar No. 1 perch. A total of 148 schools at various levels scored points dur- ing the fall season. The Learfield Sports Directors' Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today. Points are awarded based on each institution's finish in up to 20 sports — 10 women's and 10 men's. Here were the top 10 in the fall sports segment, with point totals: 1. Stanford — 461.25 2. Michigan State — 382.5 3. Florida State — 351.5 4. North Carolina — 333.0 5. Virginia — 323.0 6t. Penn State — 315.0 6t. Wisconsin — 315.0 8. Notre Dame — 310.0 9. Duke — 293.0 10. Colorado — 286.0