Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME ✦ GIMME FIVE Since 1946, Notre Dame has played Navy, Purdue and USC every season. That streak with Purdue will end after this year be- cause of a combination of the Big Ten going to a nine-game sched- ule and Notre Dame's commit- ment as a partial football member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Fighting Irish are commit- ted annually to playing a regular season with six home games, five road games and an off-site home game in the Shamrock Se- ries. With five games against ACC opponents and annual games against Navy, USC and Stanford (one game per year in California to keep a recruiting presence there), and series coming up against Texas and Georgia, that leaves room for only one more road game per season. The next scheduled meetings between the Irish and Boilers will be at Purdue on Sept. 19, 2020; at Notre Dame on Sept. 18, 2021; at Purdue on Sept. 14, 2024; at Notre Dame on Sept. 13, 2025; and at an undetermined neutral site in 2026. Here are the five teams Notre Dame has played most often entering this week's game with Purdue. Opponent Games Played 1. Navy 87 (74-12-1) 2t. Purdue 85 (57-26-2) 2t. USC 85 (45-35-5) 4. Michigan State 77 (48-28-1) 5. Pittsburgh 69 (47-21-1) Fixing The Safety Valves The safety position has seen its share of upheaval the past year. Nineteen-game starter and senior Matthias Farley was shifted to nickel/corner this spring, captain and fifth-year senior Austin Col- linsworth suffered a strained MCL two days before the Aug. 30 Rice opener that might sideline him for much of September, senior Eilar Hardy received news the week of the Rice game that he would be with- held from practice during an academic probe, and junior Nicky Baratti is recovering from a couple of shoulder surgeries that sidelined him in 2013. With sophomore Max Redfield making only his second career start at free safety and junior Elijah Shumate suddenly thrust into Col- linsworth's "quarterback of the de- fense" role after taking limited reps with the starters, Irish head coach Brian Kelly faulted a lack of commu- nication along the defensive backline for several huge plays yielded in the 48-17 rout of Rice. "We needed somebody to pick it up [at safety] and neither one of those guys picked up the slack," Kelly said candidly the next day in his tele- conference. "Whatever we have to do, we'll get better back there be- tween those two guys and making sure they communicate better." Kelly said in the Monday film session after Rice, defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder made his points clear. "I was in the quarterback meeting room and I could hear our safeties communicating very well during film study," Kelly said with a chuckle. Even if Hardy and junior cornerback KeiVarae Russell — also involved in the academic probe — returned to the team immediately, Kelly would likely leave Shumate and Redfield on the back line, instead of moving either Farley or fifth-year senior Cody Riggs from cornerback to safety. "Both [Shumate and Redfield] are the kind of skill plays we want back there," Kelly said. "We just have to address that issue." Without Collinsworth on the field, the vast majority of play calling and alignment responsibilities fell to senior linebacker Joe Schmidt, whom Kelly singled out as probably the best defensive player in the opener. Notre Dame needs junior Elijah Shumate to rise to the occasion, notably with defensive play calling, while he fills in for fifth-year senior starting safety Austin Collinsworth (strained MCL). PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA