Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME (33‑7). Kentucky and Maryland tied for a distant second with 62 apiece. • The two Irish basketball teams combined for a 68‑9 record (32‑6 for men and 36‑3 for the women), an ex‑ traordinary .883 winning percentage that was the nation's best. No. 2 was Maryland at .861 with a combined 62‑10 (28‑7 for men and 34‑3 for the women). The Irish women defeated Maryland by 20 points this season. • The Irish men were a remarkable 8‑2 against this year's Sweet 16 field: 2‑1 versus eventual national champion Duke, 2‑0 against North Carolina, and 1‑0 versus Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina State and Wichita State. A heart‑breaking 68‑66 loss to No. 1 Kentucky in the Elite Eight was the other loss. Notre Dame's nine victories against the coaches' poll final top 25 was the most ever by the program in one season. • The women this year lost to No. 1 UConn in the NCAA championship game, but from the final coaches poll after the NCAA Tournament it van‑ quished No. 3 South Carolina, No. 4 Maryland, No. 5 Baylor, No. 6 Tennes‑ see, No. 7 Florida State (twice), No. 9 North Carolina, No. 10 Louisville, No. 12 Duke (twice) and No. 14 Stan‑ ford. Other than the two losses to national champ Connecticut, Notre Dame was 11‑0 against the teams ranked Nos. 3 through 14. • Finally, both the men's and wom‑ en's programs featured perfect 100 fig‑ ures in the Graduation Success Rate released by the NCAA in October 2014. Duke and Dayton were the only other two schools to have such marks in men's and women's basketball. "Hoops Dreams" resided at Notre Dame in 2014‑15. JEFF QUINN, PRYCE TRACY HIRED AS SUPPORT STAFF Notre Dame's growing coaching infrastructure added two more to its support staff in March with Jeff Quinn as an analyst on offense and Pryce Tracy an analyst on special teams. Members of the support staff cannot coach in practice or in games (home and away), but can attend them and offer input in staff meetings, game planning and in the film room. They can also recruit on campus, but not off it. Quinn served as Irish head coach Brian Kelly's right‑hand man in 21 years together from 1989‑2009 at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and Cincinnati before Quinn accepted the head coaching position for the University at Buffalo, where he was fired this fall. "He'll have a myriad of different things that he'll be responsible for," Kelly said. "Jeff obviously is somebody I have a great deal of respect for. … As we move forward, he'll have different responsibili‑ ties in terms of offensive oversight. … Just more brainpower in the room is what we're looking for." Tracy was with the Fighting Irish last year with a recruiting and personnel role. Previously he had been at Alabama, where his duties included player evaluation breakdowns, compiling the recruit‑ ing board and helping with the daily operations of the 2011 and 2012 Nick Saban Summer Camp. A defensive analyst is still to be hired.