Blue and Gold Illustrated

UNDER THE DOME Trailing 21-7 in the second half, Notre Dame's Julius Jones returns a kickoff 100 yards and Joey Getherall tallies an 83-yard punt return to knot the game at 21 with 12:48 left in regulation. With the score still tied, the Irish take possession at their 30 with two timeouts and 1:07 remaining. However, with quarterback Arnaz Battle (who didn't know he had a broken wrist and would miss the final 10 games) only 3-of-15 passing for 40 yards with one interception, Davie opts to run out the clock and take his chances in overtime. "Without question it was the right decision to put that game into overtime," Davie comments after the contest. "I would do the same thing 10 out of 10 times." A Nicholas Setta field goal gives the Irish a tem- porary 24-21 lead, but Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch's seven-yard scoring run clinches the vic- tory. More disillusioning to first-year Notre Dame ath- letics director Kevin White is 4,000 tickets were allotted to Nebraska — yet Notre Dame Stadium becomes a "Sea of Red" with an estimated 30,000 Cornhuskers faithful in attendance. Most of them find tickets at prices ranging from $600 to $2,000. "I wish I was colorblind," White told The New York Times. "I'm very disappointed." 10 Years Ago: Sept. 10, 2005 Unranked in the preseason, Notre Dame under first-year head coach Charlie Weis directs the Irish to a 17-10 win at No. 3 Michigan one week after debuting with a 42-21 victory at Pitt. Notre Dame advertises it as the first time a Notre Dame first-year coach opened with back-to-back wins at another team's on-campus stadium to start 2-0 since Knute Rockne in 1918. "If I dignified that [comment], [Bill] Parcells and [Bill] Belichick would just humiliate me," Weis said of what his mentors would say of the Rockne com- parison. "I've coached two games … let's come back and revisit that about 10 years from now." — Lou Somogyi Head coach Bob Davie and the Irish, who were coming off a 5-7 campaign, took No. 1 Nebraska to the wire before losing 27-24 in overtime on Sept. 9, 2000. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS

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