Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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A fundamental flaw in kicking through the ball was corrected to where Irish head coach Brian Kelly said he is "not concerned in the least bit" with Yoon's abilities as the kicker. "He's still working through some fundamen- tals," Kelly said. "Justin is such a conscientious kid. He'll clean up a couple of the mistakes he made and make the adjustments necessary." However, point after tries are not as auto- matic as one might think. Granted, recently graduated Kyle Brindza missed only two his last three years. However, four of the top names in Irish kicking lore since 1980 missed their share. • In 1980, All-American Harry Oliver, whose 51-yard field goal as time elapsed beat Michi- gan, was 19 of 23 on extra points. • John Carney, one of the all-time greats in the NFL, missed five extra points at Notre Dame his last two seasons (1985-86), including one during a 24-23 loss to Michigan. • Craig Hentrich missed two his senior year in 1992 before embarking on a long NFL career, mainly as a punter. • One of three finalists for the Lou Groza Award in 2010, David Ruffer actu- ally missed three extra points that season. UNDER THE DOME THE SWAG SQUAD Notre Dame's scout squad on offense added a new dimension this year. Having to face the nation's two premier triple-option attacks this year in Georgia Tech (Sept. 19) and Navy (Oct. 10) in the first half of the season, special preparations were needed. Thus, the creation of SWAG — Students With Attitude & Game. At the end of last season, head coach Brian Kelly decided that preparing for the option in just the course of one week was not ideal. "I wanted to have something year-round that we could keep operational," Kelly said. Part of it was recruiting Darien, Ill., native Robert Regan, a pre-med major, as a preferred walk-on quarterback who specialized in the option at Hinsdale South High. The majority of the SWAG team is scholarship players, though, so Kelly and his staff built an esprit de corps around Regan. The help of special assistant to the head coach Bob Elliott also was significant. "Then I took them myself in camp to build the credibility of the unit, and I think that that set the tone of the importance of the unit," Kelly said. "I took them for 10 minutes of individual time, and then they met with Coach Elliott off the field … I think that all built the credibility of the SWAG team." Even more credibility was added when Georgia Tech, which had averaged 46.9 points in its previous 10 games, was held to seven through the first 59 minutes and 12 seconds Sept. 19. JUSTIN YOON