Blue and Gold Illustrated

UNDER THE DOME thing to my best ability, and I just sectioned off my time. My dad taught me great discipline and time management skills — he's from the military — and there is a great foundation in that. "When it's football, I put my whole effort into football. Last week was a rough game. I didn't do what I needed to do to help the team be suc- cessful. I realize that, and now we have to move on. "But at the same time, I don't think I should be just doing football 24-7 when I have so many opportunities to influ- ence people's lives in a positive way. I can do service work, commu- nity work … those are just as important as foot- ball, and I put an equal amount of effort into those things. "It's not 20 percent f o o t b a l l , 2 0 p e rc e n t community, 20 percent school … I see it more like I put all of myself into it for that time al- lotted, and then I put all of myself into something else — and then I sleep, and start all over again the next day. "Notre Dame football is definitely prioritized. E v e r y t h i n g re v o l v e s around that. And then the three or four hours I have off, I can either take a nap, watch TV, or I can help Andrew Hel- min with that One Shirt, One Body initiative. In my pockets of free time, I just don't like to play video games. I like to read books, I like to make films, and I like to write plays." The best part of his script is still to be writ- ten, many times over. ✦ ELIMINATION FOOTBALL Of the last 12 national champions in the Football Bowl Subdivi- sion, only five finished undefeated. Such data is what gives Notre Dame a glimmer of hope that its aspiration to make the four-team College Football Playoff after the regular season can still be achieved despite the 24-22 loss at Clemson Oct. 3. When asked several days after the loss if he thinks the Irish can still be contenders, head coach Brian Kelly replied he wasn't sure. "You're on the clock now," Kelly said. "Every single weekend you're playing elimination football. … We do know what we can con- trol, and that is winning each week. What we really talked about is we have no margin for error, and we have to pay attention to every detail. … Each game is the biggest and most important game we play and really focusing on that." When the 6-0 Irish lost a heartbreaker at Florida State last year, the team eventually collapsed in November for a 7-5 regular-season finish. Because this is a much more veteran team, Kelly believes the dynamics are vastly different. This includes playing Navy and USC at home this October, and then having a bye. Kelly said there are four areas he believes will be vital, and only two were met at Clemson. "To win football games, you have to start fast, which we did not," he began. "There has to be an attention to detail, which certainly we were missing at times. We got great effort, and we finished strong. "We were missing two of the four real key components that I'll be looking for. … As long as we have those four key components, I'll take a win by one." Style points with blowout victories might be extra credit to the College Football Playoff committee, but the foremost objective for the Irish is any kind of W.

• Cover