Blue and Gold Illustrated

UNDER THE DOME 'Tipping Point' Not A Problem, Per Brian Kelly In baseball, oftentimes the struggles of a pitcher will eventually be revealed as a result of one's tipping his pitches and providing the hitter an advance warning of what is coming, a significant advantage in that sport. According to one opposing player, the Irish offensive line committed its own version of that in its first loss of the season. Following the 24-22 win over Notre Dame Oct. 3, Clemson's standout defensive lineman Shaq Lawson told reporters the Irish offensive line was tipping its play calls during its pre-snap alignment. Notre Dame rushed for a season-low 116 yards in the road loss with sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer totaling 60, most of which were not on designed runs. It took a late second-half surge for the Irish to climb out of a 21-3 deficit for an eventual two-point loss. "We study all of that stuff very diligently, and there is really nothing that we can discern from what we do," head coach Brian Kelly said. "We change up our stance, we're in a two-point, we put our hand down when it's pass, we're in two-point when it's run, so we do a pretty good job of moving the back. Maybe they had a lot of time [with 16 days of preparation]. "I know when they needed to get to our quarterback and they knew it was pass, they couldn't get to him." Senior running back C.J. Prosise was held to 50 yards on 15 carries, while the offensive line struggled to achieve much of a push in the first half. Notre Dame mostly leaned on its passing attack in the final 30 minutes while trailing by double digits the majority of the half. Sign Of The Time: ND Bans Social Media During Games After a 1-4 start to the season, Texas head coach Charlie Strong had yet another headache to deal with, this one off the field. With the Longhorns trailing 37-0 at halftime of a 50-7 loss, cornerback Kris Boyd retweeted a message on social media on his phone in the locker room. He later apologized. Asked whether Notre Dame has a rule against using social media during games, head coach Brian Kelly confirmed the Irish indeed do. "We prohibit the use of cell phones, and certainly at any time during a game they are not to be used," Kelly said. "That is a rule within the program. Relative to our players, they do have them with them because they listen to music on the bus. "They'll even use music in the locker room. So we're aware that they have them, but they know they can't be on their phones at any time when we're together as a football team when we put our uniforms on." While no Notre Dame player has broken that rule during Kelly's tenure, several have been disciplined for tweeting out information the head coach prefers to keep inside the program, with the most recent example being defensive lineman Jay Hayes. The sophomore tweeted his frustration with not playing and subsequently was not included on the travel roster to the team hotel in South Bend prior to the home game against UMass Sept. 26. Kelly allows his players to use Twitter as long as they follow the program's guidelines, but certain teams — including Clemson — prohibit their players from posting during the season.

• Cover