Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Game winner: A Notre Dame-record nine lead changes in one game saw the final tally come on a one-yard TD dive by freshman running back Tarean Folston with 3:47 remaining. Oct. 4, 2014: 17-14 vs. Stanford Trailed in fourth: 14-10 Game winner: On fourth-and-11 from the Stanford 23, Golson found senior tight end Ben Koyack in the end zone for the go-ahead score with 1:01 left. Oct. 11, 2014: 50-43 vs. North Carolina Trailed in fourth: 36-35 Game winner: One week later, Folston caught a touchdown pass and ran for a TD in the fourth quar- ter to build a 50-36 cushion. Nov. 1, 2014: 49-39 at Navy Trailed in fourth: 31-28 Game winner: Golson scored twice and Folston once to stave off the scrappy Midshipmen a second straight year. Sept. 12, 2015: 34-27 at Virginia Trailed in fourth: 27-26 Game winner: In for injured junior starter Malik Zaire, sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer found junior wideout Will Fuller on a 39-yard scoring strike with only 12 seconds left. Oct. 17, 2015: 41-31 vs. USC Trailed in fourth: 31-24 Game winner: The Irish outscored the Trojans 17-0 in the fourth quarter, with the go-ahead TD coming on a 10-yard pass from Kizer to junior wide receiver Corey Robinson with 9:06 remaining. Oct. 31, 2015: 24-20 at Temple Trailed in fourth: 20-17 Game winner: The Kizer-to-Fuller combination connected again, this time on a 17-yard tally with 2:09 left. ✦ Comeback History Next to Lou Holtz and Brian Kelly each having 13 victories with fourth-quarter rallies, the next in line among Notre Dame coaches is Dan Devine with nine in his six seasons from 1975-80. The initial one was in 1975 when sophomore quarterback Joe Mon- tana recorded the first of his six fourth-quarter comebacks at Notre Dame with a 21-14 win at North Carolina (after trailing 14-0 entering the fourth quarter). The last came in 1980 with Harry Oliver's 51-yard field goal against Michigan as time expired in the 29-27 victory. In what can be construed as a positive, Ara Parseghian had five such victories in his 11 seasons (1964-74) — and his first didn't occur until his seventh year, a 10-7 win versus Georgia Tech in which the Irish game-winning touchdown was scored with 6:28 left in the contest. Most of the time the Irish found themselves comfortably ahead in the fourth quarter. From the start of the Knute Rockne era (1918-30) through the Frank Leahy years (1941-43, 1946-53), Notre Dame totaled a dozen wins in which it had to rally from a deficit in the fourth quarter. Both Holtz and Kelly had more such wins in 11 and six years, respectively, than the combined total in the 36 seasons from 1918-53. The immortal George Gipp kept Notre Dame's unbeaten year alive in 1920 when he led a 13-point fourth quarter to defeat Indiana, 13-10. The most famous rally of all during that time was the 18-13 victory at unbeaten Ohio State in 1935 when the Irish scored all 18 points in the fourth quarter. — Lou Somogyi In six seasons, Dan Devine won nine games in the fourth quarter in which the Irish trailed. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS