Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY ANDREW OWENS T he four quarters of an epic s h o w d o w n b e t w e e n N o t re Dame and Stanford mostly epitomized the 2015 Irish cam- paign. Without a number of players due to injury and facing an elite opponent, head coach Brian Kelly's squad fought for every point and every inch in one final gasp of a College Football Playoff pursuit. Just like its season, however, Notre Dame fell just short in excruci- ating fashion with a 38-36 loss at Stan- ford. The Irish sat on the College Football Playoff bubble for about a month, but that bubble burst after the program's fourth straight defeat in Palo Alto. Notre Dame engineered an 88-yard touchdown drive in the final minutes to temporarily go ahead, 36-35. With the Irish at their own 39-yard line on third-and-10, sophomore quar- terback DeShone Kizer fired a bullet to junior wide receiver Corey Robinson for a 22-yard gain to move the chains. On fourth-and-one at the Stanford 8-yard line, Kizer 's flip to freshman running back Josh Adams picked up six yards and a first down. On the next play, Kizer kept it and scored from two yards out for the touchdown. Fresh- man kicker Justin Yoon made the extra point to give the Irish a one-point lead. "I thought it was as good as it could get," Kelly said. "Four something on the clock, eat up the whole clock, make an incredible play on the third down, throw a big route under duress, run the ball physically. "I think he handled himself like a fifth-year senior, and he's just a fresh- man. If there's a bright spot there, obviously, the way DeShone Kizer played was pretty bright." Returning the football to Stanford with 30 seconds remaining in the game, however, proved to be too much time on the clock for fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan in his third career start against the Irish. Hogan drove the Cardinal 45 yards in four plays — aided by a 15-yard facemask penalty on junior defen- sive end Isaac Rochell — to set up the game-winning kick by senior Conrad Ukropina. A 27-yard pass from Hogan to fifth- year senior wide receiver Devon Ca- juste keyed the drive leading to the 45-yard field goal. "We've got too close down inside out on that seam route," Kelly said. "I thought we probably played it a little bit too much outside in and worried about backing up. "We've got to be more aggressive on the seam route." Trailing 35-29 early in the fourth quarter, Notre Dame's defense pro- vided a lift with consecutive third- down stops to force punts. It could not, however, protect a lead in the final 30 seconds. "It's unfair to look at one play and think that that defines a ballgame," fifth-year senior linebacker Joe Schmidt said. "It's shortsighted to do so. I think we needed to make one more play, and Stanford just did today." Notre Dame fell behind 14-7 after Stanford's first two drives of the game due to struggles to defend on third downs before improving in that de-