Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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many schools about being "the first" or the "guinea pig" to do such a doc- umentary. In some cases there was initial excitement before backing off, and in other situations a school's own conference network contract frowned upon it. "We always said there are probably a dozen programs we would like to do this with, and unless we can get one of them, it wasn't worth doing the show," Stone said. "Notre Dame was right at the top of the list." One of the main reasons why was because Stone didn't want the project to be strictly about football. He wanted to humanize the student-athlete and the daily lives they face, including preparing for other tasks. That was highlighted during USC week, which also coincided with midterms. One of Stone's favorite lines in the series came from freshman defensive tackle Jerry Tillery when he said, "Saturday we play USC, but tonight I have to play chemistry." When head coach Brian Kelly was approached about the opportunity, he jumped at it, especially because of the knowledge that he had a bona fide top-10 team that could contend for a College Football Playoff berth. "There were several schools that did not have the confidence that Coach Kelly had," Stone said. "They said, 'Let me see the first season, and then we'll come back to you. We're defi- nitely in once we see what the show looks like.' "Oftentimes, though, the best is the first shot. There were three or four schools willing to take the shot, but Notre Dame had all the right ingre- dients for us: great program, great