Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Notre Dame community, including director of athletics Jack Swarbrick, for the positive portrayal of the life of a student-athlete on the campus. By the end of the season, other schools throughout the country reached out to Showtime to have such a series on them in the future. "Knowing now what I know about how it's been a positive thing, I would do it again … but I wouldn't bring them back in for a second year," Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly said. Not without some more editing power. Stay tuned for potential fu- ture such endeavors. GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY! Some day when the book is written on the 100 or so greatest athletes ever to don the blue and gold in all sports, cross country/track star Molly Seidel will be prominent on the chart. On Nov. 21, the senior Seidel won the national title in the 6,000-meter race and then in the spring became the first Fighting Irish athlete to win four different national titles in a single season in indoor and outdoor meets. Also an Academic All-Ameri- can, she posted a 3.54 grade-point av- erage in her biological anthropology major, with a minor in sustainability. CLOSER … BUT STILL NOT THERE It's a backhanded compliment to say "Notre Dame was the best 10-3 team in the country," but when the three losses were to teams that fin- ished in the top five — Clemson (24-22), Stanford (38-36) and Ohio State (44-28) in the Fiesta Bowl — it's better understood. The Fighting Irish also needed 11th-hour excellence from the De- Shone Kizer to Will Fuller combina- tion to eke out fourth-quarter rallies on the road against Virginia (34-27) and Temple (24-20). Given the personnel setbacks, it was a good season, but an unful- filling one after 8-1 Notre Dame couldn't capitalize on its No. 4 rank- ing in the College Football Playoff selection committee poll. The lack of style points in wins over 3-9 Wake Forest and 3-9 Boston College, and an inability to make a defensive stop after taking the lead at Stanford with 25 seconds remaining — before drop- ping to 0-7 since 1994 in major bowls with the loss to the Buckeyes (aver- age margin of defeat of 20 points) — left a "can't get over the hump" malaise. "Keep playing them, get in them," said Kelly, who in January signed a six-year contract extension through 2021, of New Year 's Six or College Football Playoff outings. "Keep building our program, keep doing it the way we're doing it, and we're going to win these games." For now, Notre Dame is still a "team." It was a "program" from 1988-93 with 23- and 17-game win- ning streaks, a 5-1 record in major bowls, a national title and two near misses. EARLY EXIT SIGNS When Notre Dame advanced dur- ing the 2012 season to the BCS Na- tional Championship Game, it was