Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Top Of The Class Blas Moros ✦ Sr., Men’s Tennis Moros started the year on a high note by beating Illinois’ Stephen Hoh in straight sets to earn a place on the OFCC Invitational All-Tournament Team. Moros has won 20 matches in each of his first three seasons with the Irish and comes into the year as the team’s No. 2 singles player. He pushed Irish professional James Cluskey (No. 213 on the ATP Tour) to a third-set superset during an exhibition in Dublin earlier this month. Rebecca Tracy ✦ Sr., Cross Country In her final run of the National Catholic Championships hosted at Notre Dame each year, Tracy cruised to a first-place finish in the five-kilometer race with a time of 17:11. She shaved 21 seconds off her time from last fall and jumped from sixth place to the winner’s circle to extend the Irish winning streak to 10 straight years. Her time also helped the Irish defend their overall team title, easily beating the rest of the 35-team field. Lindsey Weaver ✦ Fr., Women’s Golf In her first collegiate tournament, Weaver led the Irish to a third-place finish at the Mary Fossum Invitational in East Lansing, Mich. The Arizona native shot a four-over-par 220 over 54 holes to tie Purdue’s Laura Gonzalez for the tournament’s sixth-best score. She was a four-time Rolex Junior All-American golfer in high school and was the No. 3 recruit in the country this year, according to the Junior Golf Scoreboard. Luke Mishu ✦ Jr., Men’s Soccer Mishu stretched Notre Dame’s Big East player of the week streak to four on Sept. 18 when he was named the conference’s Defensive Player of the Week. The junior defender played a key role in the team posting back-to-back shutouts against rivals Michigan and Michigan State last weekend, bringing its shutout streak to a total of 235 minutes and counting. He started six games as a sophomore and was named a Big East Academic All-Star. Irish Try To Avoid Noise Pollution What a difference one week can make in the perception of Notre Dame’s football program. Notre Dame’s 20-3 victory at then-No. 10 Michigan State on Sept. 15 vaulted the Irish from 20th to No. 11 in the Associated Press poll, its highest ranking since having the same placement entering the 2007 Sugar Bowl against No. 4 LSU (a 41-14 Irish loss). Suddenly, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and CBSSports’ Jerry Palm projected the Irish to play in the Fiesta Bowl versus West Virginia, while ESPN’s Brad Edwards had a Notre Dame-Texas matchup in the Fiesta. From head coach Brian Kelly’s perspective, he’s handling Notre Dame’s locker room the same way when he did when he was 34-6 in his three seasons at Cincinnati, highlighted by the 12‑0 regular season in 2009 that landed him into a second straight BCS bowl and the Notre Dame job. The approach is a defined with a four-step process laid out for all to see on a sign in the Irish locker room: 1) Don’t believe or fuel the hype. 2) Manage expectations. 3) Avoid the noise. 4) Speak for yourself. Kelly hung the sign before the start of the 2011 season, and he hopes the message has been around long enough to be ground into their subconscious. He didn’t sense any change in his team while preparing for Michigan. “I sensed a very similar, purposeful type of work ethic. ” Kelly said. “I will say this: My group last year was very similar. They did a very good job in those areas. The real difference is we’re executing a little better on Saturdays. We’re not turning the football over, we’re playing great run defense, our special teams are better. There’s been a consistent theme in that. “This group is the one that I thought it would be. They’re continuing on that path.” Point ✦ Counterpoint: What’s The Most Surprising Upset For A Notre Dame Opponent So Far This Season? BYU’s Surprising Setback By Wes Morgan Brigham Young finished 10-3 last season and entered 2012 with 14 returning starters and high hopes. After thumping Washington State 30-6 and steamrolling Weber State 45-13, the Cougars hit the road for the first time this fall and got hit in the mouth by rival Utah, 24-21, on Sept. 15. Make no mistake, it wasn’t the same Utah program that gained footing under former head coach Urban Meyer and later produced an undefeated season in 2008 under current head coach Kyle Whittingham, who led the Utes to 10-win seasons the following two years. It was the Utah that went 4-5 in its first year in the Pacific-12 Conference in 2011 and had lost the previous week to Utah State. Brigham Young landed at No. 25 in the Associated Press rankings in week two, a position it held until squaring off with Utah. But the wheels fell off for the Cougars, who turned the ball over six times. All the proof one needs to understand how big an upset this was for Utah is the fact that Utes fans rushed the field three separate times — twice before time had expired. The premature celebration after BYU had a 51-yard field goal blocked nearly cost the home team a victory, with the Cougars getting a shot at a 36-yard field goal because of a 15-yard penalty assessed to the crowd. Instead, Riley Stephenson’s 36-yard attempt clanked off the left upright. Pitt-Fall? By Dan Murphy September’s winner in the “Where in the world did that come from?” category is Pittsburgh’s first win under new head coach Paul Chryst. The Panthers didn’t stumble out of the gate — they did a face-plant. Chryst lost his first two games as a head coach by embarrassing margins to Youngstown State (31‑17) and Cincinnati (34-10). The Pitt offense looked lost as a roster full of players built for speed tried to adjust to the team’s new blue-collar offensive mentality. The Bearcats hung more total yardage and points on the Pitt defense in their Thursday night game in week two than they did on Delaware State the following week. Then, in the box-of-chocolates world of college football’s first few weeks, the unbeaten, 13th-ranked Hokies gave Pittsburgh as hospitable of an ACC greeting card as one could imagine. The Panthers, who will join the conference next fall, looked like a different team against Virginia Tech. Quarterback Tino Sunseri was efficient and effective. Freshman running back Rushel Shell ran for 157 yards, and veteran Ray Graham scored three times. Pitt won 35-17 to gives its head coach a much-needed check in the win column. After two weeks of football, Notre Dame fans could’ve used a Sharpie marker to write in an Irish win on Nov. 3. After the Virginia Tech upset, it’s time to bust out the whiteout. Pitt has the potential to ruin a day.