Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/87622
FROM THE LOCKER ROOM Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly … On what he told his team at half- time: "We had not been in that posi- tion at all this year. I said, 'Listen, what did you think, we were going to go the whole year and not trail and do that the whole year?' You don't do that in college football, at any level. "I said, 'Stick with the plan; here is what's going on out there. Continue to play.' "We found a way to run the foot- line stand, where physically we con- trolled the line of scrimmage." ball, late, again, which tells me a lot about our physical preparation; that we are clearly a football team that can match physically with Stanford. "And then we had a great goal- Notre Dame senior safety Zeke Motta … On Irish fans storming the field: was just a matter of knowing what we have to do and getting the job done. Fighting and scratching and clawing to make sure we got it done. "It just goes to show you what you can do with the desire, passion and will that our defense has. Backed up like that — to go out and stop them speaks volumes." Notre Dame senior left tackle Zack Martin … On finally beating Stanford: "We're trying to take it one game at a time, but this is a game that at the beginning of the year everyone circled. The last two years, they had our number. They've handled us, and we wanted to make it a point that we are that physical team. I think we came and showed it to them." "It was definitely special. It was such an exciting time to come out and beat a team that's mentally and physically tough like that. It was probably one of the most physical games that we've had to play all sea- son. "To win and beat them [physi- beat a great team. We are feeling good at 6-0, but we are taking it week by week. We have a good BYU team next week, and we are lucky we don't have school this week so we get some time to study extra on them." On winning in overtime: "We cally], especially since they've beat us the past three years. It was just unbelievable and to just have the students come out on the field at the end of the game was just awesome." On the defense as a whole: "It Notre Dame junior nose guard Louis Nix III … just telling each other we need to get this stop. It was a big momentum swing, and I knew that if we got it, we would win the game. That's all we were thinking about that last play. The defense had to win it all, On the goal-line stand: "We were