Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI might have been a score … "If you look at it, you could prob- ably make the case, 'Hey, they played clean, they didn't have penalties,'" Kelly said. "But we had some things in there that we felt were mistakes that maybe weren't looked at." Such is the construction of a champi- onship team. For at least the past decade and a half, there always seemed to be rationaliza- tion after another 6-6, 5-7 or even 9-3 Notre Dame season that "we're only one, two, three …. plays away from 10-2, 11-1, maybe even 12-0." Truth is most any college team at this level can be one to 10 plays away from prosperity or merely bowl eligibility. This year's Purdue Boilermakers had both unbeaten Notre Dame and un- beaten Ohio State on the ropes — on the road, no less — but couldn't finish the job in the closing minutes. It's the difference between 5-3 and 3-5, a 24-7 lead in the second half at Michi- gan could have been just as easily 35-7 — and a true top-10 caliber team would have made it happen. But it didn't come down to "one play" in that eventual 35-31 loss. Rather, it was a confluence of earlier situations that didn't need the 60-minute game to come down to "one play" in the first place. Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick a year ago outlined to Blue & Gold Illustrated what he believed were the three crucial elements needed to re- turn Notre Dame's football program to power. The first was stability within the infrastructure, specifically at head coach. The second was building legitimate depth, not just "numbers." (Everyone has those in college football, too, just like near misses or pulsating wins.) "The third is success," Swarbrick said. have been 7-1, 6-2, 5-3 or even 4-4 with just one errant play against Purdue, Michigan, Stanford or BYU. Perhaps in years past, the Irish would and a much hotter seat for head coach Danny Hope. It's a competitive, unfor- giving industry. There is a reason why some programs struggle to finish while others have a knack of accomplishing it, as Notre Dame did through the first two months of this year. Instead of the 8-0 start, the Irish could "You have to know you're going to pre- vail. "[Former Indianapolis Colts head coach and Super Bowl champion] Tony Dungy always preached that virtually every game came down to less than five plays. "And in those moments, success has of a hold again. Nobody's truly ever perfect in the have collapsed, or maybe even fallen be- hind farther than 10-3 or 14-7 at halftime against the Cardinal or Cougars, and then made it close at the end to be able to lament "how close" they were. It could have been like last year where competitive world of athletics, but the record still can be. ✦ Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com to be part of your fiber. You have to be- lieve you're going to make those plays." Step three just might be taking more