Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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IRISH AVOID PITFALL No. 3 Notre Dame survives in triple-overtime victory over Pittsburgh A BY DAN MURPHY terback Everett Golson scored from a yard away on the game's final play, four hours and seven minutes after the opening kick, to salvage a 29-26 triple-overtime win over Pittsburgh. Notre Dame had been Missed field goals and missed touchdowns. Costly turnovers, unchar- acteristic penalties and the ghosts of Notre Dame past. But for one night in South Bend, history failed to repeat itself. Irish sophomore quar- ll the ingredi- ents for another season-derailing upset were there. of the year laid an egg at home against Boston Col- lege in a game riddled with mistakes. The same script looked to be play- ing out Saturday against the Panthers. In the final minutes of the fourth quarter and the three extra periods that followed, Golson and his teammates rewrote the story so often told on Notre Dame's campus in recent history. They pushed their record to 9-0 in the process and kept their hopes for a national championship bid alive. "It was not our best ef- here before. A decade ago, an 8-0 Irish team ranked third in the country and coming off its biggest win fort," head coach Brian Kelly said. "Now hav- ing said that, we played a team that played ex- tremely well, and we found a way to win. That's a good thing." A 45-yard broken play completion to sophomore wide receiver DaVaris Daniels started the come- back with less than three minutes remaining in reg- ulation, and the Irish trail- ing by eight, 20-12. On the next play, Golson rolled to his right and found se- nior running back Theo Riddick wide open in the back of the end zone to pull the Irish within two points with 2:11 remain- ing on the clock. The rookie quarterback ex- hausted his throwing op- tions on the ensuing con- version, found a crease in the line of scrimmage and leaped across the goal line to tie the score 20-20 and force overtime. Golson finished the game with 227 passing yards and two touch- down passes. He also ran the ball 15 times for 74