Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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toss from Tino Sunseri at the goal line to give Pitt a 17-6 lead. Pittsburgh, specifically senior running back Ray Graham, found a way to poke more holes in the Irish defense than any other team so far this season. Graham carried the ball 24 times for 172 yards against a defense that had allowed only one other triple-digit rusher (Stanford's Step- fan Taylor) in its first eight games. He barreled over Irish Irish possession, but video replay showed he was down short of the end zone. Riddick went backwards on his next two attempts, and Notre Dame kicked another field goal despite snap- ping the ball eight times from inside the 10-yard line. "I think us not being sophomore safety Mat- thias Farley on his way to the game's first touch- down in the second quarter. Graham's 16- yard score was the last of a string of four straight plays that went for at least 10 yards. Graham also started the game with a 55-yard burst through the middle of the field on Pitt's first play from scrimmage. Notre Dame started the game by driving to red zone twice, but settled for field goals both times. A false start penalty stalled an efficient opening march and brought on sophomore Kyle Brindza for a 37-yard field goal. Riddick lunged across the goal line on the next field goal attempt from 43 yards out as time expired in the second quarter to send the Irish to their locker room trailing 10-6. He also missed a crucial extra point after Golson's first touchdown pass to TJ Jones, from 11 yards out, in the fourth quarter. As he has done several times this year, Brindza bounced back to connect from 37 yards out to tie the game in the first over- time. Notre Dame was far able to not put the ball in the end zone was a big problem," Riddick said. "It would have been a completely different game if we had 14 points there. … That's some- thing that we have to im- prove on quickly." Brindza missed a third from perfect in all three stages of the game, but Pittsburgh gave them op- portunities to crawl back into the game and, like Brindza, the Irish took advantage. Pitt dropped to 4-5 with the loss, while Notre Dame moved to 9-0. The Irish survived another week in what is shap- ing up to be a four-team race to the finish line for a chance to play for a na- tional championship in January. No. 1 Alabama outlasted LSU on the road, and Oregon and Kansas State each won shootouts to stay unde- feated as well. A pair of Atlantic Coast Conference teams — Bos- ton College and Wake Forest — remain on the slate before a season- finale showdown with a vulnerable USC team in Los Angeles. Even if the Irish win out, they will likely need some help from the other unbeat- ens to get a ticket to Mi- ami. But that won't keep Kelly up at night, he has enough to keep him busy in South Bend. "We can't worry about all those other things. We really can't," he said. "I could be politically cor- rect and say I care, we're going to watch it. But we've got a lot of work to do with our football team." ✦