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RECIPE FOR AN UPSET N otre Dame ran 104 plays Saturday in its triple-overtime win over Pittsburgh. It's not wonder that some are lost in the shuffle. Like a muffed punt on the Notre Dame 33-yard line with 1:40 left in the fourth quarter. MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY The ball slipped through the arms of freshman returner Davonte' Neal and took a dead bounce a yard in front of him. A little extra spin or a hop to the right or left and Pitt would have had the ball on the outskirts of field goal range at the end of regulation. Neal fell on the ball, the stadium exhaled and the Irish eventually escaped with their unbeaten season intact. Notre Dame has a perfect record, but it is far from a perfect team. If Las Ve- gas drew the lines now, the Irish would be favored in all three of their remaining regular-season games. They've earned that with an uncanny ability to finish in the first two-plus months of the season. Their flaws, though, present a potential recipe for disaster. The blueprint almost played out Saturday at home. If Notre Dame ends November with anything but a zero to the right of the hyphen in its win- loss record, we already know how it will get there. Special teams is the first part of the puz- zle. Underdogs can flip field position and momentum with a big play in the punting game. Due to the low-scoring, defense- first style Notre Dame has employed this season, one muffed punt or one long re- turn could be the difference between win- ning or losing. The Irish have narrowly avoided those problems so far, but Boston College's Spiffy Evans and any one of the ridiculously athletic USC returners have the potential to change that. Notre Dame, on the other hand, averages 2.62 yards per punt return (which does not fall solely on the shoulders of Neal) and hasn't sniffed a game-shifting play with any of its return teams. The kicking game has also been incon- sistent with kickoffs, punts and field goals. Again, that could be a fatal issue for a team that plays in close games. Sopho- more Kyle Brindza has missed important field goal attempts in half of his games as the team's top option — Purdue, BYU, Oklahoma and Pittsburgh. Each time he's been granted a second chance to redeem himself and taken advantage. "I always look for is the game affect- ing a player," head coach Brian Kelly said when asked about Brindza's ability to bounce back under pressure. "Are the circumstances affecting a player? That doesn't affect him. It's mechanical." Brindza has connected on 73.9 percent of his kicks this year. If his problems stem strictly from technique and not the cir- cumstance, sooner or later one of those mishaps is likely to come at the end of a close game rather than in the middle of it. Despite his success rate, Brindza is still sixth in the nation in made field goals with 17. That's not a good sign for the Irish offense. Ohio is the only team in the country that has attempted more field goals that Notre Dame this season. The Irish can fin- ish games, but finishing drives has been a different story. They score points only 76.1 percent of the time they get inside the 20-yard line (96th nationally). They score touchdowns on 45.7 percent of those red zone trips (114th nationally). Tight quarters near the end zone expose any shortcomings in a rookie quarterback. "It's harder to stretch vertically, so obvi- ously you have tighter throws; you have Sophomore quarterback Everett Golson and the Irish rank just 96th nationally in red zone offense (scoring on 76.1 percent of their possessions) and are 114th nationally in scoring touchdowns in the red zone (45.7). to be more accurate; you have to have precision," Kelly said. "That's not a word that's thrown around very easily in our room right now. Precision is not what we have yet." Golson is closing the gap, but his fourth quarter interception against Pitt is a perfect example of the lack of precision Kelly ref- erenced. The Irish also left two touchdowns off the board early in last Saturday's game. Missed opportunities rank right next to turnovers in the elements of an upset. ✦ PAGE 21 PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA Notre Dame did not luck its way into the top of the BCS rankings. No team can fall backward into a 9-0 record. But after a karmic nightmare in 2011, the Irish are reaping the benefits of the bounce in big moments this season. Eventually the breaks will fall the other way, and Notre Dame will have to hope it has some of its finer points cleaned up by then. ✦ E-mail Dan at dmurphy@blueandgold.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @BGI_DanMurphy.