Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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what's at stake now. This is about an un- defeated season. They cannot do anything else but beat USC. The rest is up to other people to decide," head coach Brian Kelly said hours before watching the two teams that would have made putting Notre Dame in the champion- ship a tough decision both go down in flames. "I voted Notre Dame No. 1 in the country for a reason — because I think they're the best team in the country, and I think they played like that tonight." T h e d e f i n i t i v e losses by No. 1 Kansas State and No. 2 Oregon, the Irish were left as the only remaining un- beaten team eligible for a bowl game this sea- son. All they have to do to get to the national championship game is survive a trip to the Los Angeles Coliseum Nov. 24. "Our guys know 38-point win was a stark contrast to the first five nail-nibbling affairs in South Bend this year. It was the type of obliteration college football minds wanted to see before they could truly consider the Irish worthy of a top rank- ing. Kelly and his team, for their part, were un- concerned with the out- side world's perspec- tive on how they went about winning football games. "Where the hel l those deflections are the equivalent of a sack. "It's all about what did style points come from?" junior nose guard Louis Nix III said. "I hate that. I don't believe in style points. I believe in winning. That's what you do in football." quarterback Tanner Price left the field Sat- urday with a relatively clean jersey. The Irish defensive line sacked Price only once — a nine-yard loss on a takedown by sopho- more defensive end Ste- phon Tuitt in the second quarter — but they did plenty to keep him un- comfortable on his 33 passing attempts. Most notably, Notre Wake Forest junior MIRROR HANDS we do in practice," Nix said. "We call it mirror hands. Try to get your hands up and tip a ball. Basically, a mirror hand is as good as a sack because it's a loss of a down." Nix was responsible for the first deflection of the night in the first quarter. Sophomore linebacker Ishaq Wil- l iams also knocked down a throw from the southpaw on third down in the first half. Fi f th-year senior Kapron Lewis-Moore got his hands on a pass at the start of the sec- ond half. Lewis-Moore also got credited with a pair of quarterback hurries after flushing Price from the pocket a couple times during the Texas native's final home game at Notre Dame. "It's awesome. With Dame d e f e n d e r s knocked down three of Price's passes at the line of scrimmage by getting their hands in the air. In the eyes of junior nose guard Louis Nix, defense you want to keep the points off the board, and tonight we kept the points off the board," Lewis-Moore said. "We want to keep taking steps forward in being the No. 1 de- fense." ✦