Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME I'm not kidding," Kelly said of Gol- son's ability to execute and time the option pitch. "He was a point guard in high school and could distribute the ball — great passer of the basket- ball. [The ball] comes out effortlessly and without much thought." In other personnel notes: • Notre Dame has operated a little "He can do it behind his back, and less out of shotgun sets this season to aid the downhill running of senior running backs Theo Riddick and Wood, who had totaled 734 and 720 yards rushing, respectively, after 11 games. "Based upon what we did last year, we wanted to make sure that we got our guys downhill," Kelly said. "It's harder to run downhill when you're in shotgun, you're put in a position to get the ball east and west. You're not getting it north and south like you are in direct [snap]." That point of emphasis has espe- when the Bowl Championship Series rankings were officially released. It marked the first time in the history of the BCS and Notre Dame achieved a unique double play Nov. 18 THE BEST IN BOTH WORLDS the NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) rankings that any team has ranked No. 1 in both the current BCS standings and the current GSR ratings. The Fighting Irish in 2012 finished with the top GSR score at 97 (tied with Northwestern). It was followed by Boston College and Miami (Fla.) at 94; Rice at 93; Duke at 92; Penn State and Rutgers at 91; and Stanford at 90. "I took the Notre Dame job wanting to have an opportunity to play for a national championship and have high graduation rates," Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said. "I think this year we are in a position to validate … you can do both, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive in college football. "I have not seen anything here in my time that will not allow us to continue to have the highest gradua- tion rates and compete for national championships." The only misleading aspect of the statistic is that it cially helped the Irish runners with their YAC stats — yards after contact. • Freshman defensive end Sheldon Day, whom Irish defensive coordina- tor Bob Diaco already refers to as an "old soul" because of the youngster's maturity, played more than 30 snaps against Wake Forest and is in line to succeed fifth-year senior Kapron Lewis-Moore in 2013. "We think he's going to be a terrific is a "first-time" event at Notre Dame. The BCS didn't begin until 1998, and the GSR ratings were imple- mented in 2005. Since 1962, the university has charted football stu- dent-athlete records. Over those 50 years, approxi- mately 98 percent of Notre Dame football players who entered on scholarship and remained enrolled for at least four years received their degrees. That includes national champions from 1966, 1973, 1977 and 1988. In fact, in 1988 Notre Dame finished 12-0 to capture player," Kelly said of Day, who had 20 tackles (3.5 for loss) through the first 11 games. "Great quickness. Does not stay blocked, powerful, and has the quickness and the size to play that two- gap position." the national championship — and also won the Aca- demic Achievement Award (begun in the early 1980s) that year from the College Football Association with a perfect 100 percent graduation rate for the Irish football squad. In the more recent GSR numbers, Notre Dame foot- ball ranked No. 1 each of the last four years: 2012 (97 rate for classes 2002 through 2005), 2011 (97 for 2001 through 2004), 2010 (96 for 2000 through 2003) and 2009 (96 for 1999 through 2002).