Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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The entire Notre Dame community rallied around Manti Te���o during his difficult days in September. The wearing of Hawaiian leis showed their solidarity. photo by Bill panzica football relevance. He landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated the following week and became the face of Notre Dame���s facelift. Te���o almost missed the night altogether. He thought about skipping the game to attend his girlfriend���s funeral that day, but she had previously made him promise he wouldn���t leave his team if she lost her battle to leukemia during the football season. ���All she wanted was some white roses. That���s all she asked for,��� he said. ���So I sent her roses, and sent her two picks along with that.��� Stand Against Stanford Oct. 13 Notre Dame���s made-for-Hollywood overtime goal-line stand in the rain against Stanford erased any doubts about the identity of this year���s team. The Irish were a team that would find a way to win. More often than not, it was a gritty defense refusing to surrender that led them to victory. ���It was just a matter of knowing what we have to do and getting the job done,��� senior safety Zeke Motta said. ���Fighting and scratching and clawing to make sure we get it done. It just goes to show you that with desire, passion and will that our defense has, especially backed up like that, to go out and stop them speaks volumes.��� Rees led the Irish to another fourthquarter comeback and connected with junior wide receiver TJ Jones for a seven-yard touchdown pass in overtime. Then Stanford���s bruising running back, senior Stepfan Taylor, pushed the Cardinal into scoring range in its half of the first overtime. Taylor rushed four straight times from the 4-yard line but