Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/998819
14 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2018 FOOTBALL PREVIEW UNDER THE DOME BY LOU SOMOGYI From the outset of his career at Notre Dame, ninth-year Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly outlined the three tenets that result in a quality football season. "You've got to start with a win, you've got to win your home games and you've got to win your rivalry games," Kelly summarized of the prime objectives any college head coach has entering a season. Nevertheless, what constitutes a "rivalry game" these days is more nebulous than in the past. USC always is Notre Dame's archrival, but because Stanford and Navy are the only other consistent mainstays on the schedule the past 20 years, they too might be categorized as traditional rivals — the way Purdue, Michi- gan State and Michigan used to be. In 2015 and 2017, Notre Dame was 2-1 in those three "current" rivalry games, defeat- ing USC and Navy, but it also was defeated at Stanford in the regular season. Those 10-3 and No. 11 finishes both times in the Associated Press poll would constitute "good" seasons, but not quite fulfilling ones. A victory over the Cardinal at the end might have pushed it to the "great" precipice. Achieving all three objectives in one year is special, and the one time it occurred under Kelly — or any of the past 24 seasons at Notre Dame — the Irish finished 12-0 and No. 1 during the 2012 regular season. When you go 0 for 3, you have a 4-8 outcome like in 2016, beginning with the 50-47 loss double-overtime loss at Texas in the opener. Most telling of all usually is how serve is held at home. In 2016, Notre Dame was 2-4, marking the fourth time since 1964 it finished under .500 on its home turf. The others were 1983 (2-3), 1984 (2-3) and 2007 (1-6). Amazingly, in the 22 seasons from 1990-2011, the Irish finished unbeaten at home only once, a 6-0 ledger in 1998. Under Kelly, Notre Dame began reclaim- ing the home field as an advantage. It fin- ished unscathed in both 2012 and 2015, and the 21-3 record at home from 2012-15 was the best by a four-year graduating class at the school since the class of 1992 posted the same mark from 1988-91. Last year, only a 20-19 loss at home to Georgia, which would play for the national title, kept Notre Dame from a third unbeaten campaign at home under Kelly. In the 68 football seasons since 1950, Notre Dame has been unbeaten and untied at home 13 times, or an average of about once per five years. From 1999-2011 it had a school-record drought of 13 straight seasons of not going unblemished at home (the previous record had been eight from 1956-63). In the 13 seasons since 1950 when Notre Dame finished perfect at home, the results speak for themselves: • 130-19-2 (.868) overall record. • Consensus national titles in 1966, 1973, 1977 and 1988, plus sharing a fifth title in 1964 (awarded the MacArthur Bowl). • Near misses in 1970 (No. 2 at 10-1) and 1989 (No. 2 at 12-1), plus the aforemen- tioned 12-0 in 2012 prior to the BCS Na- tional Championship Game debacle versus Alabama. Among Notre Dame's three Hall-of-Fame coaches hired since 1950, Ara Parseghian finished unbeaten at home four times in his 11 seasons from 1964-74, Dan Devine twice in six years, and Lou Holtz three times (con- secutively from 1987-89) in his 11 years. Neither Parseghian nor Devine was able to do it back-to-back. Notre Dame did not lose PUTTING ONE'S HOUSE IN ORDER In the 22 seasons from 1990‑2011, Notre Dame finished unbeaten at home only once. Under head coach Brian Kelly, it has happened twice (2012 and 2015). PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA