The year was 1996. It was the end of the Lou Holtz era and the Fighting Irish were finishing up a 2-year break from a 6-year run of playing Stanford each season. Up until this point, Notre Dame was 8-3-0 all-time against the Cardinal and despite a pair of crushing losses in the early 90's [...]
The rankings are beginning to shake up after an eventful week 4 although the top teams held off a couple upsets to keep things relatively stable inside the Top 10. At some point, the national favorites have to lose, right? One of Notre Dame's upcoming opponents suffered one of the worst upsets of the year [...]
Notre Dame's offense needed a spark on Saturday afternoon and received a jolt of TNT via the controversial insertion of redshirt sophomore quarterback Ian Book. While keeping Brandon Wimbush on the bench the Irish offense exploded for one of the best road game performances in recent years, perhaps recasting the future of the offense as [...]
Notre Dame's most friendly new ACC brethren is back on the schedule once again. The Irish face Wake Forest for the 5th time in 8 years after previously spending over 100 years never having faced the Demon Deacons. Due to weird scheduling quirks this will break up 3 straight games in the series that took [...]
Week three is in the books and we remain heavily blue-blood at the top of the polls. We were treated to a couple really fun ranked matchups that debuts a couple of new teams in the Top 5 of our rankings. Let's get to a recap of this past week and a look forward to [...]
Notre Dame continues to search for something on offense. An identity perhaps. A game-breaker for sure. More consistency no doubt. For the third straight week another strong defensive effort began bursting at the seams as the Fighting Irish sweat out a comeback by an opponent that ultimately fell short for the bad guys. It's a [...]
Note the 2:30 eastern start time this week, friends. A little bit of the SEC is coming to South Bend this weekend. I do stress a little bit. The Vanderbilt Commodores return to Notre Dame for the first time since 1995 when the Irish won 41-0 while opening the following season in Nashville in a [...]
Week two is in the books and a pair of 2017's best teams came away with big road victories to cement their early claim as the best teams of 2018. If you're waiting for a shake-up at the top of the polls it may be a while. 18 Stripes Top 20 Poll RANK TEAM [...]
A classic let down felt entirely normal this week but also so blatantly obvious that any more than a brief discussion in a game preview was worth the time. Anyway, a let down was supposed to be maybe a 24-point win not what transpired before our eyes in South Bend this Saturday. Notre Dame looked [...]
From east-central Indiana the Cardinals of Ball State are heading up north to face Notre Dame on the football field for the very first time. It doesn't come at a great time for their program as 3rd-year head coach Mike Neu has won just 7 out of his first 25 games with one single win [...]
And we're off! One full week of games is in the books and it feels great to get on the board with a win over Michigan. At the top of our poll the best teams held serve and move into a sneaky good week 2 (this week usually really sucks so the bar is quite [...]
Sometimes Notre Dame comes out for a football game not ready to answer the intensity and emotion of the big game spotlight. Saturday night was not one of those occasions. A strong start and stingy defense allowed the Fighting Irish to come up just short of a dominant but entirely controlling first half against the [...]
Following a lovely 4-year break we now welcome the odorous Michigan Wolverines back to Notre Dame once again. When we last saw the winged helmets the Irish delivered one of the sweetest victories this century, sending Michigan on its way to a 5-7 season and a firing of head coach Brady Hoke. Now, with the [...]
Hello, and welcome to another season of college football. This is my 11th campaign covering the Fighting Irish where does the time go? I'm continuing to tweak my weekly picks and poll. Last season, I tried out the Top 11+2+3 type of a ranking system that listed the top 11 Power 5 teams, the next [...]
Over the course of a season not many traditional stats remain relevant these days. One exception to this would be yards per play differential, a simple yet fairly effective metric on a macro-level. Consider this the antithesis to Michael Bryan's in-depth advanced preview from earlier this week. Over two years ago in the nascent days [...]
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