When this season began, I doubt any Notre Dame fan was too concerned with watching the Pac-12 Network, but this is what you get for losing a couple of games you shouldn’t have.

Notre Dame sent the Pac-12 Network’s football coverage out in predictable fashion Saturday, routing Stanford 56-23, though they took an annoyingly circuitous route to doing so. ND committed three first-half turnovers, each one dumber than the last, to allow Stanford to not only stay in the game, but hold the lead. That delayed Ted Robinson and Yogi Roth’s apparent plan to spend 60 minutes of game time thanking every single person that ever worked for the channel.

As Notre Dame ends the regular season 9-3 and awaits a likely invitation to the ReliaQuest Bowl (potentially the Brian Kelly Bowl?), here’s some of the stuff that happened Saturday night.

Audric Estime did things

Whatever your thoughts on Audric Estime not being named a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award, I guarantee Estime’s were stronger. (I didn’t have much of a reaction to it; he clearly wasn’t going to be a finalist anyway, so who really cares? However, I also approve of any way to piss off a star running back on our team.)

He showed it by pounding Stanford’s run defense like a piece of veal, going for 238 yards in three quarters of play and scoring 4 TDs to break the school record for rushing scores in a season. Had Stanford hung around longer or ND’s coaching staff felt like continuing Estime’s streak of running as much in garbage time as before it, he would’ve blown away Julius Jones’ 20-year-old single-season record. ND’s running back situation has often been a committee this year, but Estime spent most of November putting a stranglehold on the job.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out the offensive line here. Estime earned a good number of his yards, but he also picked up a lot of them very easily thanks to massive holes being opened in front of him.)

If that was the end of the junior back’s ND career – and it probably should be, as he has no reason not to opt out of the bowl – he went out in style.

The slow start was suuuuper frustrating

Notre Dame’s road-game performances this year have been very frustrating to witness. The weirdest part is that this wasn’t an issue last year; Marcus Freeman’s first team was much better away from home, at least until November.

It looked like history was repeating itself early as ND committed dumb turnovers one after the other – a lazy fumble by Sam Hartman, a kick-return fumble by Jadarian Price, and a terrible pick by Hartman that was doomed as soon as he let it go. The Cardinal held a 16-14 lead early on in large part thanks to those giveaways.

Luckily, the issue resolved itself as ND made the wise decision to let Estime eat, negating any need to pass (and any of Stanford’s ability to defend it when the Irish did).

It goes without saying that ND’s bowl game will be away from home, so let’s just not do this in that game. Capiche?

Some of the cool stuff on defense

Stanford is one of those opponents for which you can’t take much of your own play seriously because of how bad they are. (It’s a good thing they’re an annual fixture on the schedule!) However, there were some cool moments anyway, certainly none more so than Javontae Jean-Baptiste’s 60-yard blocked field goal return for a touchdown.

It was a nifty moment for Jean-Baptiste, who has exceeded all but the most wildly optimistic of expectations as a grad transfer from Ohio State. As long as Notre Dame isn’t going to be able to get the Jean-Baptistes of the world out of high school, I’m cool with a strategy of combing the depth chart of the superpowers and seeing if we can peel off a guy who thinks he’s not playing enough now and again.

It sure looks like the Brian Kelly Bowl might happen

There is no remotely reasonable path for Ohio State to back-door into the playoff the way they did last year, so in all likelihood the Buckeyes will play in the Orange Bowl, which converts the ReliaQuest Bowl into an ACC vs SEC bowl (don’t ask), which means ND and LSU is absolutely in play. Maybe because LSU played in Florida last year and Ole Miss played in Texas, the powers that be try to send the Rebels to Tampa instead, but I don’t know how the bowl executives could resist the storyline here. We shall see.

Until then, digest your turkey, and enjoy championship week (except the B1G game, screw that noise).