Today we travel back to the magical 2012 regular season and yes it will always sting to have to preface this sentence with a disclaimer due to the post-season outcome. Yet, 2012 was real, so real. Dare I say this was the golden age of Fighting Irish Media? I know I’m not the only one who gets great feelings from hearing that 125th football season anniversary intro to all of these 2012 videos.
All 12 of the 2016 highlight videos from @WatchND totaled 178,419 views from their YouTube pages. Today’s video is inching close to 160,000 views.
The Irish headed into this one 8-0 and riding an incredible high following the defeat of Oklahoma in Norman. To this day, perhaps the best win for Notre Dame football stretching back over 10 years. Returning back home against a boring 4-4 Pitt team we should’ve seen this coming. Let down sandwich commence!
0:12 A nice wide panning of the crowd. #fakeselloutagain
0:30 Immediately we remember that Tyler Eifert is never really covered.
0:47 If you recall, Louis Nix was banged up and the Irish tried to get away with resting him during this game. That didn’t last very long after Ray Graham ripped off a long run. Bless this ’12 defense so much but they just didn’t have enough depth. Kona Schwenke might struggle to get quality snaps during any of the VanGorder defenses.
1:10 Ah, to sack quarterbacks in big moments.
1:44 I covered this in the 2012 Running Back Success Rate article from a couple months ago. I think if this Riddick play isn’t reversed–or the Irish punch it in for a touchdown on the next couple plays–they go on to sail to an easy win in this game. It’d be a 10-3 lead early with a defense only giving up 9.8 points per game up to this point in the season.
2:10 Tommy Rees appears!!! Man, I forgot how quick of a hook Golson got in this game. Following that failed goal line drive Everett saw one more full drive before Rees took over. The future QB coach played in 4 series culminating in zero points and this interception. I think we can all agree Rees overachieved relative to his skill-set but the audacity to even attempt this throw boggles the mind. If it wasn’t picked off the ball would’ve bounced 5 yards in front of T.J. Jones.
2:55 I have no idea how this field goal wasn’t blocked by Bennett Jackson. Ah, but the college football gods were saving a special teams play for later.
3:40 I thought the game was over at this point. Golson had come back in and was playing well almost assuredly going to make Kelly look silly for benching him earlier. And then this terrible end zone pick. Eifert looked open for an easy touchdown, too.
3:48 We miss it terribly now but tackling from the corners was so much better when Diaco was here.
4:00 Now we’re starting to see PCG (Peak College Golson). At his best the most entertaining player of my lifetime along with Rocket and Tate.
4:25 The Golson jump back move is the best. Also, the band is moving up into the stands after the Crossroads renovation and I can say without hesitation that this is the best and safest choice for everyone involved.
4:50 We’ll always have Super Golson. Always.
5:11 There’s Elijah Shumate playing nickel before he’d never be able to play safety all that well.
5:28 I was still emotionally prepared for a loss and a blown field goal at this point.
5:43 Once Cierre Wood fumbled crossing the damn goal line to win the game I really thought this was over. This is one of the most underrated “what if” scenarios from the entire Kelly era.
6:10 Our wonderful Deal with It Jesus moment forever enshrined by ndmspaint. To this day it’s my favorite work.
7:15 After all this craziness the game ended on a relatively simple and short quarterback draw from Golson. If you look closely, the ball almost starts to become dislodged as Golson begins ramming his whole being behind the buttocks of Chris Watt. However, Golson quickly covers the ball with his free arm and the good guys win. Phew.
Share your memories of this game with us!
What an unbelievably fun regular season. Right there with you, I definitely thought this game was over at least 2 or 3 times, only to come away with that incredible finish.
I forgot how good Theo riddick was and his success and versatility in the NFL probably should have been less surprising to me. For all the accolades the defense received, the offense produced a HOF candidate in zach martin and all pro tight end and a really productive Rb in riddick.
WRT the missed opportunity from the 2012 season, it has to be k state losing followed by Oregon losing to Stanford followed by Georgia losing to bama (for the record, I think we would have lost to Georgia but obviously not in a complete bloodbath)
The old back into a title against a much easier opponent! Hey, the ’88 team got to do that!
Both what if scenarios are interesting. If someone wanted Kelly fired last December how does a title in ’12 change things? I suspect for most not a whole lot which on one hand I get because it’s 4 years later, but on the other hand the guy would be getting a statue!
Or, what if 2012 was even 11-2 season? I don’t know maybe that doesn’t change things all that much anyway. I think most who try to discredit 2012 already view it as a 11-2 or 10-3 type season where we got lucky.
I would imagine a title would buy him a really long leash but the naysayers would be unaffected.
I routinely play the what if game for Kelly’s tenure so I would argue he’s been pretty unlucky on the whole, 2012 aside.
1. What if the 2011 team doesn’t implode the first 2 weeks of the season, there’s an 11 win and bcs win on the resume ( I just assume we would have had same path as that crapppy Michigan team)
2. What if golson plays 2013
3. FSU game
4. What if he doesn’t hire bvg
5. What if they dont let Stanford kick a field goal in 20 secs?
What if all the recruits end up at nd; lynch, Darby, vanderdoes, greenbery
Some of these were self Inflicted but I actually think given a number of breaks he could have won a title, and not just the back in title
You can add “What if OSU doesn’t have a bowl ban that year?” to the list. They definitely get into the title game, probably ranked #1, and we probably wreck them. They finished way down at 22nd in S&P+, while we were 5th.
The 88 team backed into a title ? Who knew?
The players especially, when they realized West Virginia was maybe the 4th best team they’d play all season and in terms of talent lucky to be 6th. And, Major Harris got hurt real early, too.
Non-blue blood playing a weak schedule with a bit of a “out of nowhere” season in 1988. No question ND earned it during the regular season, though.
WVU was the only other unbeaten and was ranked # 3 before the Fiesta Bowl. ND had already beaten #2.
They beat #s 2,4,5 & 7 in the final rankings.
This is true, that’s how they ended up matched up in the bowl game.
WVU only beat one ranked team all season and in the grand scheme wasn’t in the same class as Miami, FSU, Michigan, etc. that year. The comparisons to K-State had we played them in 2012 are pretty apropos.
The difference being in 88 ND had already beaten Miami (Bama 2012). Michigan too. K State couldn’t run the table in 2012 like WVU did in 88. Actually WVU beat 2 ranked teams (Syr.& Pitt) and throttled Penn St., BC, and Maryland. WVU deserved to play ND.
You can make comparisons but, you can’t say ND backed in.
Pitt finished 6-5 and unranked.
I think the more appropriate term would be the opponent backed in resulting in an easier title matchup. I think I could’ve re-worded that differently.
Be that as it may do we agree that despite their record and ranking WVU probably wasn’t even in the Top 10/15 toughest teams Holtz played while at ND? I don’t see how this is disputable.
I agree with that fer sure. There were better teams than WVU in 88′ but they deserved their shot at ND.
I think a game with Georgia would’ve been a coin flip – they had some serious flaws that we could’ve worked with. Oregon probably would’ve been a coin flip too, would’ve been the fastest team we saw that year. I think a domer below is perhaps overly optimistic on a potential matchup with OSU that year, but I would’ve liked our chances in that matchup as well.
In hindsight, the Alabama matchup was just so, so bad for us. Nick Saban with six weeks to prepare and an angry team – remember, they spent three months listening to how they got torched by Johnny Manziel – would be bad enough. But that Alabama team was just absurdly loaded; 21 of their 22 starters in that game would go on to be drafted or sign a UFA contract. To steal a baseball analogy, we played a AAAA team, and one that had a month and a half to get ready. They would’ve torched anyone.
The real mystery isn’t how they pounded us, it’s how the hell they lost to Texas A&M. Manziel really had one big quarter, as they figured him out after the first; the hole was just a bit too big for 60 minutes. And even at that, they were poised to get the ball back around midfield with a minute to go until a guy jumped offside on A&M’s punt.
The funny thing about this is one of my memories about the Pitt game is where I watched it. I was at my brother in laws and he went to LSU for undergrad. Well after th Pitt game was Bama at lsu. And that was back when lsu was on par with bama. McCarron led a last minute drive down the field for a touchdown and win and was crying on the sidelines.
They had a massive hangover for a daytime kick against a still underrated a&m team, fell behind big and couldn’t catch up. It was the first time I realized nd had a shot at playing for a title
Ahhh, yes. The classic “Too close for missles, I’m switching to guns” game. I think after beer #4, it was whiskey on the rocks at some point in the 3rd quarter.
I was in my junior year for that game and our seats were basically right in line with that north goal line. Have perfect mental images of the Riddick TD catch (every time I watch that play, I’m amazed that he caught that ball going full speed with full extension back-handed), the Wood fumble, and the Golson superman. Most nerve-wracking game I’ve ever attended.
This is unquestionably the most thrilling ND game I’ve attended, which is saying something considering the 1999 ND vs. USC game was the first one I attended.
I was convinced on at least 3 separate occasions that we were certainly going to lose. It’s really interesting to look back and see that, even when ND had a great defense, they really didn’t take great angles or tackle all that well.