Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
While it’s true that the Oklahoma Sooners’ rout of the Oklahoma State Cowboys put the Notre Dame Fighting Irish outside the top four on Saturday night, the Irish knew that with a victory over the Stanford Cardinal, they’d still have a chance to make the College Football Playoff.
A North Carolina win over Clemson (or a Florida win over Alabama, but let’s be realistic here…) would have given an 11-1 Notre Dame team a path to the No. 4 seed in the playoff. Oklahoma’s win severely hurt Notre Dame, but the Irish were still in the hunt with a victory on The Farm in Palo Alto, California.
Coach Brian Kelly made the 2012 BCS National Championship Game in South Bend, but 2015 should be remembered as his best coaching performance at Notre Dame. Player after important player has been felled by an injury. Skill players — quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, you name them — have dropped like flies. Yet, the Irish have continued to play through those limitations.
More precisely, while performing at a subpar level on offense against Boston College and being very inconsistent against Temple, the Irish almost always raised their game when they needed to. They lost to Clemson because Brian Kelly chased a point in the third quarter. They did so many other things well in that contest, and just came up a little bit short against a really good opponent on the road. The Irish might have played to the level of their competition on many occasions this season, but that meant playing well when confronted with a formidable adversary. Even with second- and third-stringers at various positions, the Irish raised their standards to the degree the moment required.
That’s a special gift, one not easily found or taught or sustained.
As the Irish prepared to take on a loaded Stanford offense without C.J. Prosise and KeiVarae Russell, Notre Dame lacked the running back who could keep the Cardinal’s offense off the field. The Irish also lacked the defender in the secondary who could tighten up the team’s pass defense. (As it turned out, that loss was much more critical than the loss of Prosise.)
Notre Dame could have been in for a long night.
However, if you doubted the 2015 Irish, they once again played above expectations and beyond their depth chart. One more time this season, Notre Dame’s reserves answered the call.
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