Charlie Weis’ first regular season at Notre Dame was all dressed up with a quality 8-2 start. Heartbreaking three-point losses to Michigan State and No. 1 USC were the lone blemishes.
All dressed up…and now it needed someplace to go – namely the Bowl Championship Series for the first time in five years. That was on the line when the No. 6-ranked Irish visited Stanford for the regular-season finale in 2005.
Meanwhile, the 5-5 Cardinal needed a victory to be bowl eligible under first-year head coach Walt Harris, whose Pitt Panthers won at Notre Dame (41-38) the previous year and was the Big East conference representative in the BCS.
 |
|
Walker's career-high 186 yards and game-winning touchdown and two-point conversion helped seal a BCS birth for the Irish.
|
Virtually every Notre Dame passing record already had been shattered with the “Air Weis” attack that featured junior Brady Quinn at quarterback, wideouts Jeff Samardzija and Maurice Stovall, plus tight end Anthony Fasano.
So prolific was the offense, the Irish were seldom threatened in the second half, other than the epic USC contest which was a see-saw affair from the start. In the overtime 44-41 loss to Michigan State, Notre Dame rallied from a 38-17 deficit. It entered the Stanford game with a school-record eight straight contests in which it scored a minimum of 31 points.
Fifteen seconds into the matchup with the Cardinal, the Irish already held a 7-0 advantage on an 80-yard scoring toss from Quinn to Samardzija. However, Harris’ crew was determined to go out a winner in the final event at 84-year-old Stanford Stadium, which underwent a $90 million facelift immediately after the game. The halftime score was knotted at 14, and the Irish clung to a 20-14 edge entering the final quarter.
Despite finishing with 663 yards total offense, Notre Dame still suddenly found itself trailing 31-30 with only 1:46 remaining when backup Cardinal QB T.C. Ostrander connected with Matt Traverso for the touchdown and Michael Sgroi kicked the PAT.
This was not supposed to happen! Getting relegated to the Gator Bowl might have seemed fine in the preseason after back-to-back 5-7 and 6-6 records, but not now! The program had come too far, achieved too much to not return to the BCS.
Quinn steered the dramatic comeback earlier in the year against Michigan State – but ended up on the losing side. Quinn also engineered an 87-yard march, capped by his five-yard run, to give the Irish a 31-28 edge with 2:04 remaining against USC. Again, he still wound up on the losing end.
At Stanford, it took just 51 seconds for Notre Dame to march 80 yards, with Darius Walker (a career-high 186 yards rushing) concluding it with a six-yard run and then taking a direct snap from center for the two-point conversion and a 38-31 advantage. If there was a “flaw” in the march, it was that it was too quick. There were still 55 seconds left, but two sacks by Victor Abiamiri – who finished with four in the game – clinched the verdict and a lucrative BCS payout.
One year earlier during a 6-5 regular season, Notre Dame was the proverbial “three plays away from 9-2” with close losses to BYU (20-17), Boston College (24-23) and the aforementioned 41-38 defeat to Pitt. Weis would hear no such alibi while giving his “you are what you are” speech in his introduction to the players and emphasizing the importance of finishing. At Stanford, it came to fruition.
“Earlier this year, before I got here, I didn’t know if they understood how to win games like this,” said Weis after the Stanford contest. “I’ve had a lot of games with this kind of pressure, it’s just that they haven’t had it.”
The victory elevated Notre Dame to No. 5 in the AP poll and a berth to the Fiesta Bowl to face No. 4 Ohio State.
Hmmm…four years later, the 2008 Irish finished the regular season 6-6, similar to the 2004 squad. And just like the 2004 edition, the Irish were “three plays from nine wins” after blowing double-digit leads versus North Carolina (29-24), Pitt (36-33 in four overtimes, another three-point loss to the Panthers), and Syracuse (24-23, the same score Notre Dame lost by at home in 2004 to Boston College).
Similar to 2005, the 2009 Irish are primed to return to the BCS. At the least, a victory at Stanford in the regular-season finale should achieve the goal.
The criteria of this rating system were based on 1) the caliber of opponent, 2) how impressive or dominant the win was 3) impact on rankings or a BCS bid and 4) the feel-good reaction of the Notre Dame team and its followers.
.jpg)
