What I appreciate most about the Notre Dame fan base, and what normally annoys anyone who doesn’t bleed Blue and Gold, is our unending devotion to the Irish and our blind support of the football team—including to the point of humiliation (see: 2007). If we sit around long enough and think about the team enough, we start to rationalize why Notre Dame should go undefeated …

Better late than never I guess…

The Fighting Irish played arguably the best 60 minutes of football in the past 24 games Christmas Eve, beating the Hawaii Warriors in all three phases of the game.

Notre Dame dominated in time of possession (33 to 27 minutes), total offense (478 to 359 yards), average yards per play (7.7 to 5.6 yards per play), passing yards (413 …

To put it mildly, USC had their way with the visiting Fighting Irish. In most games you can find a silver lining, but in this contest looking for good in the Irish performance is an exercise in futility.

While Notre Dame stayed even in turnover margin, they failed to enter the red zone, held the ball for over eight minutes less than their Trojan counterparts, …

It was a bipolar affair for the Fighting Irish against Navy (more on this here).

On special teams the Irish made both attempted field goals, held the Midshipmen to negative punt return yardage, and blocked a punt. However, they also allowed two consecutive onside kicks to be recovered despite the painfully obvious situation in which they occurred.

On offense the Irish ran the ball at …

The story for the Irish this year is completeness, as in playing a complete game. The pieces are present—a dynamic vertical passing threat, a recently developed dependable kicking game and solid defense, excellent special teams coverage units, and talent at nearly every skill position—to be a good team, but Notre Dame has yet to put it all together.

I’m not talking about an elite team, …

Despite dominating multiple statistical categories, Notre Dame was unable to come away with a victory. Coming into the game, North Carolina was an opportunistic team, capitalizing on opponents’ mistakes to win games.

The Irish certainly did their part to help the cause, ultimately giving the Tar Heels exactly what they needed to inch out a victory with their established modus operandi.

Of the six …