Notre Dame's Bye Week Provides Time For Salvage Operation

If 2-5 Notre Dame is to salvage anything from the 2016 football campaign, a crucial intangible will be what frame of mind it’s going to be in after its bye week, which coincided with the fall semester break (Oct. 15-23).

This week’s preparation for Miami — 4-3 and on a three-game losing streak — is not about having “extra time for game preparation” against the Hurricanes." That topic is likely inconsequential. Even last year, Notre Dame needed a late touchdown pass from DeShone Kizer to Will Fuller to squeak by Temple 24‑20, after the bye.

Rather, the top storyline is whether the time away — the players were able to go home for several days after last Tuesday morning's practice, get away from the football grind, and spend time with their families — helps everyone recharge in the final month of the season. Do they become refreshed and newly energized from the time away? Or does it reinforce their disappointment after having preseason College Football Playoff aspirations?

There are two cases in the past 20 seasons where the bye week helped provide a superb resurgence after a miserable start.

The first came in head coach Bob Davie’s first season in 1997, when the Irish began 2-5, and then barely hung on for a 21-17 victory against Navy. Its next test would be at “Death Valley” versus No. 11 LSU, which had already upset No. 1 Florida.

Before playing the Tigers, Notre Dame had a bye. It responded with a 24-6 victory against LSU while becoming the first and still lone Irish team to finish a game without a turnover and penalty. It was the highlight of winning the last five regular-season games, which also included a victory over No. 22 West Virginia.

The other was during Brian Kelly’s first season in 2010. A humiliating 35‑17 defeat to Navy was followed by a 28‑27 loss at home to Tulsa to fall to 4‑5. The only good news was there was a bye week coming up to recalibrate while freshman quarterback Tommy Rees had to take over for the injured Dayne Crist. Still, it looked certain the Irish would have a losing record because they had to play No. 15 Utah and also needed to travel to USC, which held an eight-game winning streak against Notre Dame.

Following the bye, though, Notre Dame’s defense became stellar and the offense more power oriented while defeating Utah (28‑3), Army (27‑3) and USC with a 20‑16 victory at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The cherry on top was a 33‑17 bowl win versus Miami to finish 8‑5. Interestingly, the Hurricanes, Trojans and Cadets are all on the back half of this year’s schedule as well.

It was a salvage operation, and six seasons later, Kelly and Co. have come full circle and will attempt to do the same. Kelly is 7-1 the week after the bye, including the aforementioned rally at Temple last season. The others were:

• 28-3 over No. 15 Utah in 2010. Notre Dame had only 256 yards total offense — the fourth-lowest figure in Kelly’s 85 games with the Irish — but a blocked punt by Robert Blanton that he scooped up for a touchdown began the rout.

• The lone defeat was 31-17 to USC in 2011, Notre Dame’s first home night game in 21 years, plus the introduction of piped-in music to the stands.

• During the 12-0 regular season in 2012, the bye week also came versus Miami for the Shamrock Series in Chicago. Notre Dame romped to a 41-3 thrashing of the Hurricanes while rushing for 376 yards — the most under Kelly until a 457-yard effort last year versus UMass — and amassing 587 yards total offense.

• Notre Dame had two byes in 2013, and it won very physical, defense-led games against USC (14-10) and Brigham Young (23-13) at home. The latter came after a disheartening 28-21 loss at Pitt.

• It had two bye weeks again in 2014, and it resulted in a 31-15 win over Syracuse (despite committing five turnovers) and a 49-39 victory versus Navy to improve to 7-1 before imploding in the home stretch of the regular season.

Bye weeks did not become more prevalent at Notre Dame until the 11th regular season game was added in 1974, head coach Ara Parseghian’s final year with the Irish. In Parseghian’s first nine seasons at Notre Dame, he had only four byes, and two of them came before the season ending game at USC.

Overall, Parseghian was 5-1-1 the week after a bye during the regular season. His successors produced the following records following a bye: Dan Devine 5-2, Gerry Faust 2-1, Lou Holtz 11-2 (highlighted by the 1993 win over No. 1 Florida State), Bob Davie 8-1, Tyrone Willingham 4-1 and Charlie Weis 3-3.

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