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Notre Dame-Stanford: 10 To 1

Brian Kelly salutes the crowd before last night's pep rally for Stanford.
Brian Kelly salutes the crowd before last night's pep rally for Stanford. (Joe Raymond)

10 We will continue repeating this each week until mathematically eliminated: There are only 10 teams in the 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision that have won a minimum of eight games each of the past six seasons (2010-15), or during the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame: In addition to the Irish they are, alphabetically, Alabama, Boise State, Florida State, LSU, Northern Illinois, Oklahoma, Oregon, Stanford and Wisconsin.

The Irish need to go at least 6-1 the rest of this season to keep that streak alive.

9 This is the first time Kelly has experienced a 2-4 record in a season since his first year at Central Michigan in 2004, when the Chippewas started 2-5 before finishing 4-7.

8 Stanford ranks 8th in the nation since 2010, Kelly’s first year at Notre Dame, in scoring defense with a 19.4 average per game. Until the 36-point outburst by the Irish in last season’s loss, Notre Dame tallied only 14 (2010), 14 (2011), 13 in regulation time (2012), 20 (2013) and 17 (2014) versus the Cardinal from 2010-14 for a 15.6 average in regulation time.

7 This is the first time in seven years (2009) that both teams enter the game unranked. As an addendum, seven-point wins have been a norm in this series since 2005, with the Irish doing it in 2005 (38-31), 2007 (21-14), 2008 (28-21) and 2012 (20-13 in overtime), and Stanford following suit in 2009 (45-38) and 2013 (27-20)

6 True road games for Stanford this season, include tonight’s at Notre Dame. The Cardinal and fellow Pac-12 rival Oregon are the only two Power 5 conference schools to play six games this year on the on-campus site of the opponent. Its last such journey resulted in a 44-6 blowout at Washington.


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5 It’s been five years since Notre Dame has lost a home game in October, a 31-17 defeat to USC on Oct. 22, 2011. The Irish are 11-2 in October home games under Kelly and have an eight-game winning streak in such contests, two of them versus Stanford.

4 Consecutive games in this series where the game came down to either the final series or even the final play, with each team winning their two home games. Notre Dame emerged victorious in 2012 (20-13 in overtime) and 2014 (17-14), while Stanford was triumphant in 2013 (27-20) and 2015 (38-36).

3 Stanford is looking to avoid its first three-game losing streak since 2008, when it lost the last three under second-year head coach Jim Harbaugh to finish 5-7. Meanwhile, Notre Dame will try to not lose it third straight contest at home. It last occurred in 2007 when the 3-9 Irish lost their first six games at home.

2 Stanford running back/return man Christian McCaffrey finished No. 2 in the Heisman Trophy balloting last year, behind Alabama’s Derrick Henry. He was the fourth Cardinal in seven seasons to finish the runner-up, joining running back Toby Gerhart in 2009 (behind Alabama’s Mark Ingram) and quarterback Andrew Luck in both 2010 (behind Cam Newton) and 2011 (behind Robert Griffin III).

1 This is the first time at Notre Dame Kelly is playing on Oct. 15, a famous date in Fighting Irish history with the 31-30 triumph against No, 1 Miami at home in 1988 that helped propel the run to its most recent national title. Its last such game on this date was the 34-31 loss in the closing seconds at home to No. 1 USC in 2005.

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