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Notre Dame & The Bye Week: 10 To 1 Countdown

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Notre Dame Stadium will host four of the final six games this season for the Fighting Irish, beginning with USC next weekend.
Notre Dame Stadium will host four of the final six games this season for the Fighting Irish, beginning with USC next weekend. (Bill Panzica)
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10 Times USC has visited Notre Dame Stadium so far after 1995 (from 1997-2015). That 1995 meeting marked the last time the Irish defeated a ranked Trojans team (No. 5), home or away. USC enters tonight’s game versus Utah ranked No. 13.


9 Consecutive games won by No. 11-ranked Miami, who Notre Dame will visit on Nov. 11. The Hurricanes’ current streak is the second longest in the Football Bowl Subdivision, behind South Florida’s 10. San Diego State is No. 3 with eight straight and Georgia — who won 20-19 at Notre Dame on Sept. 9 — is fourth with seven. Miami hosts Georgia Tech today.


8 It has been eight years since USC has last been able to defeat Notre Dame in back-to-back seasons (2008-09), and has never achieved the feat against eighth year Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly, who owns a 4-3 career mark against the team's arch rival. The Trojans will attempt to end their "drought" this season after winning 45-27 in last year’s regular season finale.


7 Notre Dame has won seven consecutive games the week after a bye under Kelly (8-1 overall), but the last four were all tight outcomes: 14-10 versus USC in 2013, 49-39 versus Navy in 2014 after trailing 31-28 entering the fourth quarter, 24-20 at Temple in 2015 on a game winning TD with 2:09 left, and 30-27 last year versus Miami after falling behind 27-20 with 6:49 left. Kicker Justin Yoon converted the game-winning field goal with 30 seconds remaining.

The last time the Irish lost the week after a bye was Oct. 22, 2011 — 31-17 to USC.


6 Total losses by the remaining six Notre Dame opponents on the schedule, five of whom were ranked in this week’s Associated Press Top 25. The collective group has a 27-6 ledger (.818): No. 13 USC (5-1), No. 20 North Carolina State (5-1), Wake Forest (4-2), No. 11 Miami (4-0), No. 25 Navy (5-0) and No. 23 Stanford (4-2).

Whether they will stay ranked by the time of the game is to be determined in coming weeks, but the last time Notre Dame faced at least three ranked opponents at the time of the game over the final six regular season contests was 2002, when it defeated No. 18 Air Force (21-14) and No. 11 Florida State (34-24) in weeks 7 and 8, but lost at No. 6 USC (44-13) in game 12.


5 Times since NCAA stats were first officially recorded in 1946 that Notre Dame has averaged at least 300 yards rushing per game, with the most recent the school record 350.2 by the 1973 national champs. This year’s 308.0 average ranks No. 6, between No. 5 South Florida (309.2) and No. 7 Alabama (301.7). At the top is Nov. 18 opponent Navy with a 414.2 mark.


4 Consecutive Notre Dame victories by a least 20 points: 49-20 at Boston College, 38-18 at Michigan State, 52-17 versus Miami (Ohio) and 33-10 at North Carolina last week. That is a first since head coach Charlie Weis’ first season in 2005 when the Irish finished No. 9 — but all four of those victims (BYU, Navy, Tennessee and Syracuse) were at home, whereas three of this year’s four were on the road.


3 Notre Dame, Washington and Georgia are the only three Football Bowl Subdivision teams to have three road victories this year against teams from a Power 5 Conference. The Irish victims were Boston College, Michigan State and North Carolina.

Furthermore, all three of those road outings saw the Irish win by at least 20 points. That’s a first in true road games (not neutral sites) since the late Ara Parseghian’s 1973-74 Irish won six straight on the road by at 20 points: Rice (28-0), Army (62-3), Pitt (31-10) and Miami (44-0) in 1973, and Georgia Tech (31-7) and Northwestern (49-3) to open 1974.


2 Top 10 teams to go down on this Friday the 13th: No. 2 Clemson at Syracuse (27-24) and No. 8 Washington State at Cal (37-3) — demonstrating again how precious every road victory is, even versus unranked foes.

Notre Dame’s final two road games are versus Miami — where it hasn’t defeated the Hurricanes since the 1977 national title season (in the old Orange Bowl) — and Stanford, where it has lost four straight since 2009.


1 Notre Dame has won only one of its last 10 games that were decided by one possession, most recently the 20-19 loss at home to current No. 4 Georgia on Sept. 9. Prior to this swoon, the Irish were 16-6 in their previous 22 contests in one-score finishes — including 10 in a row in 2012-13.

In the next six weeks, the pendulum will need to start swinging back Notre Dame’s way.

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