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Notre Dame-Wake Forest: 10 To 1 Summary

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Ian Book (12) and his offensive line ( front) will be the center of attention Saturday at Wake Forest.
Ian Book (12) and his offensive line ( front) will be the center of attention Saturday at Wake Forest. (Angela Driskell)
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10 Teams in the 129-member Football Bowl Subdivision who through three games have not given up a rushing play longer than 20 yards, with Notre Dame among them. The longest run was 18 yards by Vanderbilt’s Ke’Shawn Vaughn among the 107 official attempts after three contests.

The Fighting Irish rank 26th in rushing defense at 107.0 per game, and will be challenged by a Wake Forest offense that is 15th in rushing offense at 264.0 yards per contest.


9 FBS teams that are still unbeaten after three games who have exclusively played only other FBS teams. Notre Dame, again, is one of them.


8 Decades since Wake Forest has defeated a football team ranked in the Associated Press top 10 at the time of the game. In fact, the Demon Deacons are 1-58 all time against the AP top 10 (Notre Dame is No. 8 this week). The lone victory occurred Oct. 26, 1946 versus No. 4 Tennessee.


7 Consecutive games Notre Dame has scored 24 points or less, dating back to last year’s 41-8 trouncing at Miami. That is the longest such streak since the 10 that entailed the last two games of 2006 and the first eight during the 3-9 campaign in 2007. That brings us to...


6 It was in game six last year that Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book made his first collegiate start, in the state of North Carolina, versus the Tar Heels (a 33-10 win). Although head coach Brian Kelly hasn't officially said it, Book is expected to make his second career start, again in the same state.


5 This will be the fifth meeting ever between Wake Forest and Notre Dame — and the fourth in a row where the Irish are ranked in the Associated Press Top 10. The first was at Winston-Salem in 2011, a 24-17 Irish victory in which neither team was ranked.

Since then, the Irish were No. 3 during a 38-0 victory in 2012 — which helped elevate them to No. 1 for the first time in 19 years — No. 6 when it won 28-7 in 2015, and No. 3 last season, a 48-37 verdict to improve to 8-1.


4 Notre Dame is attempting to improve to 4-0 at the start of a season for only the fifth time in the 29 seasons since 1990, or just after the school record 23-game winning streak in 1988-89. The other years in that span in which they began 4-0 were 1993 (11-1), 2002 (10-3), 2012 (12-1), 2014 (8-5) and 2015 (10-3).


3 Straight games to open this season in which Notre Dame scored within the first four minutes of the contest (two touchdowns and a field goal). Of the 70 points scored this year by the Irish, 31 have been posted in the first quarter (44 percent), with only six in the fourth.


2 Passes broken up needed by junior cornerback Julian Love to become the all-time leader in that category at Notre Dame. Love had a career high four apiece each of the last two weeks, and his 31 total now trails only Clarence Ellis (1969-71), a former consensus All-American and first-round pick.

Last week Love also became the first Notre Dame player to recover two fumbles in a game (including a crucial one in the Vanderbilt end zone) since linebacker Brian Smith in 2008 versus Michigan.


1 Ranking of Wake Forest in plays run per game with 102.0 while going at a breakneck pace. Interestingly, though, that doesn’t correlate to time of possession, where the Demon Deacons are only 96th at about 28 minutes per game — one spot behind No. 95 Notre Dame.

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