What was Notre Dame’s biggest win of the decade?
Myself and Jeff Feyerer discussed this and have a list we will be unveiling one at a time shortly. Plenty of our votes (we each picked 12) went to 2012 where Kelly and Notre Dame shocked the world en-route to a 12-0 regular season.
Spoiler alert – a year that didn’t give top-ten worthy love on our list was 2013.
It started with the drama following getting destroyed by Alabama: Brian Kelly dipping his toes in the NFL waters, Manti Te’o’s too good to be true story ultimately not being true. Don’t forget the hectic signing period that saw five-star defensive tackle Eddie Vanderdoes sign his national letter of intent before backing out and eventually ending up at UCLA.
The off-season was hectic enough and the year previous was fortunate enough that you knew a regression was likely coming. That only became more obvious quarterback Everett Golson was kicked off the team for the season.
Ultimately that 12-1 from 2012 dipped to 9-4 in 2013 and instead of a title game appearance, the season and Tommy Rees’s Notre Dame playing career ended in a Pinstripe Bowl victory over Rutgers.
But for one September afternoon, everything was right for Kelly and the Fighting Irish as their performance kept a former annual rival from their own national championship appearance.
Mark D’Antonio stepping down last week got me thinking about this and perhaps we’ll take a deeper look at him compared to Kelly and their impacts on their respective programs later this week.
Under D’Antonio, Michigan State had been a program on the rise up to that point. They had twice won 11 games under his direction before falling back to a 7-6 campaign in 2012. 2013 however was a different year in East Lansing.
Led by the likes of Connor Cook, Jeremy Langford and a defense that allowed 20 points just twice all regular season, the Spartans went 12-1 and won their first outright Big Ten Championship since 1987.
Michigan State closed the season with a Big Ten Championship victory over No. 2 Ohio State and a Rose Bowl victory over No. 5 Stanford.
Had it not been for Notre Dame besting the Spartans 17-13 on September 21 that year, Michigan State would have been set to take on Florida State in what wound up being the final BCS National Championship Game.
The game is most remembered for Notre Dame drawing four pass interference calls on Michigan State and another defensive holding. That and a very odd decision to have running back RJ Shelton throw a pass that was intercepted by Notre Dame’s Matthias Farley.
It may not have appeared as that significant as Notre Dame was a four point favorite that afternoon.
It certainly didn’t feel like it at the time and because of how that season ultimately went, the win didn’t carry a whole lot of weight. But looking back, was it Brian Kelly’s biggest win at Notre Dame?
It was after all against a team that finished ranked third overall but Michigan State remained unranked at all until the first week of November that season.
Because of what eventually happened with Notre Dame going 9-4 it didn’t feel that big but is it Kelly’s best win at Notre Dame?
The impact of winning at Oklahoma in 2012 launched Notre Dame from being a nice story and turning them into a legit championship contender which is why I still give it the nod, but the win over Michigan State does certainly only get better over time.