Notre Dame Bowl Eligible, but Still Not Elite

Bowl Eligible. This used to mean nothing to Notre Dame football. But lately it means that they have won six games and are eligible for the Champs Sports Bowl or Insight Bowl. This is a long way from where Notre Dame football fans and Brian Kelly would like to be.

It is probably not surprising they won over Wake Forest, because in Kelly’s first year Notre Dame overcame a lot of adversity and finished very well down the stretch and they started off this November very well with a 24-17 win over the Demon Deacons.

Notre Dame does seem to get better as the weeks have gone on, they did have the game against USC where their toughness took a hit. Kelly also made some remarks that may have divided the team after that game. His guys and guys that were not recruited by him seem to be the big topic over the last couple of weeks.

In the Wake Forest game because of injuries, three freshman(Louis Nix is a redshirt freshman) started on the front line for Notre Dame. Kelly is slowly working in freshman as ten have played this year and the future looks bright.

Quarterback is still a problem for Notre Dame as the running part of the game has been absent. Despite this the Notre Dame offense has still been pretty proficient but does not have enough dimensions to it to put Notre Dame in the BCS elite.

Until Notre Dame has a QB that can extend the offense and be a threat running they will always be an 8-4 team. Tommy Rees does not have a strong arm and does not run well. It will be hard for him to beat upper echelon teams as they have the talent to shut down ND’s offense. Andrew Hendrix and Everett Golson both seem to have what it takes to run the offense but both are unproven.

Notre Dame is bowl eligible but as USC showed ND they are still a long way from elite status.


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