Irish looking for lateseason surge
DURHAM, N.C. — No. 15 Notre Dame found a way to finally win a close game. Duke hasn’t had much success doing that.
The Fighting Irish (62, No. 15 CFP) visit the Blue Devils (44) on Saturday night in a game neither team can really afford to lose.
With two losses, Notre Dame is out of the College Football Playoff discussion but a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl is very much a possibility. But for that to happen, the Irish keep winning and climbing up the selection committee’s rankings.
After bouncing back from a sloppy loss at Michigan with a lastminute victory over Virginia Tech, the Irish have a manageable schedule the rest of the way and shape up as favorites in each of their final four games.
“I don’t know why, but it seems like if you win it’s a little quieter,” coach Brian Kelly said. “We are going to continue to try to do that. Our preparation will be such that we’ve got our players understanding what it takes to prepare and play the right way. We’ll build off that and go have some fun.”
It’s been tougher lately for the Blue Devils, who have lost two straight and need to win two of their final four games — next up are Syracuse, No. 22 Wake Forest and resurgent Miami — to qualify for their third straight bowl game.
Either way, they’ll no doubt rue the ones that slipped away.
Only two of Duke’s games have been decided by fewer than 18 points and the Blue Devils lost them both in the closing minutes, losing 3330 to Pittsburgh and most recently falling 2017 at rival North Carolina when a tailback jump pass was intercepted at the goal line. Duke used its off week to put the sting of that loss in the past.
“You use it as fuel,” coach David Cutcliffe said. “You don’t let it eat you up under any circumstances, and so we put that to rest during the open date.”
Some things to know about the Notre DameDuke game: