ESPN College Football

1. The merger of what’s left of the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA on Monday is the latest painful episode of the epidemic unleashed upon intercollegiate athletics by AQ conferences. Of all that the BCS brought to college football, the most havoc has been wreaked by the heightened financial importance of belonging to an AQ league. Conferences are misshapen. Rivalries are tossed aside. Surely if anyone could have predicted this, the BCS commissioners would have come up with Plan B.

2. The NCAA Football Rules Committee’s proposed change on kickoffs is a two- or three-beer argument. If player safety is the goal, the idea of moving the kickoff from the 30- to the 35-yard line is a no-brainer. But moving the result of a touchback from the 20 to the 25? The argument is that it will encourage receiving teams not to return the ball from the end zone. But if I’m kicking off, do I want to surrender five more yards? If my kickoff defense is good, why kick it into the end zone?

3. Boston College has been anemic on offense for three years, yet new Rutgers coach Kyle Flood hired three Eagle offensive assistants in the last few days. Assistants, like players, are more successful under some head coaches than others. BC head coach Frank Spaziani already had hired former Kent State head coach Doug Martin and longtime Ohio State coordinator Jim Bollman to transform his offense. Rutgers may or may not be better for the arrival of the coaches. BC, which needs fresh blood, is better off for their departure.

Our Mark Schlabach took another crack at his way-too early top 25 today. In response, we'll try again to rank Notre Dame's 2012 opponents.

1. USC (Nov. 24, away): Virtually every early outlook has the Trojans slated as the preseason No. 1 or No. 2 team, and rightfully so. Matt Barkley enters 2012 as the Heisman front-runner and USC will return to the familiar position of having the target on its back throughout the season.

2. Oklahoma (Oct. 27, away): Considering Notre Dame is the only current official, penned-in game that is absolutely going to happen for the Big 12 favorites next season, I'd imagine the Sooners would get up for that.

3. Michigan State (Sept. 15, away): A growing defense will keep Sparty plowing ahead in Year 6 of the Mark Dantonio era, which may just begin with MSU as the Big Ten favorite.

4. Michigan (Sept. 22, home): A number of early polls suggest Michigan as the leading Big Ten contender, but I think some of its losses on defense will be tough to replace. Nonetheless, any team with Denard Robinson under center has a chance to make big things happen, as Notre Dame fans are all too aware of.

5. Stanford (Oct. 13, home): Who needs Andrew Luck when you have that much time in the pocket? Throw anyone under center behind that offensive line and he'll have all the time he needs to make something happen.

6. Miami (Oct. 6, Chicago): The Hurricanes make the biggest jump from the last time we looked at the Irish's opponents. An experienced defense and a great recruiting year for Al Golden suggest this program is back on the rise, pending NCAA sanctions.

7. BYU (Oct. 20, home): I said it before and I'll say it again: If Riley Nelson has a big year, watch out.

8. Purdue (Sept. 8, home): This contest scares me if I'm an Irish fan. First game back from what is sure to be an exhausting season-opening trip in Dublin, with a hungry in-state rival waiting for them and looking to build on momentum following a strong 2011 finish and weak 2012 opener (Eastern Kentucky).

9. Wake Forest (Nov. 17, home): Jim Grobe teams usually perform better than they should, but the Deacs must recover from a weak finish in 2011.

10. Boston College (Nov. 10, away): No more Luke Kuechly means happier offenses everywhere. The Eagles just hope that means theirs, too, which will be in its first year under coordinator Doug Martin.

11. Navy (Sept. 1, Dublin): The Midshipmen have a brutal start to the 2012 schedule, facing the Irish in Dublin before going to Happy Valley to face Penn State, but things get easier afterward. Can they put the awful luck of 2011 behind them and beat the beatable opponents?

12. Pitt (Nov. 3, home): Paul Chryst seems like the right fit, but asking him to lift the Panthers out of their underachieving ways in Year 1 is a bit much.

With 2011 in the rearview mirror, here is an early look at Notre Dame's 2012 opponents, with the game date and site in parantheses.

1. USC (Nov. 24, away): Matt Barkley's return makes the Trojans a trendy preseason national title pick and Barkley a likely preseason Heisman frontrunner. They host the Irish in the regular-season finale, and how sweet it would be for Notre Dame should they knock their rivals off with the highest stakes on the line.

2. Oklahoma (Oct. 27, away): Like the Trojans, the Sooners return their prized quarterback (Landry Jones) and will, at the very least, enter 2012 as the Big 12 favorite.

3. Michigan State (Sept. 15, away): Kirk Cousins and Keshawn Martin are gone, but the Spartans return four offensive linemen and plenty of production on the defensive side of the ball as they go for a third-straight 11-win season.

4. Michigan (Sept. 22, home): Denard Robinson and several key skill players likely return, but the Wolverines lose a lot on each line and will rely on several young players to fill the void.

5. Stanford (Oct. 13, home): Perhaps the biggest mystery entering 2012. We just don't know how much this team will drop off following the likely loss of Andrew Luck. Time will tell.

6. BYU (Oct. 20, home): Another wild card. Much will depend on the growth of dual-threat QB Riley Nelson and the Cougars' offense.

7. Purdue (Sept. 8, home): The Boilermakers finished 2011 with back-to-back wins for the first time this season and have a bit of momentum under Danny Hope. Some see them as a darkhorse Leaders Division contender in 2012.

8. Miami (Oct. 6, Chicago): The Hurricanes will likely be led by a defense that returns eight starters for Al Golden's second year.

9. Wake Forest (Nov. 17, home): Quarterback Tanner Price is back, but the Demon Deacons must eliminate the mistakes that cost them five of their final six games and two assistants their jobs.

10. Boston College (Nov. 10, away): The Eagles got better as the season went on and hope new offensive coordinator Doug Martin can bring the unit up to speed with the defense, which loses Luke Kuechly.

11. Navy (Sept. 1, Dublin): Can Trey Miller build off 2011, when he was forced in midseason for the injured Kriss Proctor?

12. Pitt (Nov. 3, home): New coach Paul Chryst will have his work cut out for him on a team with quarterback, protection and, at least in the past calendar year, coaching issues.

With the transfer of the nation's second leading tackler, Arizona's glaring need at linebacker just got a boost.

Akron linebacker Brian Wagner will enroll at Arizona this week and will be immediately eligible due to an NCAA rule that allows athletes pursuing graduate degrees not offered at the former school to play right away.

Wagner, 22, averaged 13.36 tackles per game in 2011, and considering top tackler Luke Kuechly of Boston College is off to the NFL, Wagner will be the top returning tackler in FBS football.

Wagner, who earned first-team All-MAC honors, is taking advantage of the same transfer rule that was used by Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson.

Why is this a big get for Arizona? Because its top two tacklers, Derek Earls and Paul Vassallo, are graduating, and the Wildcats' top two returning linebackers -- sophomores Hank Hobson and Rob Hankins -- combined for four starts and 18 tackles last season, in large part due to the Wildcats using a base nickel formation much of the season. But when you toss in 2010 starter Jake Fischer, who is coming back from an ACL injury, you have four experienced guys for three spots.

And, yes, you can essentially pencil Wagner, 6-foot, 235 pounds, into the starting lineup.

From the Tucson Citizen:

He played middle linebacker in a 4-3 scheme at Akron. Exactly where he fits into Arizona’s scheme is to be determined, Wagner said, with the Cats presumably running a 3-3-5, no matter who coach Rich Rodriguez eventually brings in as defensive coordinator.

As for that defensive coordinator, nothing yet -- I found this to be an interesting narrative on back-and-forth with West Virginia DC Jeff Casteel. Speculation that Penn State also might be a player with Casteel raised one of my eyebrows, though Casteel's 3-3-5 doesn't sound like a Penn State defense.

Kez McCorvey still shows his players the catch 18 years later. In the film room of Bethel (Tenn.) University, the Wildcats' wide receivers coach focuses on the details of the play, "560 vertical," and not so much on the circumstances surrounding it, which NBC play-by-play man Charlie Jones summed up thusly:

"So the perfect season for the Seminoles, Bobby Bowden's shot at the national championship, coming down to this play. It is fourth down and goal to go. Twenty-yard line. 2:31 left."

Eventual Heisman Trophy winner and NBA point guard Charlie Ward took the shotgun snap from the 20, dropped three steps and fired a bullet over the middle that looked destined for the hands of Notre Dame safety Brian McGee. Instead, the ball dropped into McCorvey's hands for the touchdown, cutting the Irish's lead in half and granting Florida State new life in what was then the Game of the Century -- Nov. 13, 1993.

"My guys here, they'll get plays they think we just invented or something," said the 39-year-old McCorvey, who still gets on the practice field to demonstrate routes for his NAIA pupils. "And I'll tell them we've been running that play forever. 'Look here on YouTube. I'm old as dirt, we're not even doing a good job of doing it and I'm slow and old and I can score, so here.' "

The improbability of the play had McCorvey and his teammates thinking fate had intervened -- "I don't wanna make it sound like Florida State is all that and a bag of chips, but we'd just never been in a situation where we'd been out of a game, so we just never quit."

The celebration, however, was short-lived, one of many twists and turns of a season that saw No. 2 Notre Dame upset No. 1 Florida State, 31-24, only to watch the Seminoles be declared national champions less than two months later despite having the same number of losses.

The schools will renew their rivalry in Thursday's Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla., a smaller stage later in the year that will lack the 800-plus media members, dozens of fake credentials, coach's dinner party and rapid trash-talking that surrounded South Bend, Ind., that fall week in 1993.

The messages that week, at least from up top, could not have been any more different.

"Leading up to it, obviously Coach Holtz's thing was at the beginning that we may get beat by 50, and that was just Lou Holtz, that's just how he handled things," said former Irish safety Jeff Burris, who scored the Irish's last two touchdowns of the game as a running back. "And by Monday or Tuesday, 'We'll be happy to be in the game by halftime.'

"Just his mentality was that way, but he was always focused on, 'If we do this the right way it might be a game.' And by Thursday or Friday it was, 'We'll win this game, and this is how we'll win this game.' "

For Florida State, meanwhile, it was business as usual.

"I would love to tell you we did it bigger than the Miami game, but we didn't," said McCorvey, citing a win over the No. 3 Hurricanes a month earlier. "Nothing against Notre Dame, but we felt like since we beat Miami we could win the national championship, so we'd been accustomed to that type of pressure. Coach Bowden, too. It wasn't as big a deal going into games -- the pressure, game situations. So we didn't do a whole lot of things that we hadn't done before."

Yet McCorvey couldn't help himself during the week leading up to the game, making references to "Rock Knutne" and being quoted as saying: "I appreciate what Notre Dame has accomplished, but those old guys don't play anymore. You can't win with mojo or magic. Joe Montana isn't going to put on the pads and win for them."

"I think it was a little bit of ignorance with the Knutne comment," McCorvey laughed. "That was me being young."

Still, the scene was unlike any all parties involved had ever been a part of.

Tickets were going for $1,000. ESPN's "College GameDay" was making its first on-campus appearance, albeit in front of just a few dozen loyal fans stationed on the concourse of the Joyce Center, where Notre Dame's basketball team plays.

"You can tell this is not just a football game; this is a happening," host Chris Fowler said on the air. "Paul Azinger, Roger Clemens, Spike Lee — lots of folks are gonna be here. Al Gore. Andre Agassi. Some others got turned down. As further proof this is transcendent-game status."

Signs in the parking lot offered assets such as an Orlando vacation or a Mercedes-Benz for entrance into Notre Dame Stadium that day.

"When they said it was the Game of the Century," former Irish quarterback Kevin McDougal said, "it really was."

Two days before the game, Holtz and his wife, Beth, invited 50-60 media members stationed in South Bend over to their Woodland Hills home, 10 minutes from campus.

"My then fiancée and I arrived in South Bend on Thursday," Michael Messaglia, Holtz's son-in-law, said. "Expecting a quiet night at her parents’ house, we arrived to a house full of reporters."

After Beth Holtz sent reporters out with cookies in napkins as they left, and after Holtz handed out small boxes of golf balls, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy wrote in his day-of-game column:

"That settled it. It doesn't matter if Florida State wins today by four touchdowns; I will write only good things about Notre Dame. I have broken bread with Lou. After today's game of the century, I will have only one question.

"What time is dinner before the BC game?"

Of course, the high of Shawn Wooden knocking down Ward's final pass of the Game of the Century was met the following week with a hangover against Boston College, as the Eagles engineered a 41-39 shocker that played a pivotal role in deciding the national championship.

Notre Dame beat Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1. Florida State won its last two regular-season games before topping undefeated Nebraska in the Orange Bowl the same day.

The Seminoles finished atop both The Associated Press and coaches' polls, giving Bowden his first national championship, though the regret wasn't limited to the Irish's side.

"You look back and you think you won the national championship, but you wanted to go 13-0," McCorvey said. "You wanted to not lose a game that whole year and leave your legacy as one of the best teams that ever played. The Notre Dame loss was something that kind of tarnished that a little bit."

The warning signs were there from the beginning.

Persistent thunder and lightning rocked South Bend, Ind., throughout halftime of Notre Dame's season opener against South Florida, culminating in a game that ended five hours, 59 minutes after it started. The final tally was Bulls 23, Irish 20, with a quarterback switch and nighttime falling somewhere in between.

The lights came on one week later in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the Irish faced Michigan in the Big House's first-ever night game. But a 17-point lead entering the fourth quarter was not enough for Notre Dame, which surrendered 28 points to Denard Robinson & Co. in the game's final 15 minutes, with a pair of fumbles taking wrong turns, to add to the pain.

An 0-2 start rendered any preseason BCS-bowl expectations meaningless, and the manner in which those defeats took place were as sure a sign as any that this would be one strange season.

Consider:

• Notre Dame then routed Michigan State 31-13 in Week 3, one of only two regular-season losses for a Spartans team that ended up falling a few plays shy of the Rose Bowl.
• The Irish faced a third-and-goal from the 1, down seven, in the third quarter in Week 8 against USC before a fumbled snap resulted in an 80-yard touchdown the other way, effectively killing any chance of a win. It was the second fumble returned for a touchdown against the Irish when facing third-and-goal from the 1 during the season. (USF did it on Notre Dame's first drive of the season.)
• Five days later, Brian Kelly made controversial comments about the difference between the players he recruited and those he inherited, leading to player backlash on Twitter and an apology to the team the next day.

The Irish won eight of their final 10 games to finish 8-4 and clinch a berth in the Dec. 29 Champs Sports Bowl against Florida State, another 8-4 team that saw lofty preseason expectations take a hit early. Tommy Rees will start for Notre Dame, the sophomore's 12th consecutive start after replacing Dayne Crist to start the second half against the Bulls in Week 1. Fellow sophomore Andrew Hendrix, who replaced Rees to start the second half at Stanford in the regular-season finale, is slated to see plenty of action against the Seminoles as well.

The status of Crist, meanwhile, is up in the air after the senior was granted his release to explore options outside of Notre Dame for next season, his final year of eligibility after graduating later this month.

Also leaving the Irish is senior receiver Michael Floyd, who re-wrote the school record books and hauled in 95 catches for 1,106 yards this season. Floyd, a projected first-round draft pick, could be joined by junior linebacker Manti Te'o, who is also projected as a first-round pick after leading the Irish defensively for the second consecutive season.

Personnel questions will be answered later. For now, let's take a look back at this campaign and hand out some hardware:

Offensive MVP: Wide receiver Michael Floyd

Floyd took full advantage of one last chance after a third alcohol-related offense last March put this season in jeopardy. The senior's 95 catches this season are an Irish record, as are the 266 for his career. His 3,645 career receiving yards are the most in school history. So, too, are his 36 career receiving touchdowns. Floyd was lined up virtually everywhere this season and dealt with three different quarterbacks. His downfield blocking improved greatly. And, big statistical performance or not, he remained a threat in every game and always required the full attention of opposing defenses. The Irish will certainly miss him next season.

Defensive MVP: Linebacker Manti Te'o

Following his 133-tackle output from a year ago, the junior has racked up 115 more tackles through 12 games this season, by far the most on the team. He has become more familiar in the backfield, too, notching 13 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks, both good for team highs. Add in the fact he dealt with an ankle injury midseason, and Te'o had himself quite a junior campaign. A big decision awaits him this offseason, as Te'o is projected as a first-round NFL pick should he choose to forego his final year of eligibility.

Newcomer of the Year: Defensive end Aaron Lynch

The freshman burst onto the scene with a giant Week 3 performance against Michigan State, recording one sack, forcing a fumble and notching six quarterback hurries. To put that into proper context, no Notre Dame player recorded that many throughout all of the 2010 season. Lynch enters the Champs Sports Bowl against Florida State — a school he once committed to — with 5.5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks and 13 hurries on the season. He was forced into extended playing time because of injury along the line, and he did not disappoint.

Coach of the Year: Running backs coach Tim Hinton

Hinton helped the rushing game exceed everyone's expectations but its own. Cierre Wood rushed for 1,042 yards and nine touchdowns, and Jonas Gray may have joined him in the 1,000-yard mark if not for an ACL tear Nov. 19. Gray, a senior, scored 12 touchdowns this season, including at least one in eight consecutive games, finishing his final campaign with 791 yards and a 6.9-yards-per-carry average. Hinton could draw interest from Urban Meyer at Ohio State, but for now the Irish are thankful for the work he put in this season.

Biggest surprise: Running back Jonas Gray

Speaking of Gray … Kelly said before the Irish's game against Boston College that he had never in his career seen a senior renaissance like Gray's. Gray overcame a potentially devastating Week 1 fumble against USF — one that resulted in a game-changing touchdown the other way — and ended up getting game captain honors against Air Force and starting four games. He spent much of the season in pursuit of George Gipp's single-season yards per carry record of 8.11, finishing with a 6.9 average. He had never scored a touchdown before notching 12 this season. Sadly, the campaign ended prematurely on Senior Day. Here's hoping Gray makes a speedy recovery and left enough of an impression on NFL scouts, as he was playing his way onto their radars before going down Nov. 19.

Biggest disappointment: Punt-return game

The Irish finished the season with a punt-return average of 0.30 yards per return, the worst among FBS teams. The Theo Riddick experiment backfired, as the junior fumbled one away in Week 1, and even the normally sure-handed John Goodman let one get away deep in his own territory Week 3 against Michigan State. Floyd voluntarily went back there to try to make something happen, but he never got a chance to return one this season. The Irish have plenty of work to do in this area in the offseason.

Game of the Year: Michigan 35, Notre Dame 31

The Sept. 10 contest had everything a college football fan could ask for: The first night game in the history of the Big House. Two of the three winningest programs in college football history. College GameDay on campus. The biggest crowd in college football history.

Then the game actually started, and it somehow surpassed the hype.

Michigan came back from a 24-7 deficit after three quarters, scoring four touchdowns in the fourth quarter and two in the final 1 minute, 12 seconds to shock the Irish. Vincent Smith's 21-yard touchdown catch made it 28-24 Michigan, Tommy Rees responded 42 seconds later with a 29-yard scoring strike to Riddick and Robinson closed things out with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Roy Roundtree with 2 seconds to play, capping off Michigan's third consecutive thrilling win over Notre Dame and a night for the ages. The Big House might as well quit while it's ahead; no night game there will ever surpass the first one.

Manti Te'o is one of six finalists for the Butkus Award, given annually to the nation's top linebacker.

The junior leads Notre Dame in tackles (103), tackles for loss (11.5) and sacks (4.5) this season.

Te'o is coming off a team-best 12-tackle performance in Saturday's 16-14 win against Boston College, his seventh game this season with at least 10 tackles. The performance earned him FBS independent defensive player of the week honors and Lott IMPACT player of the week honors.

The man who had the most tackles in Saturday's game, the Eagles' Luke Kuechly (14), is one of the other five finalists for the award, joining Nebraska's Lavonte David, Georgia's Jarvis Jones and Alabama's Dont’a Hightower and Courtney Upshaw.

It is time to look back at the weekend that was for Notre Dame, which eked out a 16-14 win over three-win Boston College to win its fourth straight game overall and third in a row over an ACC opponent.

The Good: A win's a win, right? This one was the Irish's fourth in a row against an overmatched opponent, and the end result is all that matters. Looking at the fact Notre Dame had lost two of its previous four Senior Day games -- and the fact it ended the day with the same win total as last season -- the Irish will take it and not look back.

The Bad: As mentioned earlier, Boston College is a three-win team. Notre Dame jumped out to an early 10-0 lead but could never run away from the overmatched Eagles, whose last hope was not officially wiped out until an onside kick recovery by Robby Toma. Notre Dame started six different drives inside its own 20-yard line, and it did not score on any of those drives.

The Ugly: Jonas Gray's likely season-ending knee injury fits in this category. So, too, does Stephon Tuitt missing the game with an illness. And Harrison Smith going to the infirmary the day before the game. And another unidentified player, according to Brian Kelly on Sunday, getting sick after the game.

Turning point: David Ruffer's 27-yard field goal with 8:08 left made it a two-possession game, giving the Irish a 16-7 lead. After starting the season just 2-of-6, Ruffer has connected on eight straight field goals, including three Saturday -- two from 40 yards or beyond -- in what ended up being a two-point game.

Play of the day: Tyler Eifert's spectacular one-handed grab for 37 yards in the first quarter takes the cake here, though Toma deserves an honorable mention for his full-extension 20-yard diving catch in the second quarter while absorbing a hit.

Next up: Notre Dame's biggest test of the season comes this Saturday at No. 6 Stanford in what is likely Andrew Luck's final home game. Who? Just arguably the greatest NFL draft prospect of the last decade and a strong Heisman Trophy contender. The Cardinal will likely be playing for an at-large BCS-bowl berth, something Notre Dame can only have a fringe chance of by pulling off the road upset this weekend.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The third quarter was less than five minutes old when attention began to shift from the field to the home sideline, Notre Dame players making their way toward the equipment trunk to offer whatever they could to the teammate sitting on top of it, the player unlikely to join them on the field ever again, certainly not in this final home game of the season.

Kapron Lewis-Moore, relegated to crutches after suffering a season-ending right knee injury four weeks earlier, stayed to his right, as if to make sure the running back wouldn't spend a second alone.

Braxston Cave, out for the year after suffering a left foot injury two weeks earlier, emerged from the player's left, hugging the senior as he limped off the field under his own power.

Michael Floyd would say afterward that he was heartbroken. Manti Te'o would call it the hardest thing to watch.

Jonas Gray, the man they were all trying to pick up? He was doing a much better job than any of them, picking up everyone around him instead.

He told his mother, Jeri, not to worry, insisting he'd be OK. His right knee immobilized in the locker room after a 16-14 win over Boston College, Gray told his teammates to stay strong. He thanked them for his four years at Notre Dame, told them how special the experience was and explained how lucky he felt to be able to share it with them.

"That's the kind of guy he is," captain Harrison Smith said. "He's not gonna dwell on the bad things. He's gonna try to somehow spin it to be good."

Gray spun a season-opening, goal-line fumble into becoming an eventual starter, finishing with 791 yards and 6.9 yards per carry this season.

He took on coach Brian Kelly's challenge to overcome that Week 1 gaffe and didn't let it define him, carrying the ball 39 more times in 2011 than he did in the three previous years combined, all the while rushing for 12 touchdowns -- 12 more than he had entering this season.

Kelly, sans MRI result Sunday, made the presumption that Gray's injury would cost him 2011 and who knows just how much beyond, all for a senior who had been playing his way into an NFL future during this last go-round.

Just four days earlier, Kelly sang a much different tune about Gray's renaissance senior campaign.

"I can't remember in my 21 years coaching a guy that has made that significant of an impact on a football team," Kelly said Wednesday. "I've had some senior linemen step up and be great role guys, but he's an actual playmaker for us. All the credit. I mean, he's the guy who decided to do this. We said, 'Listen, you gotta do this.' He could've chose not to do it. He's a great story."

That great story was supposed to reach its climax Saturday, the senior walking through the home tunnel for the final time, rushing for a 26-yard score on the game's opening drive, Notre Dame's only touchdown of the day.

But 11 carries, two catches and 76 total yards later, that great story came crashing down in the form of a 3-yard reception gone wrong, putting everything Gray had said this season to the test.

"The one thing I'm gonna remember is how I was humbled through my first couple seasons, and how that has an impact on how I am now," he had said Tuesday. "That makes me work even harder every time I have the opportunity, because I was humbled so early on in my career. So that's what I'm gonna remember about this place. And this university is great. The people are great. And being surrounded around great people who all have the same attitude I have, which is having a selfish motivation, but at the same time being great teammates."

Gray could say he was humble and tout his teammates when all was going well. But what about when his career flashed before his eyes, when everything he worked for was taken right from under him so close to the finish line?

"I don't feel bad at all, because he's had a good year," his mother said after the game. "He's overcome some adversity, and so for him to even get this far, I don't feel bad for him at all. It's unfortunate that this situation happened, but it's football and he knows that. And just like before, he'll bounce back."

Gray himself wasn't available for interviews Saturday. He probably wasn't needed. Everyone else did the speaking for him.

Because afterward, his teammates said, Jonas Gray looked at them in the locker room following the Senior Day win he couldn't finish and told them how lucky he was just to be a part of it.

Matt Fortuna wraps Notre Dame’s 16-14 Senior Day win over Boston College.

Robby Toma talks about his play in the win over the Eagles.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Notre Dame edged out Boston College in an ugly contest Saturday, escaping with a 16-14 Senior Day victory at Notre Dame Stadium.

David Ruffer's 27-yard field goal with just more than eight minutes left in the contest all but iced the game. Bobby Swigert's seven-yard touchdown catch with 1:57 remaining was too little, too late for the Eagles.

Robby Toma recovered Boston College's ensuing onside kick attempt.

The Irish won their fourth straight game overall and their third over an ACC opponent in as many weeks, matching last season's win total in improving to 8-3.

However, it was not all roses for Notre Dame on its Senior Day, as running back Jonas Gray went down in the third quarter with what looked like a serious knee injury. The blow would be devastating to the Irish backfield and especially to the senior Gray, who had a renaissance campaign and was positioning himself to be drafted this coming spring.

Be sure to keep it here for postgame reaction to the Irish win and for the latest news surrounding Gray's injury.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame has let Boston College hang around for longer than it has any reason to through three quarters. Will it come back to bite the Irish?

Tommy Rees' erratic day finally reared its ugly head with a third-quarter interception by the Eagles' Max Holloway. Rees had several near-picks in the first half that, fortunately for him, bounced harmlessly to the ground.

The Irish start the fourth quarter from the BC 48 with a chance to score and put the Eagles away once and for all, something they have struggled to do all day long. The offense has looked stagnant, and it is not a stretch to say that the players may just be shaken up after watching senior running back Jonas Gray leave the game with what looks like a serious leg injury.

Gray hobbled back to the locker room and appeared to be on the verge of tears as several players offered their condolences. As big a loss as that may be for Notre Dame, the Irish cannot let that turn into a second loss today.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Notre Dame enters halftime with a 13-7 lead over Boston College. Here's how it went down:

Turning point: Boston College marched 80 yards on nine plays on its second-to-last drive of the half, ending the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run from Josh Bordner. The score cut the Notre Dame lead to 10-7 and made this a game, as the Eagles will receive the ball to start the second half.

Stat of the half: Notre Dame began three separate drives in the first half from inside its own 6-yard line. The Irish managed as many as 45 yards on one of those drives, but were eventually forced to punt, resulting in a touchback. Boston College then scored on its next drive.

Best player in the half: Boston College's Luke Kuechly became the ACC's career leader in tackles and currently has nine on the day, leading all players. He has one tackle for loss and a pass break-up as well, and he has keyed an Eagles' run defense that has looked very impressive after an awful opening series, holding the Irish to a manageable 5 yards per carry through the first half.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Greetings from Notre Dame Stadium, where the Irish seniors will take the field for the final time as they face Boston College in their home finale.

Most of the Notre Dame players warming up on the field now are in knit caps, long sleeves and high socks. Having not played here in three weeks, this is certainly the coldest home game anyone will have played in this season.

While Senior Days are fairly official ordeals, it is always different at Notre Dame, since there is so much uncertainty surrounding the upperclassmen. As you know, not all are invited back to complete their final year of eligibility, so we may not know if this is the last we truly see of some of them in a home uniform.

The biggest enigma among the four-year players with eligibility remaining is Dayne Crist, who started the last two openers only to lose his job to injury and a poor first-half performance in Week 1 this season. Crist has not spoken publicly since getting the hook, and I'm interested to see how he handles this game, whether or not he is invited back for a fifth year.

Crist is, by all accounts, a strong character guy who has handled his stretch of tough luck with grace, and I think I speak for all when I say he deserves a proper send-off today, if this truly is his final game at Notre Dame Stadium.

Don't go anywhere, as we'll have plenty of more from here throughout the afternoon.