In its two victories, Notre Dame has been helped by excellent field position as the Irish have started 23 of their 31 drives beyond their own 20-yard line. And 11 of those drives have begun in their opponents’ half of the field. . . .
The 165 rushing yards Notre Dame gave up last week to Michigan State was more than it had given up to BYU and Michigan combined (78 yards). Asked if Washington would try to exploit the same defensive soft spot Michigan State found, Huskies’ coach Keith Gilbertson simply laughed. “I’d give a lot of money to only give up only 165 yards. Are you kidding me?” Gilbertson said, pointing out the Huskies had ceded a UCLA-record 322 rushing yards to Bruins’ tailback Maurice Drew. “One-hundred sixty-five yards? The UCLA kid had that at the quarter. You have to realize how we’re looking at it. We look at 165 yards and think that would be a pretty good day for our defense.”
– Next: Saturday vs. Washington, 2:30 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5.