The 2012 college football season wasn’t supposed to be anything special for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It was the third year on the job for head coach Brian Kelly, but nothing from the 2010 or 2011 seasons really showed that Notre Dame was much better than it was under the Charlie Weis regime.
THE BUILDUP
Prior to the 2011 season, Notre Dame was absolutely roasted by ESPN’s Wright Thompson in a video piece that has come to be known as “The Notre Dame Eulogy.” The Irish didn’t do much to defend themselves that year with an 8-5 season that ended in a bad loss to the Florida State Seminoles in the Champs Sports Bowl (now known as the Camping World Bowl).