It didn’t matter that the Irish were 3-0 coming into last Saturday. A lot of people felt that Notre Dame football was not worthy of its top 10 ranking. A win over Michigan pushed the Irish to No. 8. After that, there was a good reason for many to be questioning the team’s position in the polls.
Wins over Ball State and Vanderbilt ended up being much closer than anyone expected. While sitting at 3-0, head coach Brian Kelly made a tough and risky choice to bench his starting quarterback, Brandon Wimbush, in favor of Ian Book.