GLENDALE, Ariz. -- There is a limit to the mindset that managed to keep Notre Dame sane, competitive and dangerous this season, despite dealing with a historic onslaught of injuries.
The only problem with relying so frequently on the “next man up” approach in college football is that there isn’t an endless supply of bodies to plug in and keep winning games.
Eventually, the pile of losses was bound to catch up to the No. 8 Fighting Irish, and they finally found their breaking point against No. 7 Ohio State on Friday in the BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl. Before Notre Dame could escape the first quarter, another key contributor was heading to the sideline with a significant injury. His backup would eventually go down as well, and a roster stretched perilously thin all season finally couldn’t hold together enough to stick with the Buckeyes in a 44-28 loss.
“We were short-handed today, but we weren’t outmanned,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. “You lose a guy like [linebacker Jaylon Smith] early on, [and] it significantly affects what you’re doing defensively. But we didn’t flinch.
“That’s the mark of this team this year -- that they played hard and physical. Regardless of who was out there, they gave us everything they had.”
Kelly needed contributions from far more Fighting Irish players than he could have envisioned in the preseason, and in a cruel way, the growing list of injuries and suspensions during the postseason was a fitting end to a snakebitten year.
But the spirit of a team that fought its way to a 10-win season could be summed up in the way Notre Dame responded to the devastating blow to Smith in the early going, another issue when his replacement, Te'von Coney, was banged up, and standout defensive tackle Sheldon Day battled through a foot injury and an illness he came down with late in the week.
“You want to define this team? It’s our resolve,” Notre Dame wide receiver Will Fuller said. “We never turn our backs on each other. We always just come out and compete. This doesn’t change the way I look at the year at all because we did the same thing we did all year. People went down, people stepped up, and we played our hearts out.
“Ohio State is a great team. They could have come in here and steamrolled us. Our best player goes down, and we’re still in there fighting. This just proves that our team is something special.”
The Irish might look back and wonder how much more special the season could have been if half the starting lineup hadn’t been on the disabled list. They might wish for a Fiesta Bowl do-over at full strength, particularly considering a creative offensive game plan helped them trade punches with the high-octane Ohio State attack and the patchwork defense delivered a timely takeaway and racked up seven tackles for loss to keep the deficit manageable.
But there’s no looking back for Notre Dame as it heads into the offseason. There’s no question the biggest thing ahead is simply getting back to 100 percent as the Irish regroup for what Kelly has to hope will be a healthier 2016.
“I feel pretty good about where we’re going,” Kelly said. “We certainly need to execute better but didn’t feel like we were outmanned. We were a little short-handed, but they didn’t make any excuses for it.
“They battled, they didn’t complain, they took extra reps. That’s the mark of a group that just has bought in to do whatever is necessary to win.”
Notre Dame's “next man in” approach couldn’t quite deliver a win Friday when strained to its limit against an elite opponent. But that mindset certainly worked well the rest of the season, and it bodes well for a future that surely won’t include as many bites from the injury bug.