Notre Dame Football: How an Irish Win at Wake Forest Sets Up Succesful Season

Wisdom dictates that laughter is the best medicine.

I contend that it is second to winning.

Nothing turns a week of tumult and scrutiny on its ear faster than a 56-14 thumping of a team that has bested you three of four times.

Sure the Naval Academy team was not the well-oiled Ricky Dobbs machine that ran all over Notre Dame for four years, but the Irish simply annihilated the Midshipmen. 

After dropping another turnover and penalty laden affair to USC a week before, and filling the space in between with strife over divisive comments made about the team by its coach, things were becoming tense in South Bend.

All questions about the team's unity were answered in the second quarter when, following a terrible twin to the Cierre Wood dropped screen backward-lateral thing that set up a USC score, a  Tommy Rees backward pass flew wide of Jonas Gray who could not cover the ball.

A few plays later Navy had cut Notre Dame's lead in half, and seemed to be grabbing momentum.

Freshman flash-bulb George Atkinson III put the Irish in solid field position, and it took one play and eight seconds for Notre Dame to reclaim its two touchdown lead with Rees hitting Michael Floyd on a 58 yard strike.

Navy fumbled the ensuing kick, and in a blur the Irish held a commanding 28-14 lead.

The rest of the game was academic, other than to see who would be the second quarterback inserted in garbage time. 

Crisis can be considered averted.

Moving forward, barring a surprise meltdown of nearly every team in the Top 25 at the moment, a BCS bid is fantasy.

Securing a date with the ACC runner-up in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando is now the preferred postseason landing spot.

Getting to that bowl will fittingly require a run through a trio of ACC opponents.

Saturday Notre Dame travels for the first time to Wake Forrest before a "neutral" date with Maryland (in Maryland) and hosting Boston College for Senior Day.

The toughest of the three dates is without a doubt the first.

Wake Forrest despite being pounded 49-24 this weekend will enter with an equal 5-3 record.The Demon Deacons throw the ball well, averaging just over 275 yards per game, but struggle with the running game ranking 106th.

On the other side of the football, Wake Forrest has issues on defense. Against FBS opponents they allow on average 300 yards passing and 120 on the ground.

They 79th nationally in points allowed giving up 28.4 per game and have surrendered 36 to Syracuse, 27 to N.C. State, 30 to Florida State, 38 to Virginia Tech, and 49 to North Carolina.

Given that Wake has difficulty running the ball, and has trouble playing defense at all, it is an opponent who should be a large underdog to Notre Dame.

For the Irish a win at Wake Forrest achieves first and foremost bowl eligibility. All the talk about what bowl the Irish may find themselves playing in really cannot begin until they are officially eligible to be invited.

It also again places Notre Dame in the "program on the right track" category.

It will help highlight the fact that despite all of the trials and tribulations Brian Kelly has amassed a 13-8 record through 21 games.

The last Irish coach to sit 13-8 after 21 games midway through his second season went on to lose the next three to finish 13-11 after two seasons. (5-7 year one, 8-4 year two)

Year three went just a little better as Lou Holtz's 1988 Fighting Irish went 12-0 and claimed the National Championship.

Should Kelly improve to 14-8 by beating Wake Forrest, he will not only move ahead of Holtz's pace, but will have a chance to ascend farther with two more very winnable contests before meeting 5th ranked Stanford to conclude the regular season.

It may not be the BCS birth that the legions envisioned prior to the season's outset, but finishing strong for the second year in a row would do much to extinguishing many of the fires that remain.

The team is improving, and like it or not is developing an edge, an attitude if you will.

Kelly maybe should have been more careful with is words, and more candid in a very public forum, but it doesn't make his meaning any less true.

Notre Dame is 5-3 rather than 7-1 because they have been soft. They have been careless. They have been playing without urgency.

The team is growing. USC was a set back, but the progress is visible. The younger guys not named Floyd or Te'o do look better.

There is a light at the end of the long dark tunnel that has been the last four years of Notre Dame football.

Building another four-game winning streak going into Stanford and playing a solid, fierce competitive game in Palo Alto would prove that Kelly was right, and that very soon the new helmets won't be the only things shining on Saturdays.