CJ Carr

That team is Miami, whose season-opening win over the Irish last fall became the exact tiebreaker the committee used to keep a 10-2 Notre Dame home. The schedule-makers put the rematch first. You couldn't script it crueler.

Here's what the box score buries: no returning quarterback in the country was blitzed more than Carr -- 36.7% of his dropbacks -- because defenses saw a first-year starter and came hunting. It backfired. When teams didn't blitz, nobody in America averaged more per dropback (9.4). He finished fifth nationally in efficiency and a Manning Award finalist as a freshman.

The bloodline is the subplot you'll hear all year: Carr was raised in Saline, Michigan -- grandson of Lloyd Carr, the man who won Michigan's last title in 1997 -- and he chose Notre Dame over the Wolverines. Now he carries the title hopes of the program Ann Arbor loves to hate.

The forward question isn't the arm; it's the margin. The independent path leaves almost none -- win at Miami and BYU and an 87%-likely Playoff bid is his; slip once and the snub debate reopens. Carr says his Year 2 leap is leadership and footwork, not numbers. The Irish haven't won it all since 1988. If the sophomore who shrugged off the blitz becomes the closer this program's been missing, the story stops being "good Notre Dame QB" and becomes "the one who ended the drought."