Not exactly ironic, but I just realized that the reason ND is #5 and not in the top four for 1992 was its loss to Stanford earlier in the year (the Irish were 9-1-1, with a tie to Michigan and a loss at home to Stanford). Why does this matter? Well, as one of the resident ND supporters around here...
This was my freshman year at UW and my parents were in Madison for Parents' Day. My dad graduated from and worked (still works) at Stanford, and as a teenager my mom and I had season tickets to Stanford games. My mom grew up something of a Penn State fan, and that, combined with Stanford's then relatively new series with ND meant she didn't like ND--so I didn't like ND, either. Ok, and Lou Holtz ND was easy to not like, particularly with the NBC contract and all that.
So anyway, on this day in history, October 3, 1992, my parents and I sat in the upper deck at Camp Randall and watched Wisconsin upset #12 Ohio State, quarterbacked by Kirk Herbstreit. This was the program's biggest win since Barry Alvarez came to town. We left Camp Randall and walked to my parents' friend's house where her tailgate had never quit (she lived a couple blocks off of Breese Terrace--very close to the stadium), and watched Stanford knock off the mighty Notre Dame in South Bend.
It was a good football day for the family.
It wasn't until SFIrish came along several years later that I began to shift my allegiances from Stanford to the Irish.
All these playoff what ifs also remind me just how good Miami and ND were in the late 80s and early 90s. 88-93 the Irish were beasts; with their worst finish the year ND upset #3 Florida by 11 in the Sugar Bowl (1991 season). Miami even more so (81-94); FSU (87-2000); Nebraska (93-01). I guess there's always someone at the top that everyone else wants to knock down.