Notre Dame Football: 5 most gut-wrenching losses of Brian Kelly era

1. Notre Dame 8, Miami 41 (Nov. 11, 2017)

In a season that took shape very similar to that of 2015, the Irish found themselves midway through the month of November with only one loss. This loss to Georgia, much like the 2015 Irish’s 22-24 loss to Clemson, wasn’t going to be enough to keep them out of the College Football Playoff. As a result, it was very likely that the Irish would need only three more wins to earn a spot.

Outside of the Georgia game and an 11-point win over Wake Forest, the Irish had pretty much demolished just about every team they faced heading up to this point in the season. However, they hadn’t yet beat a team as good as Miami.

Notre Dame’s Brandon Wimbush-led team faltered early and often throughout the game, with the young Ian Book not doing much better. The two quarterbacks combined for four interceptions and a fumble on the night, a testament to the all around struggles of the offense against a top-notch Miami defense.

As you would imagine in light of the amount of turnovers, the Notre Dame defense fell flat as well in what ended as a 41-8 Miami victory. While there wasn’t the last-second heartache of the Stanford game two years prior, the loss knocked the Irish out of playoff contention just the same. The Irish would lose their following contest to Stanford before taking down LSU in a game that marked Book’s emergence as starting quarterback.