Five most heartbreaking games of the Brian Kelly era

2015 – Notre Dame at Stanford

Going into the last game of the season against Stanford, the Irish still had an outside chance to make the College Football Playoff. They had to win this game to keep their playoff hopes alive. Like most games on this list, it was back and forth.

The Irish and Cardinal played a game of little defense. Both offenses had their way. The Irish gained 533 yards and Stanford gained 422. The problem for Notre Dame was that they couldn’t get Stanford off the field on third down. The Cardinal were 8-12 on third down conversions.

Like the Clemson and Florida State games, the Irish looked as if they had a fourth quarter drive for the ages when DeShone Kizer took the Irish on a 15 play, 88 yard drive in the last six minutes and capped it off with an epic stretch for the goal line to give the Irish a 36-35 lead.

Stanford would get the ball back one last time with 30 seconds left and had to go almost 45 yards to get in field goal range. The Cardinal did just that as quarterback Kevin Hogan sliced right through the Irish defense. He got Stanford in range for kicker Conrad Ukropina. Ukropina knocked home a 45 yard field goal to end the game and dash the playoff hopes of the Irish.

Next: Denard does it again