LOS ANGELES -- Notre Dame completed its perfect regular season here Saturday night.
Wait, no, that's not right. It was a 12-0 season, an undefeated season. But perfect? Far from it.
All those near-defeats. All the quarterback shuffling. All the stops and starts in momentum. How could that ever be described as perfect?
Even Saturday against Matt Barkley-less USC, the Irish required five field goals and a late goal-line stand to grind out a 22-13 win. Some recent champs have made winning seem effortless. Just watching the Irish makes a viewer feel as if he or she has worked an overnight shift on an assembly line.
It might be exhausting, but it has also been effective. Notre Dame is 12-0, regardless of what went into each of the 12 victories.
"That's how we play," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "We don't talk about style points. ... We talk about finding ways to win."
That's why it's difficult to count them out against any BCS title game opponent -- even if that team will come from a league that's won six consecutive championships.
Notre Dame versus the SEC champ will provide terrific fodder for the month of December, Southern-bred fans crowing about how the Irish have no prayer, and Notre Dame fans rolling their eyes because of all the bends in the road they've navigated the past three months.
I know of one Tennessee-based blogger, perhaps in search of outrage (or page views), who has said all year that the Irish would be nothing more than a middle-of-the-road SEC team.
In talking briefly Saturday with a former All-SEC player, he said he thinks Notre Dame would hang with every SEC team. Except one.