SOUTH BEND – Notre Dame nose guard Louis Nix III doesn’t know a lot about Oklahoma’s Memorial Stadium.
But the one thing he does know, he wants to make sure doesn’t happen when the No. 5 Irish (7-0) play the No. 8 Sooners (5-1) tonight.
“That’s where dreams go to die, I heard,” Nix said. “We’ll see about that.”
Oklahoma has crushed plenty of dreams in its home stadium since coach Bob Stoops arrived in Norman, Okla., in 1999.
Under Stoops, the Sooners are 79-4 at home, and their only home loss to a ranked opponent came this season when they fell to No. 4 Kansas State 24-19 on Sept. 22.
“It’s an incredible accomplishment, and obviously, you know, they’re a really good football team and they’ve been a really good football team,” linebacker Manti Te’o said.
“But we’re going to prepare the way we’ve always been preparing, and we’re not going to do anything different.”
The Irish will experience something different from their last four games as it will be Notre Dame’s first true road game since defeating then-No. 10 Michigan State 20-3 on Sept. 15 at Spartan Stadium.
The top-10 showdown against Oklahoma is also only the second road game for quarterback Everett Golson, who returns as the starter after sitting out the 17-14 win over BYU last weekend.
But a team that last year experienced the first-ever night game in Michigan Stadium, which drew the largest crowd in football history (114,804), isn’t worried about the stage overwhelming it.
“We have a lot of experienced guys on the team who have played in big games like this,” left tackle Zack Martin said. “The biggest thing is to not go there and get all struck back from the noise and the atmosphere and the crazy Oklahoma fans.
“You just got to go out there and play your game and try to block everything out.”
Notre Dame tried to block out what this game could mean for its postseason position as it enters tonight at No. 5 in the BCS standings.
A win over Oklahoma, which is No. 8 in the BCS, could go a long way in solidifying a top-eight finish, which would give Notre Dame an automatic spot in a BCS bowl.
A loss would put more weight on the season finale Nov. 24 at USC to determine the Irish’s bowl prospects.
But as they have done all season, the Irish refuse to get ahead of themselves and keep the focus on improving to 8-0.
“I’ve been down this road before,” Kelly said of worrying about bowl positioning. “You’ve just got to win your games, and if you win all your games and you have no control over that other than just take care of what you can take care of.
“I’ve always focused on just the details of the day and then let everybody else figure out what happens from there on out.”
