articleHere's what we learned about Northwestern, NIU, Illinois and Notre Dame after the first official weekend of college football. Still, when Notre Dame went down 21-7, there wasn’t any choice but to let Carr rip the football. Notre Dame learned they have a potential star quarterback on their hands. But, Notre Dame has a quarterback. "Going into bowl prep last year, I could see a really big jump coming," Illinois head coach Bret Bielema said.