Tanner Price was 22 of 33 passing for 153 yards for Wake Forest with his longest pass for 16 yards. The Irish held the Demon Deacons to 55 yards rushing as Wake Forest dropped to 1-4 on the road this season.
"They were where they needed to be and they just force you to execute," Tanner said. "Obviously we weren't able to do that today."
After posting a 17-16 record at home the past five seasons, the Irish victory Saturday improved their record at Notre Dame Stadium to 6-0 this year. But this was the first time they made it look easy. The Irish needed overtime to beat Stanford, triple overtime to beat Pittsburgh and won the three other home games by a combined 13 points.
"We put it all together and played a complete game today," left tackle Zack Martin said.
Many Notre Dame students showed their respect by wearing yellow leis to honor Te'o, who is from Hawaii and who has played a key role in the Irish resurgence. Te'o, senior defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore and senior safety Zeke Motta left to standing ovations with 13 minutes left.
"I wanted to make it a special moment for the seniors on defense. They have been obviously the rock. They've carried us while we were trying to find ourselves offensively," Kelly said. "It just seemed to me to be a pretty good gesture to allow us to honor those seniors."
When Notre Dame went 11-0 in 1989, the Irish were beaten by Miami in the regular season finale and finished the season ranked No. 2 behind the Hurricanes.
The last time the Irish headed to Los Angeles to play Southern Cal undefeated was a year earlier, in 1988, when the squad coached by Lou Holtz beat the second-ranked Trojans 27-10 en route to the school's last national championship.
Te'o said that's the only focus now.
"I don't care about anything else but winning and being part of this team," he said. "And now we have to work on USC, and beating USC."
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