The Irish won all four of their October games , including a win over Stanford , a dominating win at Arizona State , a last minute win over Army , and a win over Baylor led by Denson 's career high of 189 yards , to move back into the top-15 in the rankings . In the next game , the Boston College Eagles were poised for the upset of the Irish . Down 30 – 26 , the Eagles had the ball on the Irish four-yard line with less than a minute remaining . The Irish defense , however , held the Eagles for four downs to preserve the win . The next week , led by Denson , who became the all-time leader in rushing yards at Notre Dame , the Irish shut-out Navy to increase their NCAA record winning streak over the Midshipmen to 35 games . Once again ranked tenth , the Irish faced LSU in their final home game . Avenging their loss in the , the Irish beat the Tigers on a late touchdown run . With a potential BCS berth on the line , and without Jackson , who was injured in the final play against LSU , the Irish traveled to face rivals USC in their final regular season game . Playing two backups at quarterback , including true freshman Arnaz Battle , the Irish were dominated by the tough Trojan defense that caused five turnovers . Though the Trojans , led by freshman quarterback Carson Palmer , could n't produce much offense themselves , they only needed two scores to defeat the Irish 10 – 0 . Missing out on a BCS bowl game , the Irish , who signed a deal early in the year that gave them a tie-in with the Big East Conference bowl games , accepted a bid to play Georgia Tech in the . Wearing their alternate green jerseys for the first time since the 1995 Fiesta Bowl , the Irish got behind early to the Yellow Jackets with two long touchdowns . Though closing the gap to a touchdown in the fourth quarter , the Irish could n't move the ball on their last two drives and lost their fourth straight bowl game . They finished the season with a 9 – 3 record and dropped to 22nd in the national rankings
Big East Conference
Big East Conference (1979–2013)
1998 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team