The No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish nearly fell from the ranks of the undefeated Saturday, needing overtime to beat the Pittsburgh Panthers. Star linebacker Manti Te'o said the Irish have discovered how difficult it is to be an undefeated team this late in the season.

"I think coach put it best, it's hard being 9-0," linebacker Manti Te'o told Comcast Sports Net Chicago. "And we're learning that. We have a lot of veteran players, but we don't have anybody on this team that's ever been 9-0. And so we're understanding that now, through this process we're growing. We're looking at things, seeing we have to be mature about this whole thing. We came out and things weren't working out, things weren't falling into our hands, but we kept fighting. Happy that it came out the way it did."

Notre Dame will try to improve to 10-0 next week against the Boston College Eagles.