Notre Dame was 12-3 with Brandon Wimbush as its starting quarterback, including 3-0 this year, but it is now 2-0 with Ian Book as its starter, and I don't think it's looking to turn back to Wimbush any time soon.

Ian Book had a monster game for the No. 8 Irish, throwing for 278 yards and four touchdowns in the 38-17 win over No. 7 Stanford on Saturday night. He wasn't the only Irish offensive player to shine, though, as Dexter Williams rushed for 161 yards on 21 carries, and Miles Boykin caught 11 passes for 144 yards and a fourth-quarter touchdown that put the game out of reach.

Notre Dame's defense deserves plenty of credit as well, as the Irish held Stanford to 229 yards of offense. The Irish defense was swarming all over the field, picking up five sacks, nine tackles for loss, breaking up eight passes, picking off another, and totaling four QB hits.

Simply put, Notre Dame was the best team on the field Saturday night, and by a wide margin.

Here are four things to take away from this game.

1. Notre Dame has one of the most impressive resumes in the country. Not only are the Irish 5-0, but they have two wins over ranked teams and we aren't even in October yet. The Irish opened the season with a seven-point win over then No. 14 Michigan, and there's a chance the Wolverines will be ranked even higher than that when the new polls come out Monday as they beat Northwestern on Saturday to improve to 5-1. Notre Dame picked up a win over a Stanford team on Saturday that came into the night ranked No. 7 and remains one of the favorites in the Pac-12, even with this loss.

2. Unfortunately for Notre Dame, it might not have a shot to improve its resume from here on out. Obviously, if Notre Dame wants to have any hope of reaching the College Football Playoff, it needs to keep winning. The problem is that there aren't any more "resume" wins on the schedule at the moment. The Irish go on the road to face Virginia Tech next week, but that game looks a lot less impressive after Tech's loss to Old Dominion last week.

After that game, it looks like Notre Dame's best shot to impress somebody would be in games against Florida State, Syracuse and USC, but all those games come in November.

3. Bryce Love left the game with an ankle injury. I can't be sure it would have made much of a difference seeing as how Stanford was trailing when the injury occurred, but Love left the game in the fourth quarter after being tackled. It looked like he had his ankle rolled up on by a tackler. He was seen limping to the locker room shortly after, and never returned to the game.

You might remember that Love spent a lot of the 2017 season dealing with a chronic ankle sprain.

4. This loss hurts Stanford, but it's not a killer. It certainly would have helped Stanford's potential playoff case had it beaten Notre Dame and been in position for a playoff berth at the end of the season, but this loss won't eliminate the Cardinal from consideration. They still have wins over USC and Oregon, and will get to play Washington later this season. Add in a potential Pac-12 Championship Game, and if Stanford can get through the rest of its season with this Notre Dame loss as its lone blemish, things should work out fine.

Of course, that's a lot easier said than done.

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