..must be '77 all over again and Book must be the next Joe Montana.
Actually there were two massive changes that eventually got ND to a position of somewhat easily handling the overwhelming choice for #1 (Texas) in the Cotton Bowl. Don't think at the college level ever saw a team improve so much over the course of the season.
The change everyone remembers was Joe Montana taking over as the first team QB in Purdue game and staying there for the rest of his superior college career. The article doesn't mention Lisch was replaced by the 2nd stringer who was nearly immediately seriously injured leading to JM. BTW he wasn't all that consistent over those two years leading to a whole series of fourth quarter comebacks and one I remember that didn't vs USC.
The other change was radical too. There was a bye week not long after JM took over. In that period Devine changed the offense from a veer concept to I back scheme. There aren't many teams that successfully do something like this during the course of a season.
Think the end result of all this is the "parallel" written about. ND went from a team that struggled on offense (big play or virtually no gain) to a scoring machine that controlled the tempo so the very talented D could play loose and free. Hopefully this is picture of our season to come.
BTW for what its worth: Book's footwork reminds me John Huarte (1964 start of the Era of Ara). He has what was termed way back then "dancing feet."