If Brown somehow caught that ball - would we have beaten Miami?
Notre Dame was getting lucky in pulling out victories - the Michigan State game ("immaculate deflection") was a case in point - but even the Michigan game (ND was down 24-14 and Michigan was driving - then Grbac got picked off in the end zone, another ND 40 yard play was on a lucky deflection).
And again - the Stanford loss didn't matter - we were back to #1 - just win out (PSU, USC, bowl game) and we will 1990 NC.
And lastly - we had 3 losses that year and finished #6 in both polls. How many losses did we have this year and finished where?