Notre Dame's KeiVarae Russell on 2013 BCS loss: 'I saw what it takes to win'

Notre Dame cornerback KeiVarae Russell says playing in the Irish's blowout 42-14 loss to Alabama in the 2013 BCS National Championship game provided an important lesson and showed him what it takes to win on a major stage.

"That's a vital experience in my life, because I saw what it takes to win," he said of the game, according to Eric Hansen of Notre Dame Insider. "Those guys (Alabama) had a will to win about them that exceeded ours from the get-go. Right from the beginning of the game, they had a fire in their eyes that we didn't have."

Russell, who moved from the offensive backfield to the cornerback slot at the start of that season, credits Alabama for maintaining a relentlessness in their play throughout the title game that the Irish failed to match.

Notre Dame, he said, "didn't come to hit" and "weren't trying to lay our name on them," whereas their opponents played like they "wanted us to remember" them.

"Trust me, we do," Russell added.

The 5-foot-11, 190 pounder is banking on a comeback season with the Irish after he was suspended for the entire 2014 campaign for academic fraud.

Russell said he has made great strides in bolstering his preparation since being pulled off the practice field last summer.

"What people don’t realize is I studied my craft every day when I was gone," he said. "I had my iPad, and I was watching practice film in the spring, and install, just what the coaches see. I watched myself (on video) from freshman and sophomore years, broke myself down, how can I get better as a player, did all that."