You should go to Colin Cowherd's podcast for yesterday and hear what he had to say. He's not a Notre Dame fan by any stretch and he moved ND ahead of FSU in his ESPN power rankings after game. As he said, ND dominated FSU in nearly every facet of the game on FSU's field and lost only due to a horrible call by FSU's conference Refs. (Cowherd said "questionable," but I'll go with Tony George's description - another person who is not a Notre Dame fan.)
As Cowherd noted:
First Downs: ND 26 FSU 18
Total Yards: ND 470 FSU 323
Passing Yards: ND 313 FSU 273
Rushing Yards: ND 157 FSU 50
Rushing Yards/ATT ND 4.5 FSU 1.9 (Cowherd referred to this stat in stating that ND dominated both Lines)
3rd down Eff: ND 7/18 FSU 2/8
Time of Poss: ND 32:58 FSU 27:09
And Notre Dame was flying through the FSU O-line in rushing Winston and the ACC Refs refused to call several obvious offensive holding calls, which was all the FSU O-line could do to stop the rush.
As for your logic, you say if Golson does not complete an important pass that he did complete, the game would have gone better for FSU. WHAT????? That truly is the first time I have ever heard such a thing.
How about my saying that if Winston does not complete one of his TD passes and it is returned for a pick 6 instead - that's a 14 point turnaround and ND wins 34 - 24 and we are not having this discussion. You're just changing the game.
That's completely different from ND running a good play, FSU blowing the coverage and ND scoring the winning TD in a game they dominated statistically, where the REFS reverse the outcome on a "HORRIBLE CALL" [quoting Tony George].
Q.E.D.
I understand your not wanting to put your money where your mouth is on your prediction of future games - declining my offer for a wager. No problem.