Rakes Of Mallow: FanPosts

Derrick Mayes has is own blog!

SeaninSoCal — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 07:02:42 -0000

Did you know that ND alum (class of 1995) and former wide receiver Derrick Mayes has his own blog?

Derrick just blogged about how weird it feels for football season to be rolling around the corner and not be getting ready to play and what he's up now that he's retired.

Here's his blog post:

http://www.prolebrity.com/around-the-bend/

It's awesome to see athletes like Derrick embracing blogging!

What’s taking so long to name Steve Orsini as new AD?

7thFloor — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:34:18 -0000

How hard can this selection process be? Notre Dame would truly benefit by putting a person at the helm of its Athletic program that lived the tradition, made the history, and left his sweat and blood in the house that Rockne built. There hasn’t been a true Notre Dame man running the ship since Moose Krause in 1981. Twenty-seven years…. that’s just the amount of time it has taken Steve Orsini to build his resume to be the perfect selection as Notre Dame Athletic Director.

He’s left his mark at Navy, Georgia Tech, Central Fla, and now SMU, with a shot of the Dallas Cowboys to start things off. It’s time to bring him home, where he started his athletic career, first on the field as a gifted student-athlete, then in the office as Business / Ticket Manager. Steve has “Notre Dame persona” that the fans would love to see as AD, maintaining the tradition that we know, and continually improving the Athletic program to what we know it can be.

Full circle isn’t from Dallas back to Dallas, it’s from Notre Dame back to Notre Dame.

Zook's Challenge

mahossa — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:55:45 -0000

Hey so if you havent heard by now, ron zook was making comments about how he would love to play ND in the windy city. How do you guys feel about that? I'm not by any means a ND fan, I just would like to see them play interesting matchups. I despise both teams, but I love watching intersting matchups. I think it be cool if ND could stop playing teams like duke, army, and navy (and yes I realize you have to play navy) and compete with some teams that are more on their level. I dont at all mean to be offensive, I'm just sharing my perspective and looking for your' guys thoughts

Mike
Meet Us At Kinnick

***No It wasn't a dig at ND, talk about sensitive. If I took a dig at ND it woulda been clear. I just think it be an interesting matchup because of recruiting wars and the resurgance of Illinois and what not. BTW, I don't think you're argument with Iowa's OOCS makes any sense. Navy doesn't play those guys, how can you say they'd "kick the shit outa them". I think if ND was dominating the weak Big 10 you would have the ammo for your argument. But you guys haven't done to well against us lately. Feel free to flame me back if you so choose. Yes I realize Iowa is at just about rock bottom lately given our on field problems, off- field law problems, and now the school is being investigated for covering up rape. But I can admit it and take the heat for it. Its apparent you cannot, I make one comment about your schedule and you cry. If ND has sucha tough schedule with opponents like Navy, how come they have problems with Michigan and MSU. How come they can't win a bowl game? Basically i'm saying neither of our schedules our too tough, you dont have much room to talk and really neither do I.

Will Notre Dame make the first annual NIT baseball tournament?

James Quinn — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:06:19 -0000

Baylor receives #1 seed in the first annual college baseball NIT tournament.

A few weeks ago me and a few other college baseball fans over at the College Baseball Dugout forum were lamenting the fact that there was no baseball equivalent to the basketball NIT tournament. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands….

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
After an intense round of analysis and debate the first super-official college baseball NIT selection committee announced half of the field last night. Baylor received top honors. The Bears (32-26), who finished sixth in the Big-12 and missed out on the NCAA tournament, will continue their season this weekend as the top regional host in the NIT tournament. The College of Charlestown (39-20) and Missouri State (40-17) presented solid alternatives but in the end Baylor’s state of the art home field and demanding schedule carried the day.

The five other regional hosts include: Clemson (31-27), Oregon State (28-24), Washington State (30-26), Florida Gulf Coast (38-15) and Texas – San Antonio (39-19). Charlestown, Florida Gulf Coast and UTSA earned automatic bids to the tournament after winning their conferences during regular season play, the other five teams all impressed the committee enough to earn at-large invitations. Perhaps the most intriguing entry into this year’s tournament is Oregon State. The Beavers won back to back NCAA College World Series in 2006 and 2007. They will try to make it three national championships in a row, this time following the NIT pathway.

The committee also announced the eight #2 seeds.
Waco Regional
1) Baylor (32-26) at large, Big-12
2) New Mexico (34-25) at large, Mountain West

Charleston Regional
1) Charlestown (39-20) Southern Conference champions
2) Duke (37-18) at large, ACC

Springfield Regional
1. Missouri State (40-17) at large, Missouri Valley
2. Cincinnati (39-20) at large, Big East

Clemson Regional
1) Clemson (31-27) at large, ACC
2) Canisius (41-13) Metro Atlantic Champions

Corvallis Regional
1) Oregon State (28-24) at large, Pac-10
2) UC – Santa Barbara (35-21) at large, WCC

Pullman Regional
1) Washington State (30-26) at large, Pac-10
2) Santa Clara (32-22) at large, WCC

Fort Myers Regional
1) Florida Gulf Coast (38-15) Atlantic Sun Champions
2) South Florida (31-27) at large, Big East

San Antonio Regional
1) Texas San-Antonio (39-19) Southland Conference Champions
2) Louisiana Monroe (34-24) Sunbelt Conference Champions

The remaining invitations will be announced this evening. All regular season conference champions who are not selected to participate in the NCAA tournament are guaranteed an invitation to the NIT tournament. Binghamton (29-27) AEC; Xavier (27-31) A-10; Kent State (36-21) MAC; Monmouth (37-16) NEC; Jacksonville State (37-21) OVC; Army (25-25) Patriot and Jackson State (37-22) Southwestern will take seven invitations leaving only nine at-large invitations not already extended.

Several teams still on the bubble will certainly be gathering this evening hoping to see their names called. Tension is already very high in the Central Florida (31-27, C-USA) clubhouse. San Diego State head coach Tony Gwynn tried to take some edge off the wait by throwing his team a pig roast in his back yard. "We are just going to kick back, have a little food, and hope it all turns out well at the end of the night," the major league Hall of Famer said. "We did all we could this year (31-28, MWC). Now it is up to the wisdom of the selection committee. Far be it from me to second guess their deliberations."

Notre Dame (33-21, Big East), Creighton (37-21, MVC), West Virginia (35-21, Big East) and Purdue (32-26, Big-10) all plan to stage full practices today. The only note of discord recorded came from Air Raid TT 33. "Texas San-Antonio isn’t very good to be honest." Within minutes this quote was painted in huge red letters across the Road Runners club house. "Smack like that only motivates the team," said head coach Sherman Corbett. "I don’t know who this Air Raid TT 33 guy is, but he would best steer clear of this clubhouse for the next few days."

Disclaimer - This stuff is all made up. Tony Gwynn wouldn’t really take my call, and Sherman Corbett has no idea who I am. But AirraidTT33 really did write that smack, so that part is true. Anyway, follow the tournament. It will be fun. Visit the College Baseball Dugout to join the debate.

This post was copied over from Rock Chalk Talk , one of two offical sponsers of this fake tournament!

The Blind Side and the Bell Curve

fasterhornkillkill — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:36:51 -0000

Michael Lewis' incredible college football book The Blind Side tells the amazing true story of professional footballs talent search for someone capable of blocking Lawrence Taylor. This search leads to inner city Memphis, where an incredibly athletically gifted young man who has been in and out of foster care and from the most difficult possible of circumstances improbably gets the opportunity to attend a private school and is adopted by a wealthy family. If Michael can get eligible to play college football, he will probably earn millions protecting the quarterback's blind side in the NFL.

The Blind Side is put into the context of the debate over IQ and education reform here:

http://jaypgreene.com/2008/05/10/charles-murray-vs-michael-oher/

Welcome to the new Rakes Of Mallow and SB Nation

clockwerks — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:19:43 -0000

Hey Rakes Of Mallow,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
Once you're logged in, press your Z key in any thread with new comments
Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Rakes Of Mallow from YouTube or images from Flickr
Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Rakes Of Mallow and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Rakes Of Mallow now has all the basic information about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Notre Dame Fighting Irish material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Hey Jeff! Does Lake Superior State Have a Basketball/Football Coach?

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:34:56 -0000

And of course there's a story behind that headline. Anybody who was at ND in the fall of 1981 will remember Gerry Faust's first game, a defeat of LSU leading to our only # 1 ranking for a long while. We didn't know it at the time, but we'd just witnessed the zenith of Gerry Faust's college coaching career. We were fans then, and young.

Anyway, the day after that game, someone hung a banner outside Alumni Hall, reading, "Hey Gerry! Does Moeller Have a Basketball Coach?" Less well known is the fact that it was hung on the side of Alumni facing the Law School, and in particular the side on which Digger's wife had her office; I have it on good authority that she came tearing into the dorm, demanding the banner be removed, and telling all who would hear that that was the kind of thing that broke up families. The Phelps', I think, was never a model marriage.

But I digress. The sentiment could well be applied today as the Irish prepare for their first-ever NCAA hockey championship game. Because, simply, hiring Jeff Jackson was perhaps the smartest thing ND has done in the athletic arena in recent memory.

As I see it, the Holy Grail of coaching hires is to get someone who can bring you to the next level or, if you're at the next level, won't drop you a level. In football, and things like fencing, that's usually meant, "Someone who will keep you at the top." In other sports, that's usually meant someone who will take a program that's plateaued and elevate it to a new level of competitiveness.

We've had trouble in that area, as everyone knows. True, in some of the so-called lesser sports we've met with some success (I think of things like baseball, men's and women's soccer). But mostly what you hear about are the spectacular missteps - the he's-hired-no-he's-not dance the administration did with Rick Majerus, the game of one-two-three O'Leary after finally dumping Davie, leading to the less-than-happy Willingham regime.

Even when things haven't blown up, they haven't been totally successful. Basketball is a case in point. Many of us concluded a long time ago that Digger was on autopilot, that he'd contented himself with winning his 20 games a year and getting his NCAA bid and bowing out somewhere in the mid-rounds. His one Final Four looked more and more like the fluke it was. Eventually the University agreed, but just wasn't able to close the deal for that coach who would bring us closer to the brass ring. John McLeod might have seemed like a good idea at the time, although those pro coach-to-college moves always seem to look better on paper than in real life. Then there was Matt Doherty, who inspired hope until he decamped for Chapel Hill - and look how well that turned out for him. Finally, we settled on Mike Brey, for whom the job was definitely a step up after his success at Delaware.

The jury's still out in my mind on Brey. So far, he hasn't managed to out-Digger Digger as near as I can tell: our men's basketball team can reliably be counted on not to win more than one game in either the Big East Tournament or the NCAA. But, on the other hand, this isn't Digger's day. College basketball dynasties are a thing of the past, and Brey (or any coach) can be one or two exceptional players away from fielding a dominant team - and losing those players the following year. Given the volatile nature of college basketball, I'm not quite willing to say that Mike Brey can't take us to the Final Four. I'm just saying that so far he hasn't come close, and you wonder just how long we wait before we move on to someone who might get us there.

(Update: Okay, when I said he "hasn't come close," I forgot that we did, in fact, make the Sweet 16 in 2003, which is pretty good. Emphasis on "pretty." But that's as close as we've come to a Final Four in the Brey era that I can remember.)

Football - well, enough pixels have been spilled on that one. I think everyone wants Charlie Weis to succeed (in a way that, as I've said before, they didn't want Willingham to succeed, not that Ty didn't oblige them in that). Hell, I want Weis to succeed. I sure as hell don't want to sit through another 3-9 season, nor do I want to settle for 6-6 or 7-5 and call it "improvement." But Charlie's on a much shorter leash than Mike Brey - if he doesn't have us in the national championship hunt, and soon, we're going to be looking for yet another head football coach, one who can take us back to that top level, if he exists, if he can work under the constraints of our program, and if he wants to work for this administration.

As it is, though, Jeff Jackson is the Holy Grail Coach. He's already gotten us a conference championship, and he's gotten us into our first championship game, and all in relatively short order. Because he knew the way, having won championships at Lake Superior State. I'm having a little trouble coming up with Jeff Jackson's equivalents in football or basketball - don't laugh, as you age your analogy gland will start failing on you too - but I'm pretty sure we've never interviewed them.

At the risk of jinxing the Irish Icers (Icerish?), though, I'm positively giddy at the thought that on Saturday night, the hockey team can do two things the football team hasn't managed in recent memory: win a national championship, and beat Boston Effing College. And if we do win, Jeff Jackson will have cemented his legacy in the pantheon of Irish coaches - the Ara of Irish Hockey if you will. (Okay, so maybe the analogy gland still works a little bit.)

Poll

How will the Irish do in the NCAA Hockey Championship Game?

Cutcliffe to Duke?

mhb — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:37:22 -0000

Seriously?

Cutliffe is gonna go coach duke according to ESPN. Also, Kirk Herbstreit heard from Les Miles's gardner that Senor Miles is now leading towards going to Michigan to coach Women's Lacrosse.

The site is making me add more lines to post my diary.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

Momentum

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:40:56 -0000

Well, we managed to go out on a "positive" note, winning our last two games for the first time since 1992. Being a glass-half-empty kind of a guy, though, I'm not as enthused about the finish as some might be (bearing in mind that it doesn't seem that anyone is exactly doing cartwheels over the finish).

As I've said before, strong finishes have not been our long suit over the last several years - the Davie, Willingham, and Weis teams seemed to just run out of gas near season's end. This year's schedule (for which we were roundly derided pre-season) should have been an antidote to that, closing with relatively weak teams calculated to let us ride four easy victories into whatever bowl we thought we'd get into.

Instead, we only went .500 over that four-game stretch (after going .143 for the eight-game stretch that preceded it). I'm not sure that counts as a "strong finish" in anyone's book, hence the scare quotes around "positive" in that first graf.

Once it became obvious that this season was headed toward an Amtrak-level derailment, my only hope was that we would at least show some improvement as the season progressed. Recall that one of the reasons Kevin White gave for ashcanning Willingham was that the program did not "create the positive momentum necessary in our efforts to return the Notre Dame program to the elite level of the college football world." Mind you, he was talking about season-to-season momentum, and the two blah seasons following Willingham's honeymoon campaign certainly bore out that assessment.

(Incidentally, as I write this it doesn't look like Charlie Weis is going anywhere, but I have yet to see the outcry of "racism" that I feared and predicted in an earlier diary. It may be too soon to tell, but I think Willingham's record at Washington has probably dampened any such accusations. If Willingham had been fired by ND and then proceeded to tear up the Pac-10, the racism allegation might have had legs. As it is, Willingham has done his level best to prove that his firing was likely less about the color of his skin and more about the fact that he's just not a very good coach. I mean, two 21-point leads blown? He's in the basement of the Pac 10. I think Jenkins and McCartan ought to send the guy a nice fruit basket - okay, maybe a fruitcake - at the very least, for making them look a tad bit smarter than they actually are.)

But momentum isn't limited to a trajectory over the course of several seasons. You want to see it during a season too, by which I mean, you expect the team to be playing better at season's end than they were at the beginning. And I have to say, I just haven't seen it this year. True, we scored three (really four) offensive touchdowns at Stanford, which it took us what, four or five games to score at the beginning of the year? But that was against a 3-7 team. In fact, our final three opponents clocked in at a combined 14-22 for the year, compared to 23-13 for our first three opponents. It's hardly a comparison, really. And the dumb penalties and turnovers were still as prevalent as ever during the Stanford game. Those things you expect from a young team at the beginning of a season, but they're exactly the kind of things you also expect to diminish as the players gain experience over the course of the year. Didn't happen to any appreciable degree that I can see.

Frankly, I had great hopes for the USC game. Really, I did. We'd only won the one game at that point, and we weren't looking great, but there had been momentary flashes of, if not greatness, at least competence. Plus, SC was looking vulnerable, with their near-loss at Washington and actual loss - at home no less - to Stanford. If, I reasoned, the Irish team that played the second half at Purdue showed up for four quarters, and the SC team that lost to Stanford showed up, we might have us a ball game, if not a potential upset. Even a close loss like the 2005 game would have been a turning point for our program, I think.

Instead, we let SC drop the worst loss on us in the history of the series, didn't put Point One on the board, and the season just went more to hell until we got to the two weakest teams on the schedule. I don't hear a lot of people calling that positive momentum, and neither do I.

This isn't to say there weren't some bright spots to the season. The defense generally looked good, when they weren't dog-tired from being on the field too long, and as MSNBC's Eric Hansen noted, our pass-efficiency defense scored major improvements. Pass defense has been our Achilles heel for a long time, so that's an accomplishment. Clausen showed he can take a hit - nay, several hits - and with some maturity and an O-line that gives him some protection, he might develop into a good QB.

Overall, though, I'd have to say that the 2007 season disappointed in almost every conceivable fashion. Weis has already mea-ed his culpas, although I'm interested to see whether, and how, Jenkins tries to apply lipstick to this particular pig, especially now that his "pay double to get a ticket application" policy is going into effect. But, again, my breath I'm not holding.

I dunno. It's been such a screwy season overall, maybe we can get everybody to agree to pull a Bobby Ewing this year - just pretend this season was all a bad dream, and get on with the college football world the way it's supposed to be, with no team in the championship game with more than one loss, and Notre Dame winning more than three. It could work. Although I don't volunteer to be the one who finds Charlie Weis in the shower (shudder).

Poll

How do you rate this season's trajectory, from start to finish?

Like the Desert Misses the Rain

mhb — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:08:39 -0000

Where have you gone?

Robert Gilleran,

I miss you. Your lists were a little out there, but please sir, return to us. I need that little dose of unrelenting support for the Irish every day.

Help me, good sir.

Poll

Do you miss Robert Gilleran's Comments

History's Greatest Monster??

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:41:56 -0000

(h/t to "The Simpsons," who described Jimmy Carter as such in the episode "Marge in Chains")

Wow. 1-9. A couple weeks ago I said it was "at least possible" that we'd finish 3-9. Oh, I was young then, full of bright hope for the future. Now 3-9 has moved from "at least possible" to "mortal lock," and 2-10 is now "possible," with 1-11 being "at least possible" (personally, I don't see us losing to Duke, but the teams are looking evenly matched, the only difference being that we've been beaten by a generally higher class of opponent).

As I've prowled around the ND blogosphere, however, I'm noting an interesting trend. It's by no means universal, but there are a lot of people who place the blame for this season solely and squarely on Tyrone Willingham. That's right. Almost three years after he coached his last game at ND, he's being blamed for our Worst Season Ever (geez, another "Simpsons" reference - will they never end?).

I mean, damn. If the guy is so powerful he can cause a team to lose that long after he leaves, you'd think he'd be doing better in his new job. He should be concentrating on winning games at Washington, not losing games at ND, but there you are. Some people just have their priorities straighter than others, I guess.

In other news, rumor has it that the missing frames 208-211 of the Zapruder film clearly show a young Tyrone Willingham behind the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza with a high-powered rifle. There's also talk that he provided the faulty intelligence on WMD's that led us into the war in Iraq.

Okay, enough of Facetiousness Theatre. Seriously, though, I don't recall anyone blaming Bob Davie for Willingham's lackluster second and third seasons, any more than I recall anyone giving Willingham credit for recruiting Quinn and Samardzjia, the backbone of Weis's first two teams. Yes, yes, I get it that Willingham's recruiting was not stellar, especially in his last season. And if we were 7-5 or 6-6 or 5-7 I'd be more inclined to put more of the blame on the bare cupboard he left - hey, look what Weis had to rebuild with, we're lucky we won five or six games. But 1-9? No amount of bad recruiting alone can explain that. Plus, remember, maybe half the players out there now were recruited by Willingham, and none of them is currently being coached by him. So we can assign some of the blame to Tyrone Willingham, but certainly not all of it.

Why this vilification? What did Tyrone Willingham do to any of us other than be a mediocre football coach and below-average recruiter?

Frankly, I think that for a variety of reasons Willingham was never really embraced by ND Nation. To start with, he was always the second choice. George O'Leary, a good Irishman, was hired to replace Bob Davie. We all know what happened there. So we went to Willingham, who took the job after being turned down once, but everyone knew he wasn't really the guy we wanted. Whereas, while it was widely rumored that Jenkins wanted Urban Meyer to take over for Willingham, Meyer took himself out of the running before an offer could be extended, and so Charlie Weis came out as our first choice, even if he really wasn't.

Also, Willingham didn't fit the stereotype (you should excuse the expression) of an ND football coach or, indeed, a football coach. Where Weis is big, beefy, crew-cut, tough-talking, New Jersey, Willingham was thin, soft-spoken, corporate, near-emotionless. Looking at Willingham on the sideline, you'd almost never know how the game was going. Not true of Weis (nor, I suspect, of O'Leary). Plus, there's the alumni factor with Weis - he gets ND in a way one suspects Tyrone Willingham never did. Also, Charlie has the charity for his challenged daughter, giving him that touch of tragic backstory that so stirs the Irish soul (see also, e.g., Ara Parseghian). Finally, whether wittingly or unwittingly, Weis (or his agent, or both) has cultivated the image that he's wanted elsewhere, that he could walk out of ND and back to the NFL at any moment. Nobody's as popular as someone else's date, right?

But let's face it, if you called Central Casting and asked them to send over a head college football coach, they'd send someone who looked like Charlie Weis or George O'Leary before they'd send you Tyrone Willingham. Ask for a tax lawyer or a college English professor (and specify African-American) and you'd get Willingham.

Of course, none of this would've mattered if Willingham had won 11 games in each of his last two seasons. But his personality was such that ND fans weren't inclined to rally behind him after two utterly mediocre campaigns. In a way, this isn't fair - Willingham is who he is, and one shouldn't have expected him to change his personality to suit the fans. Certainly, his demeanor off the field reflected nothing but credit on his employer (which is more than could be said for his predecessor, in my view). One has to wonder if, had we kept George O'Leary and he had turned in the same record as Willingham, we'd have been as quick to fire him, or as quick to blame him in the current circumstances.

(And no, I'm not discounting the race factor here, although I don't think it was anything so overt and obvious as, "we don't like him `cause he's black." But I think the overall consensus about Willingham was that he just wasn't one of us, and not being "one of us" has been code for racism for as long as there have been races. Certainly, it'll be played that way in some quarters if/when Weis is not let go. Again, though, had Willingham been more successful on the field, he would have been embraced whether he was black, green, or purple-and-orange plaid. I'm just saying that in some subtle way, the fact that he had the restrained personality he had, coupled with the novelty of being the first black head coach at ND, probably didn't help people warm to him when times were tough.)

But really. Can we at least stop beating up on the guy? It was three years ago. We have to move on. We need to address the problems now, here, today, that Tyrone Willingham can't solve. Moreover, we don't want to get into the habit of assigning blame to previous coaches, especially as his players continue to graduate. We're going to lose that scapegoat soon enough.

Random stupid thought:

- Is anyone as thoroughly sick of the Xerox "mute button" commercial as I am? Gawd, is it bad. It's not funny, it doesn't really promote the product. I have no idea why they made this. Okay, Beth Littleford is a babe and has been since her "Daily Show" days, but still. Enough with that ad.

I did like the "numismatist" ad, though, although one can see that it'll be played to death. But the "mute button" was a loser from the first airing.

The RoM 2005 Fighting Irish Replay!

Philip Fitzsimmons — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:22:39 -0000

I am going to give all RoM readers a chance to take their minds off 2007 and remember 2005,Charlie's 1st year at ND as I do a replay of the 2005 Fighting Irish season using a simulation game called Quick Play Football that I downloaded at http://www.tabletop-sports.com . This game offers a quick and fast scores and only takes a few minutes,and you'll learn more at that site. Anyway,I am here to replay the great 2005 season to see if the Irish can do better than 9-3,and would win a bowl game and win the National Championship. Here is the 2005 Irish schedule:

9/3 @Pitt
9/10 @Michigan
9/17 Michigan State
9/24 Washington
10/1 @Purdue
10/15 USC
10/22 BYU
11/5 Tennessee
11/12 Navy
11/19 Syracuse
11/26 @Stanford

Let's all hope that the Irish can do well in this replay compared to what they did in real life!

"Tomorrow we start tearing down the college."

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:13:39 -0000

It was a weird sensation. As I watched the Navy game, I just couldn't work up the usual enthusiasm/angst. Ordinarily, I'm a basket case watching a close ND game. Saturday, I achieved an almost Zen-like state. Only seven steps more down the eightfold path and I'll be an ascended master, or something.

Seriously, though, I was glad when we scored and made good plays, but I wasn't devastated when we didn't. I haven't felt this way since the 2001 season, the Bob Davie Farewell Tour: when we won, great; when we lost, it was one more nail in the coffin of the man I consider to be the worst ND coach, on and off the field, of the last four decades (the reasons for this would be a whole `nother diary, so I'll pass on that for now).

But it's not like I bear any particular malice toward Charlie Weis. Yeah, I've heard the rumors that he's mercurial and can be abusive to his players (and, gosh, that never happens in football), and his record this year speaks for itself, but he seems like an okay guy. Lord knows I have no problem with the players; generally, I'm against being too harsh on guys who aren't being paid for their efforts, and who are probably doing the best jobs they can. And I certainly feel for the students, especially the seniors, who seem to be taking this pretty hard. CW and your classmates, and I say this with no trace of sarcasm or irony, I feel your pain. Hell, my senior year was Gerry Faust's first season - a 5-6 campaign following a 9-2-1 year. 5-6, and we were # 1 in the polls for one week. We thought it was a tragedy; I'm betting this year's seniors are thinking that sounds pretty good right about now.

No, as you may have gleaned from my previous diary, the reason I'm beyond caring how badly we do this season comes largely from my desire to watch Father John Jenkins and Patrick McCartan and the rest of the unholy cabal that put us in this position in the first place squirm, and spin, and try to justify their bad decisions. More: I want to see how they put this right, if they can.

Not that I have that kind of faith in those bozos. I've been watching the circus sideshow that has been ND athletic hiring for the last decade or so (starting with the we-hired-him/no-we-didn't dance with Rick Majerus), and have been listening to the my-school-right-or-wrong apologists for the last three years, and I'm not impressed. Basically, what seems to be happening is that football has become the be-all and end-all of every major decision by the University - at least, the ones that get national press coverage. It's not just the money, the NBC contract, the crass inflation of the alumni donation minimums so we can get ticket applications to see a 1-8 team stumble around the field. It's the fact that I've heard other alumni tell me how important the football is, how not just donations but applications to the school fall when we have a bad season. How football is so all-fired important to Notre Dame on every level.

I'm not saying that's not true. I'm saying it's pretty goddamn sad.

Ted Hesburgh would never, not in the million years or so that he was university president, have let the football tail wag the ND dog like it does now. Ted Hesburgh's legacy - well, one of his many legacies - was to turn Notre Dame from a small parochial school with a great football team into a national university with a football team. But ever since Jenkins's rumored grand-mal hissy fit following the 2004 USC loss, it seems that he has been trying to emulate one of two characters: former University of Oklahoma president George Cross, who famously remarked that he wanted to build a university the football team can be proud of; or the fictional Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, played by Groucho Marx in the movie Horsefeathers, who had the following exchange with two other professors:

''Where would this college be without football? Have we got a stadium?''
''Yes.''
''Have we got a college?''
''Yes.''
''Well, we can't support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.''

It's been said over and over that character is revealed during hard times. Well, times are hard in the ND football program, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of character is revealed, especially at the university's upper echelons. But I'm not concerned with this in an academic way; I'm not the Character Police over here. How we handle this season, how we handle Coach Weis, will have a real impact on the future of ND football, if for no other reason than it will decide whom we can get to replace Weis, whether this year or down the road.

It's been speculated that one of the reasons Jenkins was so quick to pull the trigger on Tyrone Willingham was that he thought he could nab Urban Meyer as our next coach. Meyer had coached at ND before, he was coming off great success at Utah, all the stars seemed aligned. Yet he passed on us on his way to Florida. It's not hard to see why. If one reasons that, at both schools, you have at most three years to achieve a measure of success, you go to the school that gives you the best chance of doing that in that time frame. I think the results speak for themselves. Given the choice between two schools, one that's a proven football factory, one that wants to become one, choose the one with the track record.

Another rumor about Willingham's demise is that he wouldn't get rid of certain assistant coaches that the university administration wanted gone. I don't know if it's true, but the rumor's out there, and it's again calculated to keep an experienced college head coach away from ND. Nobody likes to be micromanaged, least of all a head football coach.

Of course, there may be absolutely nothing to that rumor but, again, we broke tradition by firing Willingham after three years instead of the usual five. There had to be some reason for it, and if the administration wasn't being upfront about the real reason, it had to lead to some speculation among potential job applicants. What is undeniably true is that virtually no one with major college head coaching experience wanted the job. And that, I think, is ultimately what we need. We need the football equivalent of ND hockey coach Jeff Jackson: somebody who's won a championship at the major college level, and who can do it without compromising ethical or academic standards. Whether such a man exists is one thing. Whether we can interest him in the job is another. But it's never going to happen with the reek of desperation pouring out of the administration building.

And desperation is just not warranted. Okay, we're having a bad year. A disastrous, horrible, pig-fornicator of a year, yes, but a bad year. News flash: They happen. A few years ago Penn State alumni were trying to move JoePa into a condo in Leisure World. They got over it. Nebraska is only ten years removed from its last national championship, and Kansas dropped 79 points on them last Saturday. Bad streaks happen, too. Many have bemoaned our six-game losing streak to USC. Few recall that, from 1983-1996, USC couldn't buy a victory over us. They were 0-12-1 against ND over a 13-year stretch. They seem to have bounced back.

If we can all get off our high-four-horsemen for a minute, if we can leave our tradition at the door and assume that nobody's going to coach here just because We Are ND, we can still agree that Notre Dame has the basic ingredients of an elite football program. We have state-of-the-art facilities and a national TV contract (for now, at least). We can offer athletes who want it a 90+ percent chance to graduate with a diploma that's got to be worth more than one from Florida or Nebraska (no offense to my Gator-alumni friends). Yes, we have parietals and academic standards and lousy weather, but despite those things we seem to be able to snag our fair share of blue-chip recruits. What we need is university leadership that keeps this all in perspective, that announces to the college football world by its actions that it wants an experienced coach who can win while maintaining our standards, and will give that man the time to develop a program, and not go into crisis mode when we have a bad year. Face it, any school can be a football factory. Any school can promise you that you're only as good as your last season, and that alumni will scream for your head if it's a bad one. Show a potential head coach that the administration will stand behind him, for a reasonable period at least, and you stand a better chance of hiring a good one.

I don't know if Charlie Weis is ultimately the answer. As I said before, I'm willing to wait two more years to find out, even though we'll catch some merciless abuse for not firing him this year, thanks to the genius decisions of 2002 (see my previous diary). But if it works out that Weis is not the Savior of ND Football, I'd like a chance to hire that man when the day comes, not just settle for some alumnus who coached some Division II ball, or some NFL assistant who's used to dealing with pro veterans as opposed to green kids out of high school.

Failing to win football games doesn't make you a loser. Panicking like a bunch of mewling infants because you fail to win football games does. Something I'd like the university administration to think about.

Regardless of this year's 1-8 disaster,...

Philip Fitzsimmons — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:35:56 -0000

I will still follow the Irish forever! Last week I just ordered a game called Adams Football,and I am going to replay the 2006 Fightin' Irish season,and I think I can coach Notre Dame to a bowl victory (even the BCS championship) when I get my game. I am going to post my replays at http://forums.delphiforums.com/adamgames and I will also have a blog about my 2006 Irish replay. Hopefully,if I get the '07 Adams Football game,the Irish will be better than this 1-8 team! I'll keep you updated when my game comes in!

Congratulations Ryan Grant

BlackOps — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:21:34 -0000

22 carries, 104 yards in a win for the Packers last week versus the Broncos.

Would anybody have ever guessed that this guy would have a game even close to this in the NFL?

Don't give up Darius Walker... Don't give up anyone. It's nice to see that a guy can go undrafted and still have something to be very proud of other than simply playing in college or being signed to an NFL team. He performed.

The Man Responsible

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:48:49 -0000

As I write this, Notre Dame's football season is a train wreck. After the first 0-5 start in the program's history, we stand at 1-7, for the first time since the early 1960s. Our program is nothing so much as a high-voltage schadenfreude generator for ESPN and the rest of college sports punditry. Fans have been reduced to celebrating each first down and completed pass as if they were Fiesta Bowl wins. If the season continues down this path, the University administration will face some hard decisions. And I, as one alumnus, am calling on the man responsible to do the honorable thing.

Father Jenkins, you should resign.

Sure, you thought I was going to call for Charlie Weis's resignation. Coach Weis, I'm sure, would agree that this season has been (to put it mildly) a disappointment. However, in his defense, he took a job that virtually everyone with major college head coaching experience broke land-speed records running away from, after the unceremonious dumping of Coach Willingham in 2002. Weis coached the Irish to two winning (although, as discussed below, probably oversold) seasons. And, at the risk of sounding pollyannish, there are fleeting signs that this team, if it gets over the freshman yips and begins to gel, could turn out to be pretty good, eventually. I also think Weis, like any coach, should only be judged after he's had a chance to field a team that's composed solely of his recruits.

But I thought that of Coach Willingham, too, his own shortcomings notwithstanding. And while the decision to kick him to the curb was a PR disaster of breathtaking proportions, it was as nothing compared to the end of this season, when it comes time to decide Coach Weis's fate. Because of that disastrous decision three years ago, the Board of Trustees and Father Jenkins have set up Notre Dame for an even bigger black eye. And although I want to see the football team win, I can live with a bad season. What I won't tolerate is an administration that seems bent on sullying my alma mater's reputation and, to be honest if somewhat crass, reducing the value of my two ND diplomas. In marketing terms, they've harmed the brand, and are poised to harm it more.

Breaking tradition by firing Coach Willingham after only three seasons, rather than five, was bad enough, sparking cries of "football factory." Choosing to break that tradition with ND's first African-American head coach (after accepting numerous plaudits for hiring Willingham in the first place) added a layer of perceived racism. Those defending the decision cite various rumored but unconfirmed reasons for it (e.g., the "he wouldn't fire an assistant coach" rumor, the "heading off a student protest of our first black coach" rumor). I won't address those, nor will I dignify the claims of some of Father Jenkins's apologists who've attempted to parse Coach Willingham's contract for any number of benchmarks that he supposedly didn't achieve. Certainly, Tyrone Willingham had his faults as a recruiter and a coach (although, I would argue, nowhere near as many as his predecessor, Bob Davie, who got a contract extension in his third year rather than the boot). My criticism of the Willingham firing is based solely on those reasons actually announced by the school at the time of the firing, by which the rest of the world judged the decision.

At that time, Father Jenkins stated that success as a Notre Dame head football coach consists of "acting with integrity, giving our students a superb education and excelling on the field," adding that, "Success in only one or two of these areas is not the success we seek. Just as we would not tolerate a program which failed to graduate its students or to act with integrity, so we should not be content with one that fails to succeed on the field." It's difficult to argue with those metrics; any school should demand those things of its coaches, and indisputably there are schools that settle for only two or even one of those factors - usually the last.

But the Jenkins Doctrine added a fourth, implicit criterion: we want all of those things, and we want them now. Coach Willingham didn't win enough games fast enough, thus his early exit.

The need for this undue haste, naturally, came down to dollars. Father Jenkins had a television contract to protect, not to mention merchandising rights, ticket sales, and alumni donations (particularly from those yahoos whose donations correlate with the number of wins). And it seemed at first that he got what he wanted when he hired Coach Weis, who followed 5-7 and 6-6 campaigns with 9-3 and 10-3 seasons.

Mind you, some of us weren't as impressed with the 2005 and 2006 seasons as the record might indicate. Close examination reveals a squad that beat the weak teams, struggled against the mediocre teams (a come-from-behind victory over North Carolina? At home??) and, with one exception (the 2005 USC game), was fed its lunch by every elite team it faced, including and especially in post-season bowls. Won-loss records aside, the 2005-06 Irish did not herald ND's return to college football's elite.

Which didn't stop Father Jenkins from spinning it that way. Indeed, he seized the opportunity to double the minimum alumni donation needed to qualify for a football ticket application, and to increase the recognition society amounts by 50 percent. We're back, was the message, and if you want to see the newly resurgent Irish it's gonna cost ya.

(As of this writing, there's no sign that the University is backing down from this. Just last week I received the slick come-on for Sorin Society membership and, yes, the minimum is now up to a large-and-a-half from the previous grand.)

I'm guessing that Father Jenkins will be looking in vain for those increased donations. That's what happens when you count your victories before the games are played. And that's what happens when you kowtow to big-money donors who care less about graduation rates than they do about bowl victories. Because that's what happens at, well, football factories.

But the bar has been set: The head football coach has to behave ethically, graduate players, and win, and do it in three years or else. Which brings us to the end of this season. If the team finishes 3-9 - and we must admit it's at least possible - then Coach Weis's three-year record will be 22-15, only one game better than Willingham's 21-16. As I suggested in the first graf, this leads to some seriously unattractive options. We can fire Coach Weis, at no small expense, and cement our reputation as a would-be football factory (not to mention the large and looming question of whom we would get to replace him). We can keep him on, spinning the decision in a vain attempt to keep from appearing to be stone racists. "Weis is a better recruiter," some would say. Doesn't fly. If, as Kevin White said of Willingham, the performance from Sunday to Friday exceeded expectations, but we fired him because of the results on Saturdays, why is it not fair to say of Weis that the performance from December to August exceeded expectations, but he fell down from September through November? "Two good seasons and one horrible one trumps one good season and two mediocre ones," is another spin option. Again, no sale. Willingham's 5-7 and 6-6 seasons were nothing to write home about, but the team wasn't the laughingstock it is now. And neither Willingham nor Weis has beaten USC. Reportedly (and yes, I know, this is rumor) Jenkins was more than upset after Willingham lost to USC in 2004 by 31 points, in Los Angeles (never mind that a few weeks later, Number 2 Oklahoma lost to USC by 36 points, on a neutral field). And if it is true that a 41-10 loss to Southern Cal on the road could get Jenkins's collar in a wad, what happens after a 38-point shutout at home?

The fact is, absent some kind of miraculous turnaround in the next four games, some definitive running of the table (after all, the one thing you couldn't say of the 2002-06 Irish is that they finished strong), it won't be a question of whether Weis or Willingham was the worse coach. It'll only be true that they were bad in different ways. Which leaves no principled basis for treating them differently at the three-year mark, and leads to a potential PR dilemma of near-Biblical proportions.

There is a third option. Father Jenkins can admit he was wrong three years ago, and say what he should have said then: Yes, we want to win. We don't have a football team just to watch them lose. But there are more important things than winning football games, and we're committed to giving our coaches a fair chance before deciding whether to keep them. We should have done that with Coach Willingham, and we will do that with Coach Weis and his successors. Check back with us in two years and we'll let you know whether Charlie Weis stays or goes; in the meantime, we're behind our coach.

Personally, I'm skeptical that Father Jenkins possesses that kind of candor and humility. But as an alumnus, I hope he does, and as future alumni the current students should too. As students, naturally you're focused on the state of the team now, for school pride, bragging rights with your high school friends, etc. But you'll hopefully be alumni for longer than you're students, and you should care about what happens then, too. Notre Dame has never lacked for detractors, and you're going to be dealing with them for the rest of your lives. When the days come (and believe me, they will) that some co-worker wants to give you abuse because you went to ND, you want to be able to hold your head high and defend your school, rather than apologize for it. When the day comes that your resume is in a stack with applicants from Princeton, Duke, Stanford, and Amherst, the last thing you'll want is for the hiring person to look at your CV and scoff, "football factory," before tossing it aside. Those are the days you'll wish the University administration worried less about how badly USC beat us on the field, and more about the University's reputation off the field.

(Author's Note: This was originally conceived as a guest column for The Observer , and was submitted to it. However, even after killing poodles right and left and trimming it to a lean 1200 words, it was still twice as long as the average Observer column, which is probably one of the reasons they didn't run it. Fair enough. So I've re-expanded it a bit for posting here, but I wanted to explain why it seems to be pitched mostly to students. I myself am a current alumnus/former student.)

Bad news for Conquest Chronicle readers...

Philip Fitzsimmons — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:02:03 -0000

I know all of you Trojan fans and members of Conquest Chronicle are still gloating over your 38-0 murdering of Our Sons of Erin,but you know what,you strong,tanned SoCal primadonnas? We still own you! Want proof? The Irish and Trojerks have played 79 games in this historic series. And even though we have lost 6 in a row to the Trojerks,I am proud to tell everyone at Rakes of Mallow that WE STILL LEAD THE ALL TIME SERIES AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY OF SPOILED CHILDREN!
Conquest Chronicle readers,read this and weep. And Rakes of Mallow readers,celebrate with me:
AFTER 79 BATTLES OF THE JEWELED SHILLALEIGH,THE SCORE IS:
Our Notre Dame Fighting Irish:42 wins
The University of Spoiled Children Trojerks:32 wins
5 games settled for a draw.
So,Irish fans,even though we have lost 6 straight against USC,we can still keep our heads up high when we play the Trojerks next year because we lead the all-time series with 'SC 42-32-5! Kiss my Fighting Irish arse,Trojerk fans! See you in L.A. in November,2008!

Even the Green Jerseys can't help this bunch

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:00:00 -0000

This bunch of leprechauns disguised as football players should be green...with envy for schools that can actually play the game. Green-faced ill over how pathetic this version of the Fighting (Sparring?) Irish. They may not beat So Cal again this millenium. Not as long as Charlie Weis is your coach! He acts like he just doesn't care. It looks like his fat paychecks are adequately filling his equally fat belly. It is so pleasurable to see all you pompous ND lovers eat some crow. You should have known your team would stink again this year. It would be even funnier to see you go oh-for-2007! You just gotta love it!

Those Uniforms Were Divine

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:39:53 -0000

Has the "luck-o-the-Irish found a new home?" You decide. A view from the west coast...

Notre Dame is 0-5, and each week reaches new depths for woe. At least for the ND faithful. And with that thought, I turn to an epiphany that rivals Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

Notre Dame has long been renowned by its uncanny ability to win when it shouldn't have. Luck-o-the-Irish? God? Those of us who count ourselves among the unwashed masses of ND haters - and who take unmitigated glee in their current misfortune - can rattle off numerous instances where fortune, if not divine providence, seemed to smile upon ND. Locals recall Notre Dame's win when last they visited Husky Stadium. Captain Husky may have taken enormous flak for dressing up like the Pope that day (his finest moment ever, in my opinion), but his message wasn't far off.

This year, the big guy in the sky with the white beard seems to have deserted South Bend. The reason for God's disappearance is a mystery. Perhaps it was the Ty Willingham - Urban Meyer affair three years ago. Maybe Charlie Weis is an godless heathen. Maybe God's taken a holiday. Who knows for sure. But if God was still with the Irish, they would have somehow, some way, pulled out a win over Purdue this weekend.

All the heavenly signs pointed in that direction. Their starting quarterback, Jimmy Klausen, got injured and was out of the game. Their second stringer, Demetrius Jones, was transferring from the school. That left third stringer, Evan Sharpley. Sharpley promptly rallied the Irish and brought them within a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Sounds like a movie (and you'd be right: check out Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty). You couldn't have asked for a better script. Had ND finally had enough of playing the role of the biblical long-suffering Job? Were they now poised to reassert their divine (if not Hollywood) grace? Celebrate! Dancing in the streets! Kill the fatted calf!

But no, Purdue slaps on a clock-eating sustained drive to close out the win. Game over, never mind, don't forget to turn out the lights and lock the door when you leave.

Now, let's turn to the Dawggies. Those who attended last Saturday night's game v. USC could not help but recognize an immediate resemblance between the Huskies' 1960 throwback uniforms and ND's navy blue and gold. Only the rounded style of the numbers on Husky uniforms provided any real distinction.

And what happened in that game? USC - the consensus football powerhouse of the land - did everything they possibly could do to hand that game to UW on a silver platter. Penalties? A whopping sixteen for over 160 yards. That's a flag every fifth play! Turnovers? Three. Blocked punt? Been there, done that. Dropped passes on sure big gains or even TDs? Too numerous to count.

The votes are in and the conclusion is as unanimous as it is self-evident.

God got a shave, donned a fleece vest, slipped into his Birkenstocks and took the last train for the coast. He's in Seattle, kickin' back at Husky Stadium with his feet soaking in Lake Washington. Even if the Dawgs are too inept to benefit from the gift. (Note to self, consider attending church before the next home game). If Notre Dame fans want to pull their team out of the doldrums, they had better stop blaming Tyrone Willingham's recruiting four, five or six years ago and find out what's up with God... and beg him to return to South Bend.

And Tyrone? You keep those uniforms, buddy. They're gonna come in handy.

Random Thoughts on the MSU Game

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:50:54 -0000

I usually make it to one game a year at this point, and at the last minute, MSU became that game. I find the games against MSU and Purdue to be incredibly annoying, especially since it seems like the Irish always lose, but alas, who cares about my feelings.

Random Thoughts:

- It might have been better in the student section and beneath the press box, but that was a pretty miserable three hours in terms of the weather. I'm convinced that South Bend is hotter in September than it is in July or August. Myself and many of my pale as hell Irish and Slav descended friends will likely need hospitalization after the exposure to the Sahara like blast furnace. I expected boils when I woke up this morning.

While the performance of the ND fanbase, non-student section, is often descried as passive, quiet, lame, etc. I thought there was some solid energy in the stadium yesterday. Many people, myself included, even somewhat stood on 3rd and 4th downs. Well, small victories. The mood was somewhere between secret optimism, desperation and resignation that a loss was inevitable.
After the game I felt the defense has actually not played half-bad, despite the point total. Now, after looking at the box score, I'm not so sure. Up the gut the run D was solid, but again, the vulnerability to the outside run continued. I think this unit is essentially still impossible to evaluate. Nevertheless, I get a positive vibe. With last year's O and this year's D, I think the USC or UM games might have had a different outcome, not that that means a damn.
Loved the "F this, lets just run" gameplan, which more or less "worked" until about mid 3rd quarter when ND stalled twice, each time after initial solid runs from JA. That was the Aldrige many of us had been waiting to see since last year.
Please, no more short-yardage dives from Asaph, please. Please. Can we put this in the Travis Thomas section of the discarded ideas playbook and be done with it?
MSU's opening TD drive in the 2nd half featured conversions of 3rd and 9 and then 3rd and 17. Ballgame.
I'm a somewhat ironic, somewhat sincere supporter of Sharpely, but what was the point of bringing him in? Yea, Jimmy seemed to be holding the ball too long, but we might as well keep giving him reps at game speed.
I know the production sucks, but can I get a deep ball, just once?

As a front line veteran of the Davie and Willingham years (I was at ND from '98 to '04) yesterday's game was right out of my glory years, I kept waiting for Joey Getherall to start fielding punts instead of Zibby, and to see Matt Shelton lining up at wideout. Its a tough time to be an Irish fan, making saturdays borderline TV boycott days: I couldn't find a sports radio program last night that wasn't piling on the Irish, and I expect no better from ESPN and every worthwhile CFB site this weekend. It kills me that ND can never actually be irrelevant, every loss has to be a verdict on the failures/arrogance/racism etc. of the entire University...

At least North Dining Hall didn't let me down.

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Baylor receives #1 seed in the first annual college baseball NIT tournament.

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Hey Jeff! Does Lake Superior State Have a Basketball/Football Coach?

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Cutcliffe to Duke?

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How do you rate this season's trajectory, from start to finish?

Like the Desert Misses the Rain

Do you miss Robert Gilleran's Comments

History's Greatest Monster??

The RoM 2005 Fighting Irish Replay!

In my 2005 Notre Dame replay,how many wins will the Irish have in 2005?

"Tomorrow we start tearing down the college."

Regardless of this year's 1-8 disaster,...

Congratulations Ryan Grant

The Man Responsible

Bad news for Conquest Chronicle readers...

Even the Green Jerseys can't help this bunch

Those Uniforms Were Divine

Random Thoughts on the MSU Game