I would love to say that this will be a regular column, but I’d most likely be lying. I’ll probably do it twice and then forget. But what the hell…

More Like Spread n Suck

RichRod was supposed to bring the Spread n Shred to Ann Arbor. Judging by the first game, the Skunkbears have a long way to go. While not at the levels of ND’s anemic offense last year, UM’s offense didn’t look much better today. (The defense held okay in the 2nd half, but looked just as bad in the 1st, giving up 300+ yards.)

The point? Spread n Shred becomes Spread n Suck pretty quickly when you don’t have the right guys to play the scheme. Doesn’t matter if they’re ’super duper specially fit’ because of Barwis being a maniac. Doesn’t matter if DickRod ‘adjusts’ his scheme to the QB (which he clearly can’t do - did you see Threet try to run? hilarious).

Michigan (sucks!) managed a paltry 200 yards of total offense, with 1/6th of that coming on a single TD pass. McGuffie the super recruit had a solid 8 yards on 8 carries. Both QB’s looked shaky. Richie has some work to do.

Illinois Bring the Noise

Would somebody please, please please tell Lou Holtz that there’s no “noise” in Illinois? Good Lord, isn’t there an ESPN PA or someone that can help the guy out? He looks old and senile when he says stuff like that.

Pitt Wet the Bed

I think everyone has been giving this team a little more credit than deserved (including yours truly) based on 1) upticks in recruiting recently and 2) close game with WVU last year. The ‘Stache has been able to bring in some decent talent in the last year or so, but those guys are still super young. As we learned last year, raw talent needs time to develop, and learn. And people seemed to see the win last year against WVU as a sign of good things this year. But people also forget that Pat White was hurt in that game, and that the ‘backyard brawl’ is a game that Pitt will get up for, big time, every year. It’s their big rivalry game, they’ll be up for it.

Pitt is out of the Top 25, and won’t be back this year.

Ohio State Beats JV High School Team: Congrats Guys!

OSU played Youngstown State today. I had a full ride offered to me by YSU’s football program. When I was in 8th grade and a 100 pound soccer player. But I was quick! People try to bring down ND because of scheduling, but at least we don’t schedule HS Junior Varsity as competition.

JoePa’s Squad Puts Up Points Equal to Half His Age

66 points is a lot.
Coastal Carolina is a college?

Illinois Has No Identity without Mendenhall

Juice Williams is an okay QB, and Benn is a playmaker. But without Rashard in the backfield, this offense doesn’t work like it once did. If the Crookster can’t find a solid RB, the Illini will struggle this year.

Chase Is No Heisman Winner

Don’t get me wrong, the guy’s a good quarterback. Solid. Good skill. But last year he was in that room by default. There wasn’t a ton of other candidates that could be put in there, and he won a lot of games on a team that traditionally hasn’t. But he’s nowhere close to college’s best player.

On another note here, Bob Davie is a freaking moron. When asked what Chase had to do to win the Heisman, he said something along the lines of “it all comes back to winning”. Hey Bob, were you even paying attention last year? Tim freaking Tebow won the Heisman, on a team that lost 4 games. Mizzou had a better record - so if you’re theory’s correct, Chase should’ve won the Heisman. Idiot.

The PAC-10 Will Be Dominated by (gasp) USC Again

Some people thought that Cal might have a shot at pressing for the conference title this year. Best is a decent back, and Wiley has clearly won the starting job. But the rest of the offense is ‘meh’, and the defense is suspect.

(The other side of that game wasn’t much more impressive. Our resident UM fan DTK may have been right - we might have been a bit premature in drinking the Dantonio at MSU kool-aid.)

USC, meanwhile, looked really strong against an over-matched Virgina team. Yes, it’s Virginia, but USC looks like a ton of pros out there.

How is Bowden Screwing this up So Bad?

Everyone knows there’s talent down there, which is largely why Clemson was ranked so high by everyone, including us. Clearly, we were all way overly positive on this team.

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I was writing this up as Domer said he wasn’t going to get to one.  Then he got to one.  So whatever, you get two beers of the week.  Score for you!

Since a majority of our readers are in the midwest, this may be a new name for you.  But West Coast brewing rules, and this beer is no exception.  Hail the Hop Ottin’ IPA from Anderson Valley.

Yes, there’s a lot of hops and yes they are wonderful.  And they even have their own weird dialect up in Anderson Valley, so you can say words like Boont and Ottin and feel cool because no one else gets it.  If you’re not a hop-head or you can’t tolerate a hoppy beer, pass on this one (as I call you GIRL).  If you’re up for it, give it a shot. 

Drink up!

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Because it’s football season! Woo hoo! Dash the shandies upon the ground and stock up on the fall flavors!

About the beer.

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You’d think that at Notre Dame, Sunday would have always been the day off.  Not so.  Last year, ND football had a full speed practices the day after their games.  It was something Charlie had done in the past, but that’s about to change.  Charlie talked about it in his presser:

“It’s definitely going to be different this year than it was in the past. Because in the past Monday’s been their day off, this year Sunday’s going to be their day off. That’s a big difference,” Weis said. “[It's about] letting them sleep, because if you think about it if Monday’s the day off you still have to go to class. So I think letting them sleep in and go to mass or go to service on Sunday. There really wasn’t a day off in their schedule because on Sunday we’d bring them in in the afternoon and on Monday it’s their day off but they’re getting up early to go to class.

“When did they ever get a chance to sleep in or have so-called quality of life like a normal student would have? So now they have Sunday.”

Typical to Charlie’s M.O., he didn’t just come up with this on his own.  He dug around into other programs around the country, and asked about what they did, and what worked.

“I went and researched a bunch of schools in the country to see how they do it and a bunch of them were doing it that way,” he said. “I asked some people to try to find out why they do it that way and it was all related to rest.”

‘Course, it seems obvious that the players will like the change.  But the coaches will be in, working hard on film.

“I think they’re very appreciative to be able to sleep in like the rest of the free world on Sunday,” said Weis. “Coaches will be in though in case you’re wondering, but players will get a chance to sleep in.”

I like this shift.  It’s tough to get up and get at it the day after a game.  You’re a bit banged up, tired and sore.  And Charlie’s right - Monday isn’t a real rest day, especially for any kid unlucky enough to get a freaking MWF 8:30am class (me, every freaking semester!).  This gives the guys a day to chill, sleep in, watch some NFL and get some school work done before the start of another busy week of studying, giving the Heisman to the Pangborn girls, and practice.

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• The Gauntlet

Ignore this…

Oh, yeah, and this too…

…because we’ve got football to talk about! Real football!

By the way, the appointment of Palin by McCain isn’t brilliant because it’ll really slice and dice the Hillary voters in November. It’s awesome because Putin will never be able to concentrate during Nuclear arms talks with a foxy-hot-librarian/teacher-type sitting across the table. I guess we can safely say WW3 is on the back-burner!

Hey, I’ve got a back-burner for ya!

Can you tell I’m feeling feisty with the new season?

Anyway, the Roundup:

• Man, I’m glad he’s okay. I was expecting a childhood photo montage on Sportcenter about this kid in a year’s time.
• I think working with “real” student athletes, unlike the ones at the Naval Academy, might take some adjusting for Paul.
• Yeah. This isn’t going to work.
• Hey, Tiger Woods says his video game is very realistic. So why can’t NCAA Football translate to the real world?
• I’ll admit. I was impressed by Stanford in some ways last night, but eventually somebody (hopefully the Irish) is going to get sick of the punk-ass style of play they use and beat them in the mouth. I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but when they say a team takes on the personality of its coach, look no further than Stanford. Never has a program and a coach fit together in the personality department so well. Harbaugh is, and always was, the kid with just enough talent, just enough hustle, and just little enough emotional intelligence to be a total pain in the ass. He and Stanford are the kids that will over-celebrate pretty much anything, and as soon as their party looks like it might get rained on, they’ll turn to some pretty crap-ass measures to make sure the party keeps on rollin’. That or the bottle.
• Gator Fans: Just want to be like Penn State Fans.
• With the season starting up, it could be easy to lose track of Swarbrick. Let’s not let that happen.
• Yes. It is all about the coaching.
• Turner Gill. Remember that name. He just made Buffalo vs. UTEP look like Buffalo vs. Penn State, except Buffalo wasn’t playing the part of Buffalo this time.
• We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!
• A Notre Dame spokesman declined to comment? Either that spokesman is one of the very nice ladies at the SDH and had no business commenting, or this spokesman is negligent. How about, I dunno, mentioning the 2 BCS pay-outs that Weis brought in in the first 2 years?

Real life impedes. I’ll try to get to a Beer of the Week in a special post later today. Otherwise, feel free to make suggestions in the comments. Or throw out some stories you think should be seen by the world.

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It’s finally here: College Football, and for the majority of us tv-watching fans, the season is really going to kick off this evening when the NC State Wolfpack takes on Steve Spurrier and the USC Gamecocks. While staring at the countdown to kickoff clock I’ve installed over my bed, I realized a funny thing about Steve that we ND fans forget: Right around the same time Weis took over ND, Spurrier took over the Gamecocks.

The ole’ ball coach, boasting nine 10+ win seasons and a MNC, took on the job in Columbia with pretty high expectations, after leaving the NFL and deeming that he was too good to have to go through the interview process at Florida a second time around to retake the helm of the Gators.

And his record since then? 21-16. One game weaker than Weis at ND.

Ah, but you all scream because you’re a bunch of ESPN mouthpieces, “Spurrier had to do it in the SEC!”

Okay, but a few things here. First, the SEC mythology needs to die. That’s for an entirely different argument. Assuming I’m right, and that the SEC just has a lot of great marketing, then what’s up with the fact that Spurrier has never even supplied the Gamecocks with the “new coach bounce” that so many talk about when we point out that Weis took ND to 2 consecutive BCS bowls? His best season included 8 wins, and that was a 7 win season in 2006 plus a bowl win. So in the regular season he’s won 7 games twice and 6 games once. Holtz left the Gamecock program after winning 5, 5, and 6 in his last 3 years. Can Spurrier claim to have made any improvement at all? Does anyone care? It’s not at though the all-time winning percentage of the Gamecocks, 49%, makes one think that those who tend to the program are all that invested in success. Perhaps it’s just a matter of an old coach finding a nice, comfy place to retire with lots of great golf nearby.

Hey, if they’re looking for a replacement next year, I know just the guy.

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We’re all defined by something.  It changes throughout our lives, but it’s there.  In high school, I was a soccer player.  I played year-round, for 4-5 teams.  It’s what I did.  In college, I was a terrible-cover-band-lead-singer.  That ruled.  At times I’ve been defined by women (ugh), jobs (double ugh), and friends (most often, awesome). 

Notre Dame football had no identity last year.  This was a problem.

How can a team know what they’re about without an identity?  Without that ‘thing’ that defines them?  Something to hang their hat on and say ‘this is what we’re going to do’?  When you’re sitting around wondering ‘who the hell am i/are we???’, you’re not taking someone’s head off. 

The Irish offense had zero identity last year. Nil. None. Zilch. Nada.  First, it was a spread team with The Bus Misser under center.  Then, we were a high-flying-pigskin-zinging-down-field-throwing team under Evan Sharpley.  Then a pro style attack with Jimmy.  Then Sharpley.  Then Jimmy. 

By week 6, the offensive squad didn’t know which way was up, let alone who they were as a squad. 

The Irish defense was slightly better, but not great.  It was a young squad, but with some senior leaders in Laws and Zibby.  The pass D was tight, but more than anything they were defined by being tired.  With so many struggles on offense, they were on the field way too much.  And there wasn’t much depth.  Which meant a bit more sitting back, trying to just stick in there.  “Hang in there and try to keep it close” could’ve been their mantra.  This wasn’t a team that was taking it TO the opponents’ offenses. 

Things are changing.

Offensively, the Irish are much more settled.  More experience, Jimmy is the #1 guy barring injury, and the coaches are talking about an identity:

Charlie:

“Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve wanted to be able to pound the football,” Weis revealed. “And we haven’t yet. So we’re going to find out because we’re going to pound it.”

Haywood:

“I think what Coach (Weis) is really saying is that we have an offensive line who is a lot bigger and stronger,” he said. “We have multiple backs that are running a lot better than they’ve run in the past years. So, it creates an opportunity now for us to run the ball a little bit more effective in which we’ve run over the past several years.”

“We’re creating an identity by being able to run the football, play-action pass, dropback pass. But the most important thing in which we’re doing is that we’re teaching guys football, we’re teaching guys situational football,” Haywood said. “We’re teaching them to stay on schedule, the importance of down and distance, red zone football, coming out football, taking shots. We’re basically doing a lot more because we’ve had a lot more time, also, in which we’re spending on teaching football.

“These guys have really got significantly better in the offseason. The spring was really important for some of the new things that we added offensively and some of the things in which we simplified. It gave each individual an opportunity to consistently run the plays over and over again against various defensive fronts, various blitzes, various coverages so they understand where the reads are and understanding where the free defenders are. I think each one of them has improved significantly since last fall.”

And this is how they’ve been talking since January.  Which I think will pay huge dividends this fall, in helping this team grow and progress.  When you know what’s coming, what the plan is, and that the other 10 guys around you are working toward the same goal, things get a LOT easier out there. 

On defense, no one can question that there is an identity emerging.  Both Brown and Tenuta have talked about it non-stop:  attack. 

Tenuta:

“It’s our job defensively to stop the run first and then attack their protection,” Tenuta said. “You try to get your best athletes on the field and you try to get as much speed as you can on the field, obviously. You’ve got to contain that offense and you’ve also got to be able to attack that offense.”

and…

“You don’t want offensive dictating to you, you want to dictate to offenses,” Tenuta told the media before later stating, “We’re going to be an aggressive, ball hawking defense. I’m always going to aggressive.”

And there are countless other quotes from both coaches on bringing together their plan of attack.  So despite the loss of Laws and Zibby to the NFL, this group’s identity is coming together as well.   Last year was the start, with Corwin coming on board.  But this D has now been handed off to the new generation of players, and Corwin 2.0 is taking effect, with Tenuta’s input.  This squad knows its job:  get to the QB, don’t let him set his feet.  Attack.

I don’t know how much an identity translates into increases in the W column, but my guess is that it’s significant.  And this team’s identity is emerging.

Now it’s time to take someone’s head off.

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For 2008, we’ve got a new feature: “You’re So Predictable,” where we ask you to predict some future outcome for the coming week of college football. Let’s go, HLS group-think, just how smart are you?

Which upset is most likely to occur in Week 1 of this season?

• None of the above (25%, 52 Votes)
• ECU over Va Tech (24%, 49 Votes)
• Bowling Green over Pitt (20%, 41 Votes)
• Washington over Oregon (17%, 36 Votes)
• App State over LSU (7%, 15 Votes)
• Virginia over Southern Cal (4%, 8 Votes)
• Hawaii over Florida (3%, 6 Votes)

 Loading …

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By now you know that Chicago Sun Times columnist Jay Mariotti has resigned. You probably know because parades have been running all over America in response to the news, violence in major metropolitan areas has dipped in the last 24 hours, and that acid-reflux that’s been giving you fits for the last 6 months hasn’t been too bad today despite the double-double you had for lunch.

And by now you also know that Mariotti is hardly done with this world any more than Satan is. He’s bound to pop up somewhere. That’s just a fact of life, like the inevitable recurrence of certain STDs.

Indeed, despite rumors, it seems Mariotti intends to move on to some other, livelier medium. And I hope he finds it. I hope he finds it and that he finds it impossible to survive. Because the livelier medium is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of people who do “it” better than Mariotti could ever hope, and most of them do it for free.

So here’s to Mariotti moving on, not just from the printed press, but from the keyboard altogether. And let’s hope that he takes his buddies Hamilton, O’Connor, and Zemek with him.

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We just got one of the best tips we’ve ever received via the HLS hotline. The staff of Polito’s sent us a note to let us know about their re-opening!

The new Polito’s will be open September 5th, just in time for the ND football season. So be sure to drop by the new location after a game to reload on all the calories you just expended, cheering the Irish to victory!

Here’s the address:

401 N Hickory Rd South Bend, IN 46615

And in case you’re like us, and despite 4 years in the Bend you never really memorized the names of streets, here’s a map.

View Larger Map

Essentially, it’s south-east of campus. It’s barely a 5K away!

Woo hoo!

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Stanford is desperate for fans to show up for football games.  So desperate, in fact, that they’re offering refund plans for those fans that deem the entertainment experience to be lacking.

Ugh.  Rock bottom?  Uhhhh, yeah.

 They already have tried the obvious things - beating USC, organic hot dogs, free tickets for students.  Now money back.

 How depressing must it be to be a Stanford football player and hear this?  What’s the running dialogue in a player’s head as he plays in that kind of an environment?

 Okay, Red 48 Z, on two.   Got it.  That’s me baby - I’m gonna take it to the house on this play.  I gotta.  Cuz seriously, if I don’t, these people are gonna ask for refunds.  They’re gonna REFUND MY A$$!  Oh shoot, he snapped the ball!   Okay USC linebacker, I’m going to put a spin move on you to up the entertainment value-

WHOOOOMP!

Well, I hope the fans consider me getting pancaked entertaining.   Please don’t refund the tickets!

Coach Jim Harbaugh weighed in:

“It’s good motivation for us, but that motivation is already there,” Cardinal coach Jim Harbaugh said. “We definitely want to give fans their money’s worth.”

Let me translate that for you:  “This is freaking embarrassing, but if I don’t say this the AD and the University President will have my head on a platter.  So yeah, this is the deal, and it sucks.”

This is another reason why I’m so thankful to be a Notre Dame fan.  Last year we were 3-9.  Was it easier to get tix at the end of the season?  Yes.  Was it so easy that the administration was considering money back or any other gimmick?   No, and never.  Thank the Lord. 

And Stanford fans, don’t forget to read the fine print:

“Refund must be requested and tickets turned in before the USC game on Nov. 15.”

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Before all you glass-half-full people get too too excited, I just want to remind you all how seriously, seriously young this Irish Football team is this year.

Last year, we were pretty much babies.  Average age on the starting squad was like 3. 

This year, we may be up to, oh, maybe 11 or 12.   We’re still TWEENS people!  We like Miley Cyrus and have braces and have ‘felt up’ a girl or two.  But that’s it!  We’re not even high school age yet, people, and let’s not forget it. 

The 2-Deep was released, and the extreme levels of talent in the freshmen and sophomore classes is showing through big time.  All in, we have 7 freshmen and 16 sophomores in the mix.  On a team that’s fully developed, in a program that isn’t starting over from scratch, how many Frosh and Sophomores should be on that list?  I don’t know, maybe 4 or 5.  And, at MAX, 1-2 should be starting.  That’s the reality in a program that wasn’t recently decimated.  What we have today is the reality of a program building from the bottom up, on a talent base that is still extremely young.

Should we see improvement over last year?  Heck yeah.  A lighter schedule, a better approach from C-dub, more cohesion in the team, more physical practices, no QB controversy…blah blah blah.  Better?  YES.  But.  BUT BUT BUT.  We should all seriously temper our expectations here.  This is a young team with a ton of 18 and 19 year old kids.  Take a look at other elite programs (specifically the ones doing well recently), and see how many first and second year guys are in that two-deep.  See how many are starting, and at key positions all over the field.   Right, not close to as many.

This issue of age and inexperience won’t last long - Charlie and co. are stocking this team with awesome recruiting year after year.  But expect some more growing pains this year, as these young guys gain significant experience.  Feel free to say what you want about what we ’should’ do, or what Charlie ‘has’ to do for this year to be a success.  Just think before you say it, and realize that the teams that went far last year, BCS, MNC, etc etc did it on the back of experienced talent. 

Not just talent.

 

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Yeah. Pretty sure this has been done before, possibly even by us here at HLS, but with a new season comes a new set of commandments. After all, commandments are a “living document,” right? It’s not like they’re written in stone or something. We’re big fans of commandments, particularly the ones that are easy not to break. I’m pretty sure none of the Loyal Sons have killed anyone. Personally, I live in a neighborhood with a lot of retirees, so coveting neighbors’ wives is pretty easy to avoid, though some of these guys have a lot of cash, so their houses and cars are pretty sweet.

Anyway, with the 2008 season nearly upon us (but not as nearly as it could be if the ND admin would get their act together), we present you, the Notre Dame Football Fan, with these 10 18 commandments…

1. Thou shalt never utter a phrase like, “[Freshman Player's Name] reminds me soooo much of Zorich.” No. He doesn’t. He cannot. Freshman Player is, A) still only a freshman, and as a freshman, even Zorich didn’t seem that much like Zorich, and B) Just not Zorich. Your heresy is evidence of your lack of understanding. Saying someone is “Zorich-like” is akin to saying someone is “Jordan-like,” but in this context, it actually matters. And it’s unfair to Freshman Player to boot.
2. Thou shalt never say Michigan (sucks!) without saying “sucks!” And we’ll be watching. If we catch you doing it wrong once, we’ll be all over you like Jon Tenuta on a linebacker that doesn’t keep his eyes up. If we catch you doing it wrong over and over again we’ll go Colonel Jessup on you in the middle of the night.
3. Thou shalt not make any reference, written or verbal, to “returning to glory.” My God, if you’ve still got one of those shirts, burn it. Right now. Whever you are. And no, I don’t care that you’re reading this from a Blackberry during mass. If the priest objects, just explain it to him. It’s pretty likely he’ll understand and lend you some fuel. There is no returning to glory. It’s metaphysically impossible. ND can return to a state of being a perennial top-5 team. ND can return to a state of being a team that slaughters all opponents. ND cannot return to the glory of the past. It makes no sense, and we wouldn’t want that glory any how. The clothes were pretty funny looking back then. In the words of a Gooney, “This is our time.” It’s time for ND to perform in such a way as befitting the history and pride of the program, but leave our bygone glory alone.
4. Thou shall not, at any point in the season, suggest that Harrison Smith be tried on offense. The same for any well-established player being tried on the opposite side of the ball. Think Neal should move to OLB? Okay, but if you for one second want to see him at TE, open your fridge and make sure you keep your mouth busy with a beer rather than with spewing stupid ideas.
5. Thou shalt not criticize the play of any single player on the team if you only know them by number. College Football is a rich and varied opera filled with complex characters. If you’ve got a problem with the way #XX takes on a block, or #YY catches the ball, but you can’t name them on sight, shut up. The Notre Dame uniform is a wonderful litmus test, and you just came back positive for a case of Casual Fanitis. Congratulations, you’ve been relegated to going to the nursery with your wife on Saturday afternoons in the fall because, really, ND football isn’t that important to you. No. I don’t care that you donate money every year.
6. Thou shalt not write poetry heralding the Irish, any single player, or any facet of the Notre Dame Football Program. Exception: Funny limericks, of course. This is not some ancient time, and you, sir, are not a renaissance man. All this world has time for these days is prose and ass-kicking. I don’t care if you could, in fact, slay a bull and then write an ode to a vase in one afternoon. If you’ve really got to hold onto that “well rounded” side of your personality during the season, think more Maximus from “Gladiator” and less Three Musketeers at least.
7. Thou shalt not draw trend lines with N data points where N < 3. If you find yourself, particularly in the middle of a rant about the play of the fighting Irish, using terms like “clearly” and/or “obvious,” then you’d better have the facts/stats to back it all up. And again, we’ll be watching, and if you don’t have your **** together, we’re going to bring the swift sword of factual counters down upon your head until all you see is red. May God do what he will with you after that.
8. Thou shalt reserve judgment until the facts are in. Probably harder to do than not coveting your neighbor’s wife when you live in Lincoln Park, this commandment gives you the opportunity not to play right into that cliche about how ND fans are off their freaking rockers. Sure, it’s okay to express glee, agony, or any other emotion during play, but before you hang out at the water cooler or on message boards on the following Monday, explaining what “really happened,” in your “honest opinion,” make sure you go back and take a look at what really did happen. You make a lousy eye witness, I promise you. So do I. So does everyone.
9. Thou shalt not listen to any rumors that are passed to you by more than 1 degree of separation by the primary source. You have no idea why so-and-so wasn’t seen by the media at practice yesterday, and neither does your friend’s buddy. Your friend’s buddy also has no idea if “all the other players” like or dislike so-and-so, or if so-and-so is in Coach X’s doghouse. In fact, it’s pretty likely your friend’s buddy is just messing with your friend because he’s an idiot. Get new friends. And if you see a rumor posted on one website, do not go and make a post on another website asking if anyone knows anything about the rumor posted on the first site. We’re all looking at the same sites already. Stop it.
10. Thou shalt know the difference between an end-around and a reverse. For the first time in a long time, it’s arguable that Notre Dame actually has a fair bit of speed. As a result, some of you may be shocked and amazed at the execution of certain plays that employ something called “misdirection.” Please, for the children, if Golden Tate scores on an end-around, don’t talk about how awesome “that reverse play” was.
11. Thou shalt not parse Charlie’s words. Charlie’s a frank guy. He’ll let you know what he wants you to know, and he wont let you know anything else. When it comes to Charlie, if it went unsaid explicitly, then it went unsaid implicitly as well. Stop trying to apply the Rosetta Stone.
12. Thou shalt not ask “what if…” Because nobody knows what if, and no amount of people trying to guess at what if will make you feel better anyway, you pansy. How do you get up in the morning if you find not knowing the future so debilitating? There’s no way to tell what if if the Irish win their first 4 but then go on some sort of skid and only barely make a minor bowl. No way to tell anything by beating Michigan (sucks!).
13. Thou shalt know the math. Know how many athletes can be on scholarship. Know how many new scholarship players may be signed in a year. Know how many can “make the bus.” Some of you may even want to look up how many players can be on the field for one team at a time. Go on, do some homework.
14. Though shalt not ask aloud, “Why don’t they just have Golden Tate go deep every play?” Ugh. Why don’t you just go cheer for Purdue or something?
15. Thou shalt not make fun of ND fans wearing funny pants. Those are important men doing important work, the magnitude of which you can’t possibly fathom. I’d explain more, but I’ve already said too much.
16. Thou shalt not repeat anything said by Mark May. We don’t care. Nobody cares. The broadcasting of Mark May’s voice is simply a clever way to ensure that no moment in time go without some sort of signal being emitted from earth out into the universe. You know, to keep the aliens away.
17. Thou shalt never utter “I hope I’m wrong.” Yeah. We all hope you’re wrong. And we’re all glad that you went and said “if X happens, then that’s really bad.” No kidding. Hey, if the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, that would sort of suck. Wow. Yeah. I feel better. Hey, if you fall into a well and nobody ever comes by to save you, that would be bad. And by bad, I mean good for humanity because you don’t really hope you’re wrong. You hope you’re right so your ego will be stroked just a bit. You probably still wonder why you got beat up all the time in grade school.
18. Thou shalt not care about “Weis vs. Willingham II.” For starters, Weis already beat Washington and Willingham the first time they played. For another, Weis had nothing to do with Willingham getting fired - that was all Willingham. And for another, if you get sucked into it, it’ll just perpetuate the story that media wants to create. It’s ND versus Washington. A loss wouldn’t vindicate Willingham any more than a win of 54-0 would vindicate ND. No matter what occurs, the media will spin it in a way that will make you unhappy. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see headlines about ND “piling on.”

Good luck keeping to these commandments. Realize, as we do, that you are not infallible, and you can be forgiven for your trespasses. You cannot, however, be forgiven for serving lousy beer at tailgates and game watches, so be careful there.

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Crap.

Thank God for our amazing TE recruiting haul last year.

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Well, we’ve covered the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, and the Pac-10 conferences in some special-edition roundups that last few weeks. Sure, we could go on and do more conference-centric roundups of the lesser conferences like the MAC or Big Televen, but really, who cares about the lesser conferences?

So here we are, with actual writing about actual college football to share with you.

The Roundup:

• Who knew skin irritation could affect one’s hype?
• Ah, the team-haircut. It falls under the same umbrella of “things that seemed like a good idea at the time” as the town-bicycle.
• BGS reduces the player interviews until they’ve reached a golden deliciousness that’s too good to pass up.
• House Rock Built: Not dead.
• Les Miles: Not dead, and not a crazy bastard either.
• Damn. When will D-List celebs start showing up at Notre Dame practices?
• Coach Johnson needs to know what his major malfunction is.
• Mike Leach has big expectations, looks a lot like Vince Gill.
• What does FSU, the Chinese Olympic Committee, and the Mask of Zorro have in common? They’re all hiding something.
• I guess I could have used, “Ty Willingham” in place for “Mask of Zorro.
• I’ve heard jokes about how ND should recruit this guy, but I was taught that God works with a sliding scale, so there’s no way this guy can catch a football, right? Oh. I guess we could make him a tailback.
• A season or two ago, EDSBS used the pistol-with-bayonet gag to explain the Florida offense. We’re proud to announce that we’ve found 2008’s metaphor for useful things that, put together, don’t make a lot of sense.

Seen here: Southern Cal football players practicing high-fives.

And the BOTW, in honor of college football starting in just 6 days with North Carolina State kicking things off against South Carolina, is Goose Island Matilda. Does it have anything to do with North Carolina State and/or SC? No. Who cares? It’s beer and football, and at least the beer will be good. Cheers.

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