Salve Magisterium,
After 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, prayer, and utter silence, I entered the Cathedral of Notre Dame Stadium only to find a flood of Biblical proportions. And it was Good. Anyone who attended the game on Saturday and was rooting for God's Chosen College Football Team can attest to the fun that was had from the very first kickoff, to the very second kickoff that followed rapidly on its heels, to the very third kickoff which licked the second kickoff's bunions in turn.
It was the most thoroughly enjoyable game I have attended in years and the rainiest game I have ever attended. It was as if the good Lord, seeing that the game was over in the third quarter, dumped his Heavenly Gatorade Cooler on the entire stadium.
A few highlights from the stadium's very bowl. Bullets, please:
- Any Michigan (sucks!) fan who came unprepared for the rain, and this wasn't really the sort of rain that anyone could prepare for short of an ark, could purchase a poncho in a plain white wrapper. Once you get that thing open, though, you find a delightful, bright blue hoodie garbage bag festooned in golden, interlocking N's and D's. There was a lot less maize (sucks!) in the stadium during the second half.
- The statue of Lou is pretty great, and it shows him accompanied by "mystery players" wearing the numbers 81 and 9. Whoever could they be? The statue would have been better if it showed him grabbing one of the players by the facemask and screaming up his nostrils or perhaps picking grass contemplatively, as a friend noted. Or perhaps Lou adorned in a dirty wifebeater stubbing out cigarettes on the back of Mark May's hand. That would have been great, too. As it is, though, it's a nice tribute.
- It seemed as if the TV timeouts were not nearly as long as they were during the Whale's Vagina State game last week. But this may have been a result, in part, of the sheer euphoria I was inhaling through this entire, beautiful second game.
- The band kicked off the post-game reveries by diving straight into the sway-inducing Alma Mater. Was this for the cameras? I know not, but to quote Brother Kenmore (Trappist): "This sucks." It's like Jack Handy's philosophy for attending orgies. You don't just show up naked. You have to build to that.
A look at the schedule gives the optimist faithful reason for ever more hope on a week-to-week basis. The only team on Notre Dame's schedule that is currently ranked is #1 USC. But guess who just earned 4 votes in the AP Poll and 5 votes in the Coaches' Poll? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't Ball State. They only got, like, 1 or 2 votes. Losers.
Suck it, Letterman.
In any event, the future can wait. Let the players and coaches begin worrying about next week now. I'll wait until kickoff to let go of the delicious sensation that accompanies a game like the one we saw on Saturday.
H'amen.
By Trey September 15, 2008 - 1:25 pm
I was sitting like RIGHT behind a crazy UM(S!) fan, and it was interesting to see the realization of an ass kicking first hand. I must say, I think we give scUM(sucks!) fans a bad rap around here. I think they really DO know some good football, but their insanity and the Ann Arbor poison has bled into them causing their moronic fandom. But after the first two kickoffs, this guy, and a few others I saw were actually quite personable and very knowledgable about the game. Again, maybe it was them finally sobering up with the driving rain, but I like the skunkbears better in that mode.
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By HikeND.com September 15, 2008 - 2:34 pm
Across from the Holtz statue can we erect a statue of Steve Spurrier throwing his visor as he watches Jerome Bettis lumber into the endzone for, like, his 300th TD of the afternoon?
Or perhaps a statue of Bo Schembechler with his famous quote: “Let’s kick to Rocket…again.”
And what’s with the Willingham statue? Oh, that’s really him. It’s hard to tell the difference.
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By The Biscuit September 15, 2008 - 3:39 pm
trey, there are stereotypes about all fans. and frankly, there are great, and horrible, ND fans. the issue we take with most UM fans is their selective memory, rationalization and lack of the ability to actually look at facts. things like Brian at MGO claiming that UM (sucks!) is academically superior to ND and the like…DTK, on the other hand, is a good guy but a Michigan (sucks!) fan nonetheless. but he is in a depressingly small minority, and most likely because he didnt actually attend the “university”.
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By DeepTeaKup September 15, 2008 - 7:04 pm
Biscuit,
Does this mean you like me? I mean really like me?
Also, it may not mean much coming from a guy who graduated from a small university in Northern Ontario, but I never understood the point of the academic arguments between grads of schools.
I’ve met people who you would not want to claim as fellow grads of ND.
I worked with a guy who claimed to have graduated from Yale who could not figure out Outlook.
I’ve seen 3 grads of Kellogg fired for incompetance, does that mean NW has a crappy Bus. School?
Really, what is the point of the discussion?
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By Matt '09 September 15, 2008 - 7:46 pm
The band has been playing the Alma Mater first ever since the team started consistently staying to sing for it, which I think was during 2006.
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By domer.mq September 15, 2008 - 8:00 pm
“I’ve met people who you would not want to claim as fellow grads of ND.”
Pretty sure he’s talking about me, Biscuit.
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By The Biscuit September 15, 2008 - 8:53 pm
Let’s say I don’t hate you like I should given that you’re a UM fan because you appear to have some command of logic. I agree with you to a point, but the conversation is largely relevant when people like Brian claim that UM (sucks!) does it ‘the right way’ when UM (sucks!) only graduates 30% of its African American players. Especially when he claims that they do it ‘the right way’ moreso than ND does. Of course there are exceptions to these rules. There are a lot of morons in the world that went to good schools. But in general, you can say that kids that go to Top 10 schools are smarter than kids that go to Top 40 schools and those are smarter than ones that go to Bottom 100 schools. You can say that Harvard kids are, in general, smarter than Western Kentucky kids. This is a fact. Are there a few geniuses that break the trend? Of course. And there are idiots at them all. But the random exception doesn’t break the rule. In the end, ND players take real classes and get real degrees, and much moreso than pretty much every other program out there, except maybe Duke, Stanford and Northwestern (and the academies).
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