I spent the last 6 or 7 or 8 days or whatever sitting on a beach, drinking beer with fruit floating in it, contemplating the fact that when I was a kid, growing up on a beach, I was in a rush to leave that lifestyle for the rat-race all so I could have a sense of accomplishment. The entire week is sort of hazy, and not because I drank all that much, but because I let my brain rest in some sort of mental depiction of the tree house from Swiss Family Robinson (Running water via coconut shell… Mmmm…). So let’s just forget about trying to sum up last weekend’s annihilation of Purdue exclusively and allow that synopsis to meld gently with a wee bit o’thought on Notre Dame vs. the Trees(!) as my brain tries to pick up the shattered dreams from the floor and regroup while I dig myself out of 143 urgent work e-mails.

In case you live under a rock, or were in outer space the last year or so, or if you happen to be about 99.99997% of the population of the United States of America, you may not have heard that Joe Tiller, the guy that looks like the Oatmeal/Diabeetus Equipment advertisement dude and also coaches the Purdue football team is retiring after this, his 12th and final season at Purdue. You may also not have realized that at stake Saturday was the opportunity for Joe Tiller – again, he’s the coach of the Purdue football team – to walk out of ND stadium with a career .500 record against the Irish. See, Tiller, probably more than any coach in the history of college football, benefited from the Bob-Davie-Tyrone-Willingham-era of ND football, going 4 and 4 during that national nightmare. Thankfully, ND fired Davie and then Willingham, and Tiller never fired his defensive coordinator, Brock Spack.

And that’s really what we can all take away from this game, isn’t it? That you should probably fire Brock Spack if you ever get the chance, and that this Notre Dame squad is not only good enough to punish teams for making lots of turnovers (unlike Wisconsin), but it’s also good enough to obliterate Brock Spack, which is to say, it’s good enough to obliterate fairly mediocre teams with mediocre-at-best coaching.

It’s an encouraging sign, to be sure. In 2005 and 2006, the Irish usually feasted on the Brock Spacks of the world, throat-punching a Pitt (the Purdue of Pittsburgh, coincidentally enough) here, beating up on a Washington there, trouncing a Stanford now and again. It’s not likely that this squad, with most of their scoring, and, really, most of their big plays, being made by kids who make the Indiana Excise Police rub themselves through their cargo-jorts, can keep up this level of performance, but now, at least, we, and perhaps more importantly the players on this team, know that they can attain that level of performance. Thank God for Brock Spack. Thank God for Joe Tiller.

• This is a lovely quote:

  “Even though we were in the football game and actually were in position to be ahead in the football game, they were getting knocked around pretty good,” Tiller said on Tuesday. “They were getting manhandled pretty good in the first half. So I can see why maybe at halftime they weren’t quite sure about how much more they had in them if they had to go on the field and stay on the field. And, of course, that’s exactly what happened to us.”

  And Joe Tiller is the man being quoted, meaning the “they” refers to Purdue, meaning the “manhandlers” refers to Notre Dame. This is officially in-season-progress because Purdue’s front 7, specifically the linebackers, were a bit patchwork in the way SDSU’s defensive front 7 were a bit patchwork. In other words, the Irish finally, simply just beat up a vastly inferior team. Now if the Irish would just realize there are no rules saying the game has to be close… in the first half.

• It Takes 30 Minutes To Get the Death Star in Range Too… As I sat in my ridiculously nice hotel room (yeah, in-laws with hundreds of thousands of hotel points!), watching the 2nd half of the ND/Purdue game go from nail-biter to insta-blow-out, I realized just what the rebels were facing had Luke missed that poorly designed ventilation shaft and the Death Star had made the turn around the moon or planet or whatever to destroy the small rebel base. Upside to the Death Star: Instant battle win once fired. Downside to Death Star: It takes 30 freaking minutes to get firing. Upside to current Notre Dame offense: Can score instantly from any position on the field. Downside to current Notre Dame offense: It takes 30 freaking minutes (at least) to get firing. But oh, what a sight when it does fire. It’s as if a million John Saunders just cried out and then went silent. Side note: Ever wonder why the Death Star had to travel? Can’t it just turn around on its axis and then fire? Lead with the shot, man.
• You can look really fast when you move the line of scrimmage, and if you really are fast you’ve already moved the line of scrimmage: Armando Allen had a career day and looked awfully good doing it, obviously, because the the ND offensive line moved the line of scrimmage. Also moving the line of scrimmage: The ND receivers. Grimes is a very good run blocker. Tate “blocks” his mark simply by virtue of his mark giving him a cushion of 8 yards before most snaps. Same with Floyd. Run towards Tate or Floyd’s marks, and you’ve got a guy who should be playing run support about 8 yards too deep. Run it away from their marks, and they’re not even on the play diagram at that point.
• Finally, he’s a good 7-letter word. To “Schwapp” had become a bit of a term with a bad connotation last year, particularly after Asaph managed to drop every ball handed to him (this is fact, we swear, no need to look it up). Jargon has a way of morphing over time, and it’s no different for ND fan vernacular. In 2008, and hopefully ever after, “Schwapp,” will mean nothing but powerful awesomeness. This is all possible because Asaph Schwapp has finally started doing what a fullback of his stature should do: Apply the pain to those who would feel it. Things are going so well for Asaph this year that I hope to compile a “Best Schwapps Of The Schwapp” video at the end of season with Muse’s “Hysteria” playing over it. It’ll be so Schwapp.
• Time for a Woodshed Game. Thanks largely to Jim “Pass the Flask” Harbaugh’s stewardship, Stanford has become a bit of a “chippy” team. And that’s being kind. More accurately, Stanford, and in particular members of the Stanford defense, have become a bunch of punks that think they’ve “mastered” the “momentum hit” during which they hit guys well after the whistle and then act as though they did something that deserves celebration. They also value things like spearing opponents and lament the penalty now tacked to horse-collar tackles. No doubt these are the sorts of quality young men who throw elbows during casual basketball games, even when the game is H-O-R-S-E. When I think of the Trees, the national statistics on domestic abuse spring to mind. I’m not entirely sure why. But those statistics and this team make me angry, and I like to see things that make me angry die. Given Tiller’s line above, I’m hoping for 2 things this weekend: 1) An Irish victory, and 2) a lot of low-hung heads on the Stanford sideline as various members of the Stanford defense raise their hands and head to the sidelines, asking their replacement for a “breather,” while they really seek sanctuary from the pain. It’s time to give this bunch an attitude adjustment and send them back to the (always been) sissified Pac-10 where they belong. Stanford, under Harbaugh, has become a bunch of leg-sweepers, and it’s time someone toe kick them in the nose. Give this to me, Irish, and I wont ask anything else of you for an entire week.

It’s Wednesday. It’s late in the afternoon. Most ND blogs have already gotten around to their “keys to the game” for Stanford, and we’re still getting most of the Purdue game information groked into our cerebral cortex. Let’s move on. 3-1 in September. Here’s to 4-0 in October (+1 Day).

Also, because the other Loyal Sons seem visual-aid-averse, here’s a nice photo from BGS’s photo pool.

Sort of hard to believe this isn’t photoshopped, eh?

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