Subway Domer started this party a week or two ago. We were on vacation when it began, but then we got back and heard about it and said, “uh, did someone say party?” And so here we are, joining in. We, the Loyal Sons, were going to try and collaborate on answers, but this week that was particularly difficult since none of the other Loyal Sons ever e-mailed me their answers, and my powers of telepathy don’t work too well during cold season.

OC Domer is this week’s host of the gathering, and he’s decided to make things nice and cheery.

And away we go…

1. Who was your first Notre Dame hero? Bettis. Before Bettis, I was too young to really “see” the game. The entire thing was just gigantic guys running into one another. Bettis changed everything. Bettis was a gigantic-er guy running over the previously-adequately-sized guys, and somehow it all had the effect of clearing the mud from my eyes and really enabling me to see the game. Not only did I fall for Bettis, I fell for the game at the same time. The readers of HLS owe all of this to Bettis. Also, I was just the right age to really get into the ESPN-crafted hysteria of the 1992 ND/FSU game, along with their first on-campus airing of College Gameday. The hype for that game was unimaginable to my crude child-brain, and it seemed like every other word out of anyone’s mouth during the telecast was Bettis. I was hooked from that point onward. Of course, he went on to the pros the very next year and I practically lost all track of him. Just never got into the pro game. EDIT: As has been pointed out, the FSU/ND game I reference was in 1993. Bettis was already in the NFL. So clearly my memory of everything related to Bettis, 1992, and 1993 is blurry – and that’s probably for the best for the sake of my self-confidence. This explains much as I couldn’t come up with any memories of how Bettis performed in the game referenced.
2. When was the first time the Fighting Irish broke your heart? When Holtz left. I know, you’re talking about a game scenario, but they never really crushed me during a game like they did when Holtz left. It was my freshman year at ND, and it had only been a few month before when Holtz promised me, my family, and everyone else associated with my class that we would get to witness ND win a national championship. And then in a blink he was gone, and the administration was pleased to announce that some guy named Bob Davies was taking over. My head was spinning. My heart just sank. And I caught a severe case of mono within days of the announcement.
3. Let’s suppose for just a moment that for whatever reasons the Notre Dame football program begins to slide into what looks like long term mediocrity, or even long term suckitude: Um. Okay.
   • NBC doesn’t renew the television deal, and the package offered by the Versus network makes it clear that remaining independent will mean a lot less $$$ than joining a conference and sharing in their TV deal. Should the Irish join a conference? If so, which? Why that one? No. Assuming the passage of time, of course. I really believe that Notre Dame’s ability to “rise again” is an inherent part of Notre Dame’s being, sort of like that whole “If there were a god, that god must be all powerful by definition,” thing. Notre Dame, in this situation, should remain independent and rise again, or simply stop being Notre Dame. Preposterous you say? Tisk, tisk, I say.
   • Over time, Notre Dame becomes the football peer of Duke and Syracuse, lucky to win four games a year, rarely posting a winning season. What should the University do? Drop football? Join a conference (or a lesser conference)? Drop down to Div-IA (the FCS Division)? Schedule 12 cupcakes each season? Reinvest in the program. If South Florida, BYU, and Missouri have taught us nothing else, it’s that commitment to the program counts for a lot in that program’s success. Heck, Duke and Syracuse this year show us what happens when one program decides to start taking football seriously and the other decides to hire Greg Robinson as a head coach. Programs can build. Programs can rebuild. But the programs must be a priority to the institution. The previous administration of ND was pursuing a dream scenario not unlike the one you just described, but the program is now being taken seriously again.
   • The Indiana legislature has been taken over by a coalition of tea totalling, non-violent religious groups that outlaw both beer and football, and the University is forced to end the football program. To which college football team do you switch your allegiance, and why? Hrm. At first I nearly leaped at Navy due to some sort of ill-defined, heart-string-tugging sentiments, but I’d have to say LSU, or some other SEC school, largely due to the fanaticism with the program. As much as you can’t throw a rock in Michigan (sucks!) without wounding someone that went to Michigan (sucks!) for a semester and thus cheers for Michigan (sucks!), the people in SEC country cheer for a particular school from birth and treat the football programs as though they were incarnations of deities that deserves to be showered with impossible rewards during the good times, thrown into the depths of hell during the bad times, and given whatever it needs just to get the good times rolling once again once all the rollin’ and pollin’ and hoopla in hell is over with, so that’s fun. Plus the tailgating is awesome and usually warm-weathered. I figure if I can’t have a Notre Dame, I may as well enjoy the every-loving heck out of the fan experience.
4. While on campus on a football Saturday you stop by the Knights of Columbus building to get your traditional steak and gristle sandwich. You also take the opportunity to pop inside the building to use the restroom before following the band over to the stadium. While waiting in line for the bathroom and watching the endlessly running Rudy on the K of C television you make the acquaintance of an older gentleman with a beard. He’s rather short, but very energetic for his obviously advanced age. You allow him to cut in line in front of you. When he comes out of the restroom, obviously relieved, he thanks you and and then steps in really close to you and whispers in your ear. “I’ll grant you two wishes. The first – Notre Dame will beat any team you choose for the next ten seasons. The second, the Irish will also lose for ten straight years to any team you name. Quick now, what two teams will they be?!” You blurt out your two answers, and he disappears into the crowd. What two teams did you pick, and why? I’ll pick to win 10 straight years against MSU and to lose 10 straight to Michigan (sucks!). I know, the reasoning is obvious, but let me explain to the children following along. First, you can’t pick Southern Cal because the one game against our one true rival is too important to tarnish with some emerald isle voodoo. Second, the series between Southern Cal and Notre Dame is incredibly cyclical, and while we haven’t beaten them since the Davie era, there was once a long, cold winter in LA when they couldn’t beat ND. It’ll happen again and again, so why go wasting the pick on that? Now, MSU has been a real pain in the neck and always shall be because ND always plays them in the early part of the season, before the regularly scheduled MSU melt-down (which we are fairly sure is bigger than any once MSU head coach). And we can lose to Michigan any year (also an early game and a “quality loss”) and still win out and at least argue that the BCS system is massively flawed for including a 2-loss SEC team and not a 1-loss ND team in their national championship game.
5. I’m a terrible predictor. I’m pretty good at analysis, but I’m no good picking games because I almost always pick the Irish. But we need to get on the record here. Notre Dame has games left against North Carolina, Washington, Pitt, Boston College, Navy, Syracuse, and USC. Pick the winner of each of those seven games. Assign each pick points based upon your level of confidence in the pick. Most confident pick gets a 7, least confident pick gets a 1. Each value 1 through 7 must be used once. A perfect score of all picks correct would be worth a total of 28 points. The member of the Irish Blogger Gathering with the highest point total wins a prize of my choosing at the end of the regular season. In case of a tie, the tiebreaker is the member who has the best overall season based on quantity and quality of posts to their blog from now through the end of the season, as voted by the members of the Gathering.
   1. SoCal – Even back when we were always beating them, you still never knew…
   2. Pitt – LeSean McCoy: So much talent, even Dave Wannstedt only screws it up half the time.
   3. UNC – The most talented team the Irish will have faced to date.
   4. Fredo – You can bet the, wait, what’s their mascot again? Anyway, you can bet they’re already practicing an “ND package” for the game.
   5. Navy – Looks like when Paul Johnson left Navy for Georgia Tech, he didn’t take all of the competence with him.
   6. Syracuse – Looks like when Paul Johnson left Navy for Georgia Tech, he didn’t mail any leftover competence to Greg Robinson.
   7. Washington – Looks like when Paul Johnson left Navy for Georgia Tech, it had absolutely no “butterfly effect” on the universal laws of Ty Willingham’s inevitable failure.

Thanks, OC, for the great questions. I’m gonna go pop some Ozzie and Harriet DVDs into the ole’ home theater and pretend I never had to think about these things.

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