Ti-i-e-ime, Is On Our Side…
domer.mq - 11:20 am
Matt Hinton at Dr. Saturday makes a big fuss today over the fact that it’s now been 2000 days since Michigan (sucks!) has beaten Ohio State in a game of contact football. That’s nothing. No doubt that length of time is causing those petulant little namby-pamby troglodytes a great deal of suffering, much like 2 minutes without The Ring made Gollum go bonkers, but Notre Dame has had it far worse recently in the greatest rivalry in college football. It’s been 7 years, 6 months, 25 days since the Irish beat Southern Cal in football. To spell that out for the Michigan (sucks!) fans who are reading this, getting angry as every difficult-to-read-word is scanned by their rodent-like eyes: That’s 2764 Days.
Should the Irish lose to SoCal this season, that’ll mark 2920 days, or just days away from being 8 years. 8 years is a long freaking time. So long, in fact, that much of the rosters of the Irish and the Trojans will likely not be able to recall the last time the Irish defeated SoCal. So might the Trojans take the Irish for granted this season, and manage to experience their annual “WTF loss” against the Irish, even if the Irish aren’t a good team in 2009? As Matt also pointed out this week, that’s not really likely.
Whether Notre Dame is very good, mediocre or lousy could impact the Pac-10 race and bowl picture given that the Irish play 40% of the teams (Washington, Washington State, Stanford and, of course, USC).
The Trojans need the Irish to be a quality team this year, and they need to beat the Irish in order to make a run at the BCS championship. Whether the kids on the teams remember much history or not, it looks like the Trojans will be pretty well focused on ND in October.
Of course, if these kids do know their rivalry history, they might also remember that there was a time when the Trojans couldn’t beat the Irish, even when the Irish were coached by Faust: October 22, 1983 to November 30, 1996. For you Michigan (sucks!) fans who make it to this point in the post, that’s 13 years, 1 month, and 9 days or 4789 days. There was a time in this rivalry where one side would find it absolutely shocking to lose to the other. That time is not now.
irish64
Worry about Nevada first, then the skunks.
May 14, 2009 at 3:07 pmBad Kermit
Irish64, I can only assume you stopped reading after the first sentence. That post was as much about Michigan as Lost is about a plane crash. I think everyone is aware by now that ND can’t take any team for granted. Regardless, even if Domer WERE looking ahead to the skunks or Southern Cal (he wasn’t), it doesn’t make a lick of difference. All that matters is what the team and the coaching staff is doing.
May 14, 2009 at 4:20 pmtrey
I truly feel that this is a year we could give SC a run for their money. Not ready to declare a win yet, but the stars are aligned for this to be “that year”
May 14, 2009 at 9:04 pmBJGator
Three factors combined to make 2005 the almost year.
1) We were a talented, experienced team.
2) The game was at home.
3) We were riding some great momentum.
The stars seemed to align quite well. Why didn’t we win? Probably because we were playing against two (eventual) Heisman winners. This year, the circumstances seem very similar. If we are undefeated going into that game, I give us a 50:50 shot to win the game, since we will finally be catching USC in a down year (as much as they can be in a down year with their recruiting) while we are in a good year. I definitely think our chances will be better this year than in 2005.
May 15, 2009 at 10:02 am