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Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense

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So my favorite part of the "Clemson is Going to Beat the Mess out of Notre Dame" is that I don't buy it.  I wouldn't buy it if it were listed at $0.00 and I were playing the Bargain Game on The Price is Right.  Here's why: Clemson is getting way too much credit for running the table on a schedule that makes the inter-hall football small dorm schedule look like a damn murderers' row.  After a week in which we here at HerLoyalSonsdotcom rolled out the old timers for your listening enjoyment, let's ...

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Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame

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If you sat through the interminable Fox pregame show before the B1G championship, you were subjected to a host's visible revulsion to your undefeated Fighting Irish being somehow in the mix for a CFP spot.  His ire arose from the fact that Notre Dame was not playing in a conference championship.  Cheeseburger Saturday. "Why," goes my paraphrase of his passion, "should Notre Dame get a look at a playoff spot when they're not on the field playing against Pitt or Northwestern?"  If you sat on ...

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Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0

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On the last full football Saturday of 2018, a day on which fourth ranked Michigan (sucks!) wrecked its season against (the) Ohio State University, and seventh ranked LSU lost to the twenty-second ranked team in the country 74-72, Notre Dame won.  In a stadium stained garnet and gold, Notre Dame won.  To cap a season that gave truth to the motto, "Winning is Hard," Notre Dame won. With the Fighting Irish 11-0 and third in the CFP polls heading into the game, the Trojans had two choices: lay ...

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Perfect in Pinstripes, Notre Dame Squeezes Syracuse, 36-3

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Saturday's 36-3 stomping of Syracuse was the kind of win bound to make UCF-homers furious.  The day was for them, with GameDay in the bounce house and giving full play to the story lines as pretend as their claim to a national championship. Earlier in the week, their quarterback took to the 1's and 0's to pop off about his team being every bit better than Ian Book's.  When the night ended, and crows covered Cincinnati's corpse, UCF had its statement win over a top twenty-five team. Except ...

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Perfect 10: Notre Dame Defeats Florida State, 42-13

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Twenty-five years on from the Game of the Century, Brian Kelly's Fighting Irish rolled to a 42-13 victory over a Florida State Seminoles team with more problems than a trailer park in hurricane season.  Gone were the bulky pads and dark blue uniforms of yore.  In their place were Field Turf, a Jumbo Tron, and twenty thousand extra fans housed within a new stadium edifice. Despite the years, the games shared a meaningful connection. Both were won by a starting backup quarterback. In 1993, ...

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Yo ho 8-0: Notre Dame Sails in San Diego

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To modify, if I am permitted, the official unofficial motto of the season -- "winning is hard" -- beating Navy is hard.  It's only easy in hindsight, in the cold review of the final scores.  More often than not, the result comes down to a couple of plays that, if they went the other way, would have turned the result on its head. Such was the case on Saturday, when Notre Dame met the United States Naval Academy in San Diego.  The moment Miles Boykin became separated from the football in ...

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Nautical Knowledge: Surviving Navy

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With Notre Dame currently favored to win by more points than we scored in either of our last two wins over Michigan, and with the first CFP rankings coming out Tuesday, you just know that tonight's tangle with the Midshipmen will be a gut-churning gumbo of third-and-forevers and jacked-up knees.  To make it worse, the color commentators will be spicing that gumbo with nautical terms and patriotic pablum.  This is my least favorite game of the season. In an effort to make the experience ...

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Pitt Problem? Notre Dame Survives 19-14

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Saturday's 19-14 win over Pitt was, without question, Notre Dame's worst performance all season.  There is zero need to look for historical comparisons -- it's of no moment how six years ago it took a different Notre Dame squad eleven days and twenty-three hours to beat Pitt on a field goal that should have been disallowed.  The only meaning the game should have is that the Irish are undefeated and now rank fourth overall.  That, and the defense is fantastic. Here are the top plays.  Somehow ...

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Six and Oh! Mettle Beats Metal

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There was a time when the skyline between Notre Dame and Chicago was lined with glowing furnaces and fantastically-sized factories.  Within those factories, men poured, formed, and cut steel.  Today, those factories are mostly closed.  Today, those men are mostly dead.  On Saturday night, before the heaving, bouncing bodies in the stands, young men from Notre Dame, very much alive and fired by echoes cheering her name, quieted piped-in heavy metal with a punishing dose of heavy mettle. In ...

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The Tree Falls: Notre Dame Savages Stanford

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Brian Kelly got his signature win. In the first meeting of top ten teams at Notre Dame Stadium since Moses wore short pants, he orchestrated a performance of Wagnerian depth, one that left half-man half-hot dog David Shaw dumbfounded. The final score, 38-17, did not reflect just how comprehensive was The Irish triumph. Football is often referred to as "a game of two halves." To Stanford's detriment, Notre Dame took their second half away. Consider these tidbits: Stanford ran just seven ...

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