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Looking Back at East Lansing

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Two of Notre Dame’s last three visits to East Lansing have come down to the last few minutes, with each team’s fan base having one chance to relish an extraordinary victory and one misfortune of experiencing soul-crushing defeat.

In 2006, a week after Mario Manningham and the Michigan Wolverines effectively ended Notre Dame’s national championship hopes (it still stings), Brady Quinn and the Irish came out flat with Michigan State jumping to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter. With the Spartans up 37-21 entering the final period just after an apparent Tom Zbikowski punt return TD was called back for holding, it appeared the wheels had fully come off what had been such a promising season for the Irish. Dorm rooms were merely filled with stunned silence and lukewarm Keystone Light.

With 8:18 to play in the game, on 4th and 5 from the MSU 43, Quinn hit Jeff Samardzija on a quick slant that the Shark brought all the way to the house. At least it wasn’t going to be a blowout.

With 6:10 to go, Drew Stanton was stripped by Chinedum Ndukwe at his own 24 yard line. The Irish had a prayer.

With 4:57 remaining, Quinn hit Rhema McKnight on a beautiful fade to the corner of the end zone from 14 yards out. The Irish were alive.  

With just under 3 minutes left, Drew Stanton threw an errant pass on 3rd down in his own red zone…right into the hands of the soon-to-be-constantly-lambasted Terrail Lambert. Lambert cruised for a touchdown and a wildly improbable Irish lead. Was this really happening?? (Side note: Lambert built an incredible amount of goodwill in this game for a guy who turned out to be a generally horrific CB)

Lambert stepped up and sealed the deal with another interception with 24 seconds remaining, Sparty fans were left in a state of shock, and a the classless John L. Smith sent two football players and one 6th grade boy dressed in an MSU uniform to guard their precious Spartan “S” after planting their own flag on ND’s field the previous year. Meanwhile, back in South Bend Twibby and about 150 other Domers were celebrating in Stonehenge (including one dude who was standing up on that ball in the middle leading cheers – great balance, horrible decision making).

http://youtu.be/jpETTi06k9k

Then there was 2010….I don’t want you to relive the pain, but I want you to taste it just enough to be even more hungry for this Saturday.

I’ll summarize as briefly as possible: Irish TD; Spartan TD; Spartan TD; Irish TD; Spartan TD; Irish TD; Irish TD; Spartan TD. Overtime. Irish FG. Then something that went a little bit like this:

http://youtu.be/h2nGtVURPlE

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About Twibby

Featured Columnist: Notre Dame Football & The College Football World
Proof that, sooner or later, everyone comes around to love the Irish.

After growing up as a Notre Dame hating, misguided youth, it only took one visit to campus during high school for Twibby to realize the error of his ways. From that point on Twibby and the Irish have had what can only be described as a true Hollywood love story. When he's not reminiscing about his time in South Bend and pondering ways to get a 5th year of eligibility as a student, Twibby writes about Notre Dame and the rest of the college football world for HLS. Along with the Irish, he is a diehard fan of the Chicago Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks and Cubs with a strange affection for Northwestern Wildcats football.

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