This article is as much the product of rampant nostalgia as it is anything else. Our nation’s Independence Day is one of those calendar events that gets you looking backwards. This summer is the centennial of Gallipoli and the first use of poison gas on the Western Front. Summer itself causes retrospection as parents think back to their own lazy, hazy days and try to (re-) capture those for their own children.
Marcel Proust perhaps most famously made much of nostalgia, when he allowed a tea-soaked cake to transport his protagonist across seven volumes in the search of things past. To Notre Dame fan, any mention of Holtz or Devine or Parseghian is an excuse to thump the table and bleat for more running the damn ball. This behavior is similar to that of the British war historian, who trumpets places like Mons and Dunkirk.
1988 was a remarkable season for running the ball. It was also a championship season, and Lou was the coach and the autumn air was fresher and the apples were crisper. In 1988, the Irish ran the ball 593 times, gaining 3,071 yards. Subtracting the 233 negative yards, the Irish netted 2,838 yards. No word on whether they preferred Golden Delicious.
1993 was another remarkable season, for the Irish were number one, for a week, and made a solid case to be number one when it was all said and done. In that year, again Lou was the coach and Game Day was new. The Irish ran the ball 561 times for net 2,868 yards. They lost 241 yards on negative rushing plays.
2012 was another remarkable season, for the Irish were number one, and made a solid case to be number four when it was all said and done. In that year, Brian Kelly was the coach and Game Day was no longer new.The Irish ran the ball 506 times for net 2,462 yards. They lost 259 yards on negative rushing plays.
2014 was not a remarkable season for anything to do with number one or Game Day or apples, for that matter. But for running the ball, at least for calling a rushing play, 2014 is remarkable in that the Irish ran 484 rushing plays, a mere handful fewer than their flirtation year of 2012. And here’s where the inconsistency along the offensive line and at the quarterback position figures heavily: Notre Dame coughed up 372 negative rushing yards in 2014.
I’m nostalgic for 1993, for many reasons. I was a senior, for one, and the Florida State game stands out among all those incredible games. In my mind, it was epic. But did you know that we “only” ran the ball 49 times for 239 yards? And that Florida State out-gained the Irish in total offense, 403 yards to 347? Last season against Florida State, the Irish ran the ball 35 times for 157 yards. If you watched the Rice game, for what it’s worth, you saw the Irish run it 42 times for 281 yards.
So, I don’t know if the days of running the damn ball fifty or more times per game are gone forever. If anything, BK has shown that he will take what the defense is giving him, so you can bet he and his staff will call the run if they think it will move the chains. If anything, the Music City Bowl versus LSU was proof of that. We ran the damn ball 51 times for 263 yards. Against an SEC defense.
I think I’ll have an apple.
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
- Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense - December 17, 2018
- Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame - December 3, 2018
- Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 - November 26, 2018
1987 ND finished with a record of 8-5. Hmmmm…..
Things that make you go “Hmmmmm..” Thanks for reading!