Oh. Hi.
I, frankly, have no idea what the readership of HLS is like these days. I’d guess by the way the folks here have run it so much better than I ever did, that the numbers are quite strong. And I’d also guess that a whole lot of the current readership has no idea I even exist(ed).
I started this blog in 2006 on a bit of a lark, thinking I had smart things to say about Notre Dame football. I didn’t even start out by trying to explain what we were trying to do here. Then I spent 6 seasons trying to explain why things were so great when they were sometimes great, and trying to commiserate when they weren’t. And in the late winter of 2012, after 2 consecutive 8-5 seasons under “yet another new head coach who wasn’t Bob Stoops,” I left.
In March, 2012, the ND football program was at a crossroads. The Irish were 2 full seasons separated from Charlie Weis, and at best they’d achieved mediocrity. The 2011 Michigan game had basically broken me. It had broken a lot of folks. We had all decided maybe it wasn’t healthy to care so much about the on-field results derived by a bunch of 18-22 year old kids. Maybe we should pay more attention to our own kids on weekends. Maybe, in fact, some of us had just gotten too old for this.
Lo and behold, the very next season, Notre Dame comes roaring back. Shaking down the thunder and beating all comers until the National Championship. If you think I never once considered that somehow that was related to me walking away from caring so much, guess again. It damn near brought me back to blogging, but a certain post-season insanity cured me of that.
Anyway, Biscuit actually suggested we come back for a week way back in week 1 of this season. And that didn’t jinx us, so I’m back believing in mystical powers as they relate to football fortunes only when they’re convenient and/or poetic.
So let’s review what’s happened since I’ve been away:
- Notre Dame won 69% of their games. [Insert Twitter-meme required “Nice” here.]
- ND appeared in a National Championship game for the first time in BCS history.
- ND had 10-win-or-better seasons in 3 out of 6 years.
- ND went 4-8 (did you hear?) in 2016, but 2016 had a lot of weird things happen. We can just pretend it didn’t.
- The Irish earned a berth in the Playoffs in 2018 after yet another undefeated regular season.
Maybe I am saying there’s something karmic going on with me not blogging any more. Maybe I’m not. Maybe coming back for this 1 week jinxes everything in our lead up to the playoffs vs Clemson. But I can tell you that 1 week this season I didn’t wear my ND monogram polo to the office on Friday, and we STILL won, so what could possibly go wrong?
- Friday Roundup: That Was Fast Edition - December 14, 2018
- Ian Book Is Smokey and the Bandit - December 12, 2018
- Don’t Call It A Comeback - December 10, 2018