In most aspects of life I consider myself a very rational person. When it comes to being a Notre Dame fan, though, rationality tends to go out the window. Sure, I enter most seasons overally optimistic -- except for this season when I predicted 8-4. Clearly when I aim low it bodes well for the Irish. I'll remember that from now on. Wanting to believe your team is better than it probably will be is one thing, but it's not too off the wall. No, what I am talking about is the tendency of ...
Marquee Matchup Week 10: #1 Alabama at #5 LSU
#1 Alabama at #5 LSU Where: Tiger Stadium, Baton Rouge When: Saturday at 8:00 PM ET on CBS Last time they met: Championshippppppp Ah, the rematch of BCS Championship. Which was, of course, the rematch of the Game of the Century. In the end, both turned out to be fairly boring. Sorry everyone – when the Irish finally made it into the Marquee Matchup last week I was pumped that we finally got away from talking about the SEC. But just like that we are back. I wanted to pretend that ...
Irish Blogger Gathering: 8-0
The Irish are 8-0 with an excellent chance to enter Southern California undefeated at the end of the month. That is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Of course, as Keith Arnold of Inside the Irish and I discussed during this week's Irish Blogger Gathering, to do that the Irish must avoid following the paths of the 2002 and 1993 Irish squads. Below are my questions for Keith and his responses. You can find Keith's questions and my answers on Inside the Irish later this afternoon. Don't forget to ...
Marquee Matchup Week 9: #5 Notre Dame at #8 Oklahoma
#5 Notre Dame at #8 Oklahoma Where: Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium When: Saturday at 8:00 PM ET on ABC Last time they met: Notre Dame beat Oklahoma 34-30 in 1999 in South Bend For those of you that have followed my Marquee Matchup series this year (thank you for your readership), you’ve seen a lot of SEC football. That will happen when one conference has 4 teams in the top 10 – whether or not the conference deserves its widespread praise is a whole different animal, but I ...
Let Us Eat Cake: 7-0
This past Sunday, I had the fortune of attending a cake tasting with my wonderful fiancée – for those of you that haven’t been lucky enough to be fed samples of various types of cakes and filling, I suggest you go ahead and start planning a wedding. Of course, with the Irish sitting at a newly minted 7-0, I had difficulty focusing on the task at hand and found my mind wandering to Notre Dame’s unexpected 2012 run (my mind is usually wandering to the Irish, so this is no surprise). As I went ...
Marquee Matchup Week 8: #7 South Carolina at #2 Florida
#7 South Carolina at #2 Florida Where: The Swamp When: Saturday at 3:30 EST (why do they have to schedule these things during ND games…c’mon, man) Last time they met: South Carolina won last year’s matchup 17-12, finishing its 2011 sweep of the SEC East. Ugh. I'm thinking about just re-titling this weekly post as "This Week, in the SEC Title Hunt..." Let’s hope this game is a bit more exciting than last week’s South Carolina vs. LSU matchup. Suffocating defenses are a lot of fun to watch ...
Notre Dame vs. BYU: A Video Review
As Notre Dame hasn’t played BYU since 2005 (in a game some refer to as the "Brady Quinn Might Throw Nearly As Many Touchdown Passes in this Game as in the NFL" game), I thought it may be helpful to do a further review of the video evidence from some of ND’s past matchups with the Cougars to jog everyone's memory. First, the history of the 6-game series: Previous BYU Games 1994 BYU was a 15-point underdog in South Bend. And won. The Irish dropped to 4-3 in what was a disappointing 1994 ...
Marquee Matchup Week 7: #3 South Carolina at #9 LSU
#3 South Carolina at #9 LSU Where: Tiger Stadium When: Saturday at 8:00 PM ET Last time they met: LSU won 24-17 in 2008 It is looking like the Gamecocks are in the middle of a 3 game stretch against top-10 teams after manhandling the Georgia Bulldogs last Saturday. Before South Carolina even has a chance to recover from a nighttime trip to Baton Rouge, they’ll be prepping to face #4 Florida. While we all thought the Irish faced a tough schedule this season, this mid-season stretch for ...
Irish Blogger Gathering: Tree Week
If you were to bet on how many Stanford fans would be at GameDay on Saturday, would you go with more than or fewer than 75? My money is on fewer, which will hopefully help to erase some of the memory of the Nebraska fan flood of 2000. I am excited to see a sea of Irish fans in front of Touchdown Jesus, and especially pumped to see the clever quips that students put on their signs (particularly from the people that manage to sneak the really good ones past the ESPN police). This week, for the ...
The Shamrock Series Wins Again
The Chicago Bears and Soldier Field proved to be yet another phenomenal host for Notre Dame fans and the Shamrock Series. After the 7 home game, 4 away game, 1 neutral site game model ended up causing more scheduling issues than it was worth (who was that Kevin White guy, anyway?), I was not pleased about the prospect of giving up an ND home game to bring the show on the road…but then I graduated, moved out of South Bend and found out neutral site games are actually freakin’ sweet. ...