As I recounted some of Weis' moments from my manager days in the Brandon Newman piece, I mentioned one of my personal favorite speeches/ass-chewings that he would give out. Weis, in what he would call his "eloquent New Jersey vernacular", had two particular weapons of choice, dubbed by the managers as (now is a good time to warn everyone this post is going to have some salty language...) "getting motherfucked" or giving the "you have one fucking job to do" speech. "Getting motherfucked" ...
Friday Roundup
Friday Roundup: The “Can’t Unsee” Edition
For today's Roundup, it's time to dig back into my manager days for another story. This one happened while I was on a locker room shift. Usually, I'd abide by the "what happens in here stays here" rule, but it's far too funny not to. If there was one thing I loved about Weis, it was that he demanded that his players respected everyone, managers included. The day prior, the locker room was apparently quite a mess. Now, we usually have to clean up a few towels on the floor and some tape in the ...
Friday Roundup: The “Please Excuse the Rant” Edition
Fair warning: the Roundup is leading with Penn State. If you are rather sick of reading about it, and I don't blame you, feel free to skip over to the Roundup links for your regular Friday programming. I've tried to keep most of the Jerry Sandusky news out of previous Roundups, save for major developments. Not because I wish to avoid the situation, but because it has just dominated the offseason news cycle and there wasn't much for me to add besides additional disgust. But then the Freeh ...
Friday Roundup: The “Best Trick Play Ever” Edition
So since we seem to be recalling some of our favorite memories of the Weis era the past couple of weeks, I figured that now would be a good time to cash in my promise of letting everyone in on stories from my time as a manager. This week, we dive into the art of the trick play. Weis made a point to have at least one trick play up his sleeve every week. Some were simple and were just more complex versions of a play-fake that you'd likely see and not think it was actually a trick play. ...
Friday Roundup: The “Our AD Is Better Than Your AD” Edition
The playoff discussions really could have been a day of reckoning for Notre Dame. If ever there was a time to attack Irish Independence, it would've been this summer. Just think about it, Notre Dame had two flash-in-the-pan BCS seasons that resulted in bowl losses to superior opponents, and beyond that, it's been a mix of mediocrity, seasons that make you drink to forget, and some slight hope that things just might be getting better. But a serious power in college football? Far from it. At ...
Friday Roundup: The “Seriously, Just Shut Up” Edition
I thought we had already settled this before, but Les Miles simply refuses to shut up about Gunner Kiel. With the way Les Miles talks, you would think that LSU is home to nothing but the most elite quarterbacks in the land. Of course, watching LSU play any football at all last season with their terrible QB duo would shoot that ridiculous assumption down and watching the BCS title game last season would remove all doubt. Different breed of cat indeed. Now, yes, I'm fully aware that I'm ...
Friday Roundup: The “Getting Away from It All” Edition
There are definitely times when I understand why MQ decided to step away from college football blogging. My news feeds and twitter timeline suffered from a continuous bombardment with loads of college football news, but very little of it had to do with the actual game. The Sandusky trial, a shooting in Auburn, claims of academic fraud at North Carolina, realignment, and the complete cluster that is the playoff negotiations all dominated the headlines. The combination of stomach turning news ...
Friday Roundup: The “Three Day Weekend” Edition
One of the best new benefits of my new job is that, every other week, I get to experience what most of the workforce will this weekend: a three day weekend. I work a 9 day, 80 hour schedule, giving me every other Friday off. I was initially bummed that my off Fridays don't align with Memorial day, but that lasted for all of a minute when it donned on me that I'll have three consecutive three day weekends with a three day work week sandwiched in between. Initially, I figured that such Fridays ...
Friday Roundup: The “Keep It Simple, Stupid” Edition
While it certainly can be applied to anything, the KISS principle really got drilled into my head during my programming classes at Notre Dame. I would have this initial plan of how everything should lay out: variables, functions, classes, etc. and at times I would stubbornly try to force fit everything into that initial plan. The initial idea was solid, it should work, it can work, why change it? Obviously, such an approach led inevitably to frustration and sleep deprivation. All of a sudden, ...
Friday Roundup: The “Let’s Just Ban Everything” Edition
Guess it's over, y'all, college football should be banned. I'm not even sure exactly where to start on the absurdity of this debate. Maybe it's because the arguments support of college football somehow devolved into calling upon patriotism ("college football is the Statue of Liberty") and using ad hominem attacks ("[this argument] is being argued by well-intentioned people who don't clearly understand the sport"). Maybe it's because the arguments for the banning were built entirely of ...