Even though Kelly had mentioned that the team would prefer to play in a warmer climate, he said in his presser on Sunday that the Pinstripe offer was simply one the team couldn’t refuse:

When you’re dealing with our guys, it’s bowl packages, right? It’s just been a very attractive bowl package for our guys. I don’t want to get into the details because I think we’d like to probably keep that amongst ourselves.

But when I was standing here in front of this big screen, I put up the Power Point, I went from talking about the Pinstripe Bowl, had my guys’ attention. They came out of their chairs when I showed them the bowl package. I didn’t get that popular in a very short period of time. They were very excited about the things they were going to get from the bowl package.

After Kelly’s presser, senior receiver T.J. Jones gave a little insight into the package that got them so excited:

Receiver TJ Jones said the bowl package included a Playstation 4, a bowl ring and “a lot of clothes and hats.” He said a trip to Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center were other selling points for the trip.

Other warm weather destinations such as the Poinsettia Bowl and the Hawaii Bowl were considered: however, Northern Illinois’ final loss of the season took that off the table. As for the Hawaii Bowl, travel concerns were the main issue. With finals ending at ND on December 20, the team would have to leave on December 21 and miss many of the events surrounding the Christmas Eve game.

In short, if the end goal was to try and reward the team, it seems that was accomplished.

While the team will surely enjoy New York City during the holidays and get some great bowl swag, the game itself leaves much to be desired from a fan perspective. The matchup against Rutgers is one of the most lopsided of the entire bowl season. Take any rating match up that you’d like and the game simply looks horrid on paper: 8-4 vs 6-6, #19 vs #98 (FEI rank), #25 vs #103 (Sagarin), #26 vs #82 (BCS), etc.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when Notre Dame has no bowl tie-ins and misses the BCS. As rumors of playoffs swirled, no one wanted to lock ND tie-ins to any contracts, leaving the Irish in no-man’s land for postseason play.

While I am not overly thrilled about the potential matchup, I will always be happy to take another Notre Dame football game in, even one that isn’t that great. Further, from a program building perspective, I will always welcome the chance for the Irish to get more practices under their belt, especially the younger players. Every rep is valuable both in practice and in the game.

One player that will also be finding himself in the role of a fan will be Louis Nix III. Big Lou signed with an agent and as such, he is now a professional, meaning his time as a student athlete for ND is done. This means that he is no longer a member of the team, meaning he gets no bowl swag, no free trip, and he cannot even attend bowl practices (unless he is brought in as a guest, which happens often). I have a feeling though that the future first-rounder will easily be able to afford his own swag quite easily as well and paying his way out there should he chose.

While this move was certainly expected, Nix couldn’t officially leave ND without doing something else that is made of pure Irish Chocolate awesome. As the early NFL games were under way, Nix left a little gift in South Quad:

Just dropped off a duffle bag of my old issued gear to South quad. #Enjoy #OneThingPerPerson pic.twitter.com/CWurU6W5hj

— lOUIS NIX III (@1irishchocolate) December 8, 2013

And, yes, people did partake in the gift-giving:

https://twitter.com/spence_fence/status/409785198763446273

Even fans that didn’t get to the bag in time got a little something, but who knows, there could be more to come:

@MGolicJR57 Golic I have something special for the ND students

— lOUIS NIX III (@1irishchocolate) December 8, 2013

Needless to say, the departure of Nix will leave some huge shoes to fill in not just talent, but personality. He is truly one of a kind and is going to be one hell of an addition to an NFL locker room.

Best of luck Lou, you are already missed.

The post Notre Dame to Pinstripe Bowl, Louis Nix to NFL appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

O’Shaugnessy Hall by Raphael (1510)

Okay. Our running game was off, our O-line couldn’t contain Purdue’s Kawann Short and the winning drive was orchestrated by Tommy Rees. So, there’s a lot of reason to feel queasy as we enter Sparty week. But if you’re a glass-is-half-full kinda guy, or if you’re Biscuit (who basically predicted the first two weeks of the season), there’s a lot to feel very good about. In other words, it’s all about perspective.

At this point in the 2011 campaign, The Irish were 0-2, unranked and -7 in the old turnover margin. We lost our home opener to the University of South Florida in a 47 hour, rain-soaked stinker and gifted a W to the Skunkbears up in Ann Arbor by playing the worst defense since the French decided to end the Maginot Line at the Ardennes Forest because “zee tanks cannot drive through zee trees!” As Notre Dame prepared for Sparty to come to town in 2011, there was trouble in the city on the St. Joe River. And that trouble started with a capital “T” and that stood for “Turnovers.”

Things are different today. The undefeated Irish are ranked 20th by the AP and 19th in the USAToday Poll. We’re four to the good in turnovers, having turned it over twice. Coach Kelly threw some more toys into Everett Golson’s crib against Purdue and it showed in his game stats: 21 of 31 passing for 289 yards and one touchdown. That’s more yards and only one less touchdown that TerBush and Marve combined. Not bad for a rookie. Actually, that’s not bad for Drew Brees (Purdue, ’01), who surely would have traded a Jimmy Johns franchise for Golson’s stat sheet against the Redskins on Sunday.

There were two very compelling “next man in” stories that played out on Saturday: 1.) Rees in for Golson; and 2.) Kyle Brindza in for Nick Tausch. Tausch, a senior, pulled his groin, leaving the place-kicking duties to Kyle Brindza. Brindza had to rally from an awful miss on a forty yard attempt in the First Quarter to ultimately win the game on a 27 yarder with 0:11 on the clock. But the big story was cool hand Tommy. Coach Kelly swears that Golson’s still the starter and that he was only pulled because Tommy was better at the Two Minute Drill and not because Golson hurt his hand fumbling the ball away to set up Purdue’s game-tying touchdown late in the Fourth Quarter. Nope. None of those things.

I have to hand it to Tommy Rees. The kid came in and did what he needed to do, in classic Tommy Rees-fashion. Meaning he ran onto the field to a chorus of boos, actually a new and pretty pathetic wrinkle to his normal playbook, and calmly led the Irish down the field via a well-paced procedure of some pretty nice passing. That’s not to say my heart wasn’t in my throat the entire time and that I wasn’t thinking “if anyone’s going to throw a pick-6 on a spike, it’s Tommy Rees.” But he put everything out of his mind and he got the job done. Tommy, if you’re interested, there’s a motivational speaking gig in the New Orleans Saints locker room if you want.

And for a dose of further perspective, by the end of the game, Notre Dame had zero scholarship players on the field and were playing with four walk-ons and seconded groundskeepers and dining hall staff. That’s not entirely true, but the Irish had lost KLM, Jamoris Slaughter, Tyler Eifert, DaVaris Daniels and others to injuries, none of which Dr. Coach Kelly pronounced serious enough to keep them out of Saturday’s Michigan State game. Because, you know, they’re doing remarkable things with prostheses today.

So, there’s plenty of reason to be happy in Notre Dame Nation. Sure, there were problems — perhaps the biggest and most surprising of which was our O-line and Mike Golic in particular, who just got used all day long — but there were plenty of positives, too. Two of which are, and I am remiss in only getting to this now, STEPHON TUITT AND LOUIS NIX, III WHO ARE ABSOLUTE MONSTERS. In the last two games, they’ve really pulled some ink off of Manti Te’o when it comes to defensive commentary. Irish Chocolate in particular is on a Cinnamon Toast Crunch-fueled assault against the nation’s centers and quarterbacks.

So Bayou’s perspective is this: we’re 2-0 and there’s a lot of teams with big dreams that can’t say that right now. Go ask the Razorbacks if they had UL-Monroe as a Louisiana loss in their preseason prognostications. Or Nebraska if they thought they’d lose to UCLA. Or Wisconsin to Oregon State. Doesn’t only Notre Dame flake out and lose to teams they shouldn’t? Didn’t ND lose to Navy, Tulsa, UConn and Syracuse (and not in basketball)?

And finally, and this IS the most important thing when it comes to perspective: none of our players almost died. Tulane’s Devon Walker almost did against Tulsa, when he went helmet-to-helmet with a teammate. Devon had spine surgery today and is in stable condition at a hospital in Tulsa. Devon, for your information, is a former walk-on, who earned a scholarship last year from Coach Bob Toledo and is also a cell and molecular biology major at Tulane. Considering that I am typing this in the shadow of Tulane’s campus, my law school alma mater, my thoughts and prayers are certainly with Coach Johnson, the team and Devon Walker and his family during this time.

Saturday presents a whole new set of challenges: another stud D-line and another “pure” passing attack to worry our developing secondary. Can our O-line dig down and find whatever the lost or left back in Ireland? Can Golson continue to progress through Coach Kelly’s playbook and roll out new wrinkles in the offense (like maybe throwing it to Robby Tome more or a lot more?)? Will Cierre Woods’ return spell a return to a successful running game? And can someone please give Louis Nix, III some more damn Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Please.

The post Would You Rather Not Be 2-0? Let’s Put Purdue in Perspective. appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

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 throwing a few stones around in our own QB glass house, but the overall point is that Les has moved from the likable Mad-Hatter coach that fails to understand the concept of clock management while eating a nice snack of grass to a sad, bitter, and rambling old man.

Les, the next time you have a thought about Gunner Kiel, just shut up, go into your office, close the door and let it all out:

(Hat tip to Mark Ennis for the inspiration)

The Roundup

Also needing to shut up: Chip Brown. Realignment guru Texas’ favorite puppet The Orangebloods.com writer has again stirred the pot regarding ND. His article isn’t worth linking, Swarbrick’s response though, is.

Will never talk again: The BCS. They are dead. They cannot read. This will not be read to them.

Probably should have used the right to remain silent. Ex-Southern Cal defensive back, Kevin Ellison, could have used a few Notre Dame theology classes because I’m pretty sure God doesn’t tell you commit arson.

Les Miles isn’t the only idiot at LSU. Somewhere at LSU, there was a meeting. Someone had an idea, an awful idea. No one told them to shut up because the idea was so dumb. Then this happened.

Don’t even think about it, Adidas. One Foot Down was having some fun. Put the phone down.

In the category of “please don’t ever shut up”: Louis Nix III and Chocolate News.

http://youtu.be/CqUtFGgrNPo

The Beer

Just shut up and drink some.

Since my area is about to break into the 100’s (managed to hold out until late June–rather impressed), I’ll personally be looking for the following Texas brew:

Think Blue Moon, but much better. Nothing like a nice refreshing brew during the hot summer months and Fireman’s 4 definitely hits the spot.

The post Friday Roundup: The “Seriously, Just Shut Up” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.