Let that little factoid wash over you.

Steph Curry, Rihanna, Adele, Haley Joel Osment, Emma Stone, and Michael Cera were all born the year the Irish last hoisted the crystal football, or whatever they hoisted back then. It was probably a rough-hewn marble tablet or something. Something sepia toned, and in the newsreels everyone moved too fast, and all the men wore hats.

Vietnam is known as “The 10,000 Day War.” Only in retrospect, through the lens of history, can we now plot way-points, such that Dien Bien Phu is the sort of beginning and the Fall of Saigon the sort of end. With Notre Dame, we’re not able to do that, yet. We don’t even know if we have another 10,000 days ahead of us. HOLY ISH BALLS WE MIGHT GO ANOTHER 10,000 DAYS?!?!??!??!?

In that same amount of time, other Irish sports have amassed 16 national championships. And we call ourselves a football school.

The 1988 Fighting Irish ran the table to win the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl, defeating West Virginia 34-21. In victory, Coach Holtz channeled his inner-Morrissey and remarked that, “[t]his team will go down as a great football team because nobody proved otherwise.”

In 2013, Alabama proved the Irish to be other-than-great, despite going undefeated in the regular season. Had the Irish won, I’m sure that some of you would still be debating Brian Kelly’s membership in the pantheon of Notre Dame head football coaches, but no one would be debating that squad’s “greatness.” But this post isn’t about “greatness,” it’s about championships.

It’s also about the uncertainties of the pre-playoff era, a time when chain-smoking sports-reporters and coaches gathered together in a transparent elections-system to which today’s presidential campaign can only pretend. The Irish had a case to argue in 1989, when they went 12-1. Their only loss came against The U, the season’s eventual champions.

Same again in 1993, but this time it’s personal. I was there, a senior, to watch the implausible Kevin McDougal vanquish Charlie Ward’s Seminoles. It was a battle of #1 versus #2, and the first foray of College GameDay outside the friendly confines of Bristol, Conn. It was the first “Game of the Century.” Since then, we’ve had – what? – 50 of them? The Irish won, 31-24, and then lost the next weekend to Boston College, 41-39. HOLY ISH BALLS WE LOST TO A TEAM WE BEAT BY 47 POINTS THE SEASON BEFORE?!??!?!???!??!??!

Since then, since that precise moment, Notre Dame didn’t so much as sniff the beer- and sweat-scented air of the Natty until 2012. The closest Dame-fan could get was a deep-inhale in the Dirty Thirty until that got shut down when the U.S. signed off on the Fourteenth Hague Convention.

And let’s face it, the air itself came out of the program when Holtz left. The Davie years, 1997-2001, were essentially the Reader’s Digest version of the Book of Exodus. Tyrone Willingham, 2002-2004, was so ineffective that then-Athletic Director Kevin White terminated his five-year contract after just three years. But hey, at least he got to improve his short-game.

Charlie Weis coaches the Notre Dame football team during a September 2009 game. (Courtesy of Flickr user Larry)

Speaking of air, Charlie Weis blew into the Gug in 2005, bringing with him some Super Bowl rings, a decided schematic advantage, and dozens of pairs of Sansabelt pants. His high-water mark, which ironically saw its denouement play out in post-Katrina New Orleans, came in 2006. That 10-3 season was the “best,” and now even language seems awful to me, until 2012.

Call me a “Kelly apologist,” but I think we’re closer to being out of the desert than at any time since 1993. I don’t think it will be another 10,000 days. The program, in the last six seasons, has been punched in the nose by awful luck and circumstance and still, a championship was played for and double-digit seasons were achieved. We were in the playoff-mix last year, too, if you can remember back that far.

Maybe in 365 days, we’ll be talking about the chances of a repeat.

The post 10,000 Days: Fighting… For Another Championship appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Where are they now? Kevin McDougal

All Kevin McDougal ever wanted at Notre Dame was a chance to prove himself as a quarterback. McDougal sat for three years behind star quarterback Rick Mirer, then watched as Coach Lou Holtz named incoming freshman Ron Powlus the starter even though he’d never thrown a pass in college. McDougal felt he had earned his shot after leading more than a dozen scoring drives in a backup role and soaking up the offense for three years. Powlus suffered a broken collarbone and McDougal stepped in to lead the Irish on a Cinderella journey that some believe should have resulted in a national championship. McDougal completed 105-of-174 passes that season for 1,646 yards and seven touchdowns and five interceptions. (Stats from http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/kevin-mcdougal-2.html) After leaving Notre Dame, McDougal played in the World League of American Football for the London Monarchs, the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the XFL’s Chicago Enforcers, and for Milwaukee and Georgia in the Arena Football League. He retired as a player in 2002 and returned to his home state of Florida, where he and Marci Dorsey are proud parents of a new daughter, Haven Dorsey McDougal.

Q: Being from Florida you obviously had other college choices. Why did you go with Notre Dame?

Kevin McDougal, Notre Dame quarterback.

A: “Throughout my entire life, everything revolved around the Florida Gators. Everyone in my family was a Florida Gator fan, and so as far as I was concerned I was going to be a Gator as well. When I got to high school, I discovered that there were lots of other choices. During my sophomore and junior years, I started getting communications from several different schools that were interested in me, and then my senior year it just exploded.”

“Vinny Cerrato, who was the football recruiting coordinator under Lou Holtz, did an outstanding job of recruiting in the late 1980’s, early 90’s, and brought many talented players to Notre Dame, but they really hit the Florida area hard. Just in my class alone he recruited Tommy Carter, John Covington, Clint Johnson, Oscar McBride and I out of Florida. To convince a Florida kid to leave the warmth of Florida, the close proximity to home and attend a school in South Bend, Ind., is quite an accomplishment. We were all actively recruited by Florida schools and yet we all left and went to Notre Dame.”

Q: What impacted you the most during your recruiting visit to Notre Dame?

A: “Once Notre Dame started recruiting you, it made you much more attractive to other schools as well. When I was looking at schools, I was not only looking at football programs, but I was also looking at basketball and golf since I was a three-sport guy. I took five official visits: West Virginia, Syracuse, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Michigan (where his recruiting host was Desmond Howard). Back then, Notre Dame brought all of the top recruits in the nation to campus for the weekend that the team was preparing for its bowl game. There we were watching the top Notre Dame players get ready for their bowl game the following weekend. To see Rocket Ismail, Chris Zorich and Tony Rice out there on the practice field had me in such complete awe because they were such high-profile players. Notre Dame was bigger than just about any pro team, and watching them made me think that this might be too much for me … maybe I should go play basketball. Notre Dame had just gotten the big NBC contract and they were on TV and in the national spotlight every week, which was pretty much unheard of at the time. Fast forward to my freshman year at Notre Dame … after I was the backup quarterback behind Rick Mirer in 1990 and went to Miami for the Orange Bowl, the next weekend I flew back to Notre Dame to play with Coach Digger Phelps and the basketball team in the Christmas basketball tournament. I had badly hurt my ankle during my senior year in high school and I had struggled with bone spurs all of freshman year. After I completed the Christmas basketball tournament, I made the decision to give up basketball and focus on football. I called Coach Phelps and told him that I was going to have to give up basketball and have surgery done to remove the bone spurs. Playing football was not nearly as hard on my ankles as basketball was, I just couldn’t take the constant jumping. It was too much pounding on my ankles.”

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the relationship that you had with your teammates?

A: “There was an extremely strong bond between the guys on that team. Notre Dame was a school that brought kids in from all over the country … California, Florida, Ohio, New York… and Lou Holtz and his recruiters, in particular Vinny Cerrato, did a great job at bringing a certain type of kid to Notre Dame. We had just an outstanding group of guys who really cared about football, and each other and really worked hard.”

“We still have tight bonds today. My senior year, when Coach Holtz told me that I was not going to be the starter, my teammates immediately got behind me to fight for me to be the starter and their leader. The camaraderie we had was indescribable. I really felt the love when the guys stuck up for me, because they felt that it was the right thing to do.”

Q: Was that your biggest challenge during your time at Notre Dame?

Kevin McDougal, Notre Dame vs Florida State game.

A: “I think my whole college football career was a challenge. When people recruit you they tell you that you will have the opportunity to play. They tell you, “We only have this one person at your position so if you work hard you can be a starter.” I had no idea how good Rick Mirer was and after seeing him play I thought I was never going to get the chance to play. Recruiting me, they told me that they were expecting Mirer to leave early, so I always felt I was going to get two good years. It was a huge blow to me when he decided to stay for his senior year. Once I was finally a senior and thought that my time was finally there, that’s when the Ron Powlus Era started. In comes this phenom whom everyone was touting as the best quarterback to ever come out of high school, and he got the start over me. I was devastated. I had played tremendously well up to this point and really felt that it was my turn to be in the spotlight.”

“During my junior year, every time I would get into the game with the second team we would score, so I thought I would be the next starter. It was definitely a hurtful time for me once Lou decided to start Powlus. Then after he suffered an unfortunate injury, I finally got my chance to start and we did really well that year … we almost won the national title. That senior year was tough for me though, because I always felt like I wasn’t wanted, especially by the coaching staff.”

Q: What is your favorite Notre Dame Football memory?

A: The Florida State game was unbelievable for so many reasons. For starters, we had just become the No. 1 team in the nation, so for a week I quarterbacked the No. 1 team in the nation and not many quarterbacks can say that. There was so much media hype surrounding that week. It was the first ESPN Game Day ever. So many big people were there, including Costas. Very surreal. My breakout game was the Michigan game my senior year. We were expected to get clobbered and instead we upset them (27-23). It was the second game of the year and we had just beaten Northwestern at home. Huge win.

ND/Michigan intro ABC sports:

Q: How shocked were you when you found out the day after the Cotton Bowl that Notre Dame ranked second in the polls?

A: “Immediately after the game, we definitely felt we would at least share the national title. We beat Florida State, and even though we lost to Boston College the next week, we still beat Florida State. How can they give the title to them (Florida State) when we beat them during the regular season? If they (the voters) didn’t want a shared title between Notre Dame and Florida State, they should have given it to someone else. It just didn’t make sense. The whole thing was very upsetting to us. I was on my way back to the airport with Coach Holtz to go back home when we found out and it was really sad. We could taste it, and then to have it taken away like that was devastating. At a minimum we thought we’d share it.”

Q: You were drafted by the Los Angeles Rams but did not survive the final roster cut. You played in several other professional leagues, so what was that experience like?

A: “Of course I was hurt. I didn’t get invited to the NFL combine. I didn’t get invited to any senior bowl games. Half of our coaching staff had left at the end of that season and they really didn’t follow up with the NFL scouts to help us find our way to the NFL. Once I got to the Rams they were going through a transition as well, and unfortunately they decided that I was not part of their plan moving forward. When I got to the Canadian Football league, I just fell off the radar. Back then TV was not like it is today where you can pretty much watch everything, and the CFL games were not televised in the U.S. The way the system worked was that you had to play a few years in the CFL and prove yourself before you could get the chance to come back to the NFL. I was very unhappy in Winnipeg. When you have to go backwards in order to move forward, you really need to be in a good state of mind to stay motivated. I got to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and got stuck behind a Canadian football legend Matt Dunigan, and at the time he was the second-best player in the whole league. They loved me but I never got a chance to play.”

“There were positive aspects of my time playing in the CFL, World League and Arena Football. I’m still friends with a lot of those guys, and we still talk quite often. The friendships that I took away from all those years of playing football are something that I’ll always treasure. It never was about money. It was about the fun of the game and being able to continue to play, meet people and grow in life. You learn so much about how to live your life from sports; especially teamwork and camaraderie.”

Q: Where did life take you after football?

A: “I was heavy into real estate and I did that for a few years. Right now I own a transportation company, KCD NonEmergency Transport Corp., and I’ve been doing that for a few years. We transport people in wheel chair vans and regular vans to their doctor appointments. We do a lot of work through rehabilitation facilities and we are looking to expand and grow our business. We have big plans for our road ahead, and being in Florida we have a booming market.”

Q: What advice do you have for current college athletes?

A: “Never give up. No matter how successful you are, sports only lasts for a short period of time. You may feel like you’ve been in it forever, but when you are done your life is just beginning. I’ve been out of sports for 10 years and I’m 40 and I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me. Definitely enjoy playing sports, practice hard and soak up every moment but know that it’s only a temporary thing. Prepare yourself for life afterwards. I think a lot of athletes think they are going to play for a long time and they are going to make it to the pros and that is so false. Even while you are still playing, (you) always need to be thinking about what you are going to do when you get out because you are still going to be a young man. Enjoy every day.”

Q: What is your favorite Lou Holtz memory?

A. “The quarterbacks spent so much time with him you get tons of stories. Clint Johnson was lined up at receiver and the corner backs were pressing him and the other receivers so as to not let him off the line. The defensive back fell down and I didn’t even read the defense and I just threw it to Clint (or maybe Lake Dawson) because they were wide open, but Coach kicked me out of practice because I did not make the read. All I could hear was him yelling, “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.”

Kevin McDougal (Photo: Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images)

And the look on his face as he was screaming at me to get out was the look of a crazy man. As I’m walking off the field and he’s still yelling at me, I’m thinking to myself, does he want me to stay and fight or does he want me to go to the locker room? These things happened all the time with Coach Holtz at practice. Another time, Clint Johnson fumbled the ball during a run at practice, right before we played Michigan, and he made Clint go stand on the Michigan side of the field and move the first-down marker during practice. Humiliation was something he used often. Clint Johnson and B.J. Hawkins were also quarterbacks, and our playbook was so big that it was often hard to remember all of the plays. We were having a particularly bad day at practice, and Coach Holtz got so mad at us that he combined all of our names together when yelling at us … ‘Clint McHawkins!'”

“Michael Miller was returning punts one day at practice, and he kept fumbling the ball. Holtz is so frustrated that he goes out there and says ‘let me do it.’ The wind was blowing particularly hard that day, and he caught the ball, but the force of the ball hitting his hand broke his finger! He sure showed us.”

A big thank you goes out to Kevin McDougal for stopping by and walking down memory lane with me a bit. Stay tuned for more interviews in the WATN series!

Cheers & GO IRISH!

The post Here We Are Again – ND and FSU appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

A few things jump right out: 1.) how good was Brady “The Mighty” Quinn? 2.) how gaudy (and futile) were Jimmy Clausen’s numbers? and 3.) how different things could have been for Dayne Crist if…. if….. dammit, Dayne. But when you look at players getting their first starts, Everett’s numbers are surprising, even to an unabashed Golson fan such as myself. His 2405 total passing yards bests the first seasons of Ron Powlus (1729), Brady Quinn (1831), Dayne Crist (2033) and Jimmy Clausen (2007). 2405 is eighth-best going back to 1992 which, again, is not too shabby given the company.

When you look at rushing numbers, though, Golson’s numbers really become more interesting. They add a dynamic missing with other Irish signal callers. His 298 (net) rushing yardsand six touchdowns put him fourth on a list going back to 1992, one that sees 2001 Carlyle Holiday in first with 666 (net), 1999 Jarious Jackson in second with 464 (net) and seven touchdowns and 2000 Matt LoVecchio in third with 300 (net) and two touchdowns.

Three times (here, here, and here) I either extolled Golson’s duality or compared him to Kevin McDougal, whose 85 net rushing yards and four touchdowns now seem meager by comparison. But remember LAST offseason? When Tony Rice said this?

You know what, he may be right…

The post Tabling the Issue: How Does Everett Golson Do? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Q: Being from Florida you obviously had other college choices. Why did you go with Notre Dame?

Kevin McDougal, Notre Dame quarterback.

A: “Throughout my entire life, everything revolved around the Florida Gators. Everyone in my family was a Florida Gator fan, and so as far as I was concerned I was going to be a Gator as well. When I got to high school, I discovered that there were lots of other choices. During my sophomore and junior years, I started getting communications from several different schools that were interested in me, and then my senior year it just exploded.”

“Vinny Cerrato, who was the football recruiting coordinator under Lou Holtz, did an outstanding job of recruiting in the late 1980’s, early 90’s, and brought many talented players to Notre Dame, but they really hit the Florida area hard. Just in my class alone he recruited Tommy Carter, John Covington, Clint Johnson, Oscar McBride and I out of Florida. To convince a Florida kid to leave the warmth of Florida, the close proximity to home and attend a school in South Bend, Ind., is quite an accomplishment. We were all actively recruited by Florida schools and yet we all left and went to Notre Dame.”

Q: What impacted you the most during your recruiting visit to Notre Dame?

A: “Once Notre Dame started recruiting you, it made you much more attractive to other schools as well. When I was looking at schools, I was not only looking at football programs, but I was also looking at basketball and golf since I was a three-sport guy. I took five official visits: West Virginia, Syracuse, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Michigan (where his recruiting host was Desmond Howard). Back then, Notre Dame brought all of the top recruits in the nation to campus for the weekend that the team was preparing for its bowl game. There we were watching the top Notre Dame players get ready for their bowl game the following weekend. To see Rocket Ismail, Chris Zorich and Tony Rice out there on the practice field had me in such complete awe because they were such high profile players. Notre Dame was bigger than just about any pro team, and watching them made me think that this might be too much for me … maybe I should go play basketball. Notre Dame had just gotten the big NBC contract and they were on TV and in the national spotlight every week, which was pretty much unheard of at the time. Fast forward to my freshman year at Notre Dame … after I was the backup quarterback behind Rick Mirer in 1990 and went to Miami for the Orange Bowl, the next weekend I flew back to Notre Dame to play with Coach Digger Phelps and the basketball team in the Christmas basketball tournament. I had badly hurt my ankle during my senior year in high school and I had struggled with bone spurs all of freshman year. After I completed the Christmas basketball tournament, I made the decision to give up basketball and focus on football. I called Coach Phelps and told him that I was going to have to give up basketball and have surgery done to remove the bone spurs. Playing football was not nearly as hard on my ankles as basketball was, I just couldn’t take the constant jumping. It was too much pounding on my ankles.”

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the relationship that you had with your teammates?

A: “There was an extremely strong bond between the guys on that team. Notre Dame was a school that brought kids in from all over the country … California, Florida, Ohio, New York… and Lou Holtz and his recruiters, in particular Vinny Cerrato, did a great job at bringing a certain type of kid to Notre Dame. We had just an outstanding group of guys who really cared about football, and each other and really worked hard.”

“We still have tight bonds today. My senior year, when Coach Holtz told me that I was not going to be the starter, my teammates immediately got behind me to fight for me to be the starter and their leader. The camaraderie we had was indescribable. I really felt the love when the guys stuck up for me, because they felt that it was the right thing to do.”

Q: Was that your biggest challenge during your time at Notre Dame?

Kevin McDougal, Notre Dame vs Florida State game.

A: “I think my whole college football career was a challenge. When people recruit you they tell you that you will have the opportunity to play. They tell you, “We only have this one person at your position so if you work hard you can be a starter.” I had no idea how good Rick Mirer was and after seeing him play I thought I was never going to get the chance to play. Recruiting me, they told me that they were expecting Mirer to leave early, so I always felt I was going to get two good years. It was a huge blow to me when he decided to stay for his senior year. Once I was finally a senior and thought that my time was finally there, that’s when the Ron Powlus Era started. In comes this phenom whom everyone was touting as the best quarterback to ever come out of high school, and he got the start over me. I was devastated. I had played tremendously well up to this point and really felt that it was my turn to be in the spotlight.”

“During my junior year, every time I would get into the game with the second team we would score, so I thought I would be the next starter. It was definitely a hurtful time for me once Lou decided to start Powlus. Then after he suffered an unfortunate injury, I finally got my chance to start and we did really well that year … we almost won the national title. That senior year was tough for me though, because I always felt like I wasn’t wanted, especially by the coaching staff.”

Q: What is your favorite Notre Dame Football memory?

A: The Florida State game was unbelievable for so many reasons. For starters, we had just become the No. 1 team in the nation, so for a week I quarterbacked the No. 1 team in the nation and not many quarterbacks can say that. There was so much media hype surrounding that week. It was the first ESPN Game Day ever. So many big people were there, including Costas. Very surreal. My breakout game was the Michigan game my senior year. We were expected to get clobbered and instead we upset them (27-23). It was the second game of the year and we had just beaten Northwestern at home. Huge win.

ND/Michigan intro ABC sports:

Q: How shocked were you when you found out the day after the Cotton Bowl that Notre Dame ranked second in the polls?

A: “Immediately after the game, we definitely felt we would at least share the national title. We beat Florida State, and even though we lost to Boston College the next week, we still beat Florida State. How can they give the title to them (Florida State) when we beat them during the regular season? If they (the voters) didn’t want a shared title between Notre Dame and Florida State, they should have given it to someone else. It just didn’t make sense. The whole thing was very upsetting to us. I was on my way back to the airport with Coach Holtz to go back home when we found out and it was really sad. We could taste it, and then to have it taken away like that was devastating. At a minimum we thought we’d share it.”

Q: You were drafted by the Los Angeles Rams but did not survive the final roster cut. You played in several other professional leagues, so what was that experience like?

A: “Of course I was hurt. I didn’t get invited to the NFL combine. I didn’t get invited to any senior bowl games. Half of our coaching staff had left at the end of that season and they really didn’t follow up with the NFL scouts to help us find our way to the NFL. Once I got to the Rams they were going through a transition as well, and unfortunately they decided that I was not part of their plan moving forward. When I got to the Canadian Football league, I just fell off the radar. Back then TV was not like it is today where you can pretty much watch everything, and the CFL games were not televised in the U.S. The way the system worked was that you had to play a few years in the CFL and prove yourself before you could get the chance to come back to the NFL. I was very unhappy in Winnipeg. When you have to go backwards in order to move forward, you really need to be in a good state of mind to stay motivated. I got to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and got stuck behind a Canadian football legend Matt Dunigan, and at the time he was the second-best player in the whole league. They loved me but I never got a chance to play.”

“There were positive aspects of my time playing in the CFL, World League and Arena Football. I’m still friends with a lot of those guys, and we still talk quite often. The friendships that I took away from all those years of playing football are something that I’ll always treasure. It never was about money. It was about the fun of the game and being able to continue to play, meet people and grow in life. You learn so much about how to live your life from sports; especially teamwork and camaraderie.”

Q: Where did life take you after football?

A: “I was heavy into real estate and I did that for a few years. Right now I own a transportation company, KCD NonEmergency Transport Corp., and I’ve been doing that for a few years. We transport people in wheel chair vans and regular vans to their doctor appointments. We do a lot of work through rehabilitation facilities and we are looking to expand and grow our business. We have big plans for our road ahead, and being in Florida we have a booming market.”

Q: What advice do you have for current college athletes?

A: “Never give up. No matter how successful you are, sports only lasts for a short period of time. You may feel like you’ve been in it forever, but when you are done your life is just beginning. I’ve been out of sports for 10 years and I’m 40 and I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me. Definitely enjoy playing sports, practice hard and soak up every moment but know that it’s only a temporary thing. Prepare yourself for life afterwards. I think a lot of athletes think they are going to play for a long time and they are going to make it to the pros and that is so false. Even while you are still playing, (you) always need to be thinking about what you are going to do when you get out because you are still going to be a young man. Enjoy every day.”

Q: What is your favorite Lou Holtz memory?

A. “The quarterbacks spent so much time with him you get tons of stories. Clint Johnson was lined up at receiver and the cornerbacks were pressing him and the other receivers so as to not let him off the line. The defensive back fell down and I didn’t even read the defense and I just threw it to Clint (or maybe Lake Dawson) because they were wide open, but Coach kicked me out of practice because I did not make the read. All I could hear was him yelling, “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.”

Kevin McDougal (Photo: Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images)

And the look on his face as he was screaming at me to get out was the look of a crazy man. As I’m walking off the field and he’s still yelling at me, I’m thinking to myself, does he want me to stay and fight or does he want me to go to the locker room? These things happened all the time with Coach Holtz at practice. Another time, Clint Johnson fumbled the ball during a run at practice, right before we played Michigan, and he made Clint go stand on the Michigan side of the field and move the first-down marker during practice. Humiliation was something he used often. Clint Johnson and B.J. Hawkins were also quarterbacks, and our playbook was so big that it was often hard to remember all of the plays. We were having a particularly bad day at practice, and Coach Holtz got so mad at us that he combined all of our names together when yelling at us … ‘Clint McHawkins!'”

“Michael Miller was returning punts one day at practice, and he kept fumbling the ball. Holtz is so frustrated that he goes out there and says ‘let me do it.’ The wind was blowing particularly hard that day, and he caught the ball, but the force of the ball hitting his hand broke his finger! He sure showed us.”

A big thank you goes out to Kevin McDougal for stopping byand walking down memory lane with me a bit. Next up is Notre Dame legend and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Brown.

Cheers!

The post Where Are They Now? Kevin McDougal appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

To compare Kevin McDougal to Everett Golson is perhaps too facile and superficial, but here goes: mobile quarterbacks from the South, consistently good enough in their bright-lights debuts to put the Irish in contention for a national championship. Sure, Kevin never had to look over his shoulder at a Tommy Rees, but both brought similar styles to a program trying to get back to the top. They are, in a way, the perfect bookends to our twenty years of “irrelevance.” You can imagine, then, my excitement when both Kevin and Oscar McBride (’94, www.oscarmcbride.com), agreed to sit down with me on January 17 and discuss the past season, Coach Kelly, the program’s direction and, of course, Manti Te’o.

“I Threw Up In My Mouth.”

When asked for his thoughts on the Alabama game, Oscar came out firing. “I threw up in my mouth.” I played tight end during the Holtz years. Back then, tight end didn’t mean being spread out in four wide. It meant being an extra lineman and opening up lanes for Jerome Bettis and Lee Becton and making sure that K-Mac stayed clean. So, [the NCG] was troubling. We were ‘out-physical-ed’ [and it looked like] we flinched. We looked like we were just happy to be there.”

Kevin agreed. “It’s hard to see a team get beat that way. It felt like from an offensive standpoint [that] we were not doing enough. We didn’t use the quarterback’s talents the way we had. You can still strike fast with a QB like that. We were behind to [Boston College] by 21, but we never went to five wide. [Coach] Holtz let me check to what I felt best doing. I’ve never been on [Coach] Kelly’s sideline, so I don’t know what he let Everett Golson do, but I know that when you coach against a cutting-edge coach like [Nick] Saban, you have to let your quarterback loose.”

Both former ND standouts were perplexed by what appeared to be a limited, and confounding, playbook in the big game. “[It was] disturbing,” said Oscar. “We didn’t run any draws or any screens.” “No post routes or underneath stuff,” added McDougal. Clearly frustrated, Oscar asked to no one in particular, “why go at the All American corner?” Pausing for either effect or in frustration, he continued, “football is a simple game. At the end of the day, it’s simple. You go where they are not. We seemed to go at [Alabama’s] strengths.” Later in the interview, Kevin returned to the topic to say, “that’s what was so disturbing. We didn’t try a trick play or anything.”

“If I’m getting beat to death, I’m going to blitz more.”

That my two interviewees played offense was not going to stop me from trying to get answers about the poor showing by our defense in the NCG. Kevin was quick to express his bewilderment about an anemic display that never changed throughout the game. “If I’m getting beat to death, I’m going to blitz more. I’m going to cause chaos and not let a QB like that have time. Any blitzes we did run came way too late and weren’t disguised enough. They played [the game] on grass and Landry looked pretty clean!” Oscar emphasized that on defense we seemed to play into ‘Bama’s strengths as well. “We didn’t take anything away from them. We didn’t put eight in the box and make McCarron beat us.”

Then, Kevin turned the tables and asked, “where do you draw the line in being a good athlete? How do you stack our athletes against theirs?” But these were questions to which Kevin knew the answers. “At some point, you throw the book away and just make plays. Against Boston College, we didn’t make plays all game. We didn’t play well. But at a certain point, we said ‘that’s it.'” Both former players cited specific plays in the NCG where the Irish just didn’t make the play. “Manti,” for one said Oscar, “came free in the A-gap and just missed Lacey.”

Oscar picked that theme up and ran with it. “As freshman, we were put in a room with Zorich and [the senior leadership]. They said, ‘you’re going to play our way, or this is not the team for you.’ Coach Kelly has done a great job changing the culture, but we still don’t have that bottom-line belief that somehow, some way, someone is going to make that play and we’re going to win.”

“Saban Can Do This With His Eyes Closed.”

Seeing that we were in the diminishing wake of the Coach Kelly-Eagles flirtation, I wanted their thoughts on whether they thought BK was the man to bring ND back, or whether he already had. To Oscar, the proof would be in the pudding and play of the upcoming season. “We’ll see next season. This will be [Coach Kelly’s] first senior class. They know his offense, his defense and his system. But, [winning and losing] is squarely on the men in the locker room.” “I agree,” said Kevin. “Kelly has a chance to build on what happened. I the game was a learning experience for Kelly, too. Saban can do this with his eyes closed.”

“Love Makes You Do Crazy Things. He’s Got To Know That the Moment Will Pass.”

When asked if he thought Manti Te’o had likely been affected in the NCG by the (then) secret hoax, Kevin was not sure. “Athletes handle adversity differently. We don’t know what happened. It could well have affected him But this is all one player, and the University is standing behind him, helping him get through and that’s what [recruits] want to see.” Oscar, though, was more certain that something wasn’t right with Manti. “We all watched the game and asked, ‘What the Hell is wrong with Manti?’ He was using his girlfriend’s death as fuel. He used it to get in the zone. And you put him on the banquet circuit and the trophies and I can’t imagine the guilt he must have felt. He was probably thinking about all the people he let down. I believe firmly that sport is life and how he handles this is the way he would respond to a different kind of loss.”

Kevin struck an almost fatherly note, adding “love makes you do crazy things. He [Manti]’s got know that the moment will pass.” That comment was Proustian madeleine for Oscar. “Remember our sophomore year (1991)? Tennessee calls it ‘The Miracle in South Bend.’ I remember how painful that was. And I remember Demetrius [DuBose] saying ‘if this doesn’t kill us, it will make us stronger.’ Manti can do that.”

“I’m on the Record: I’m Glad I’m Old.”

The Manti situation fomented more questions, mostly because I was fascinated to learn about the interaction between college stars and the world around them. Oscar started us off. “We had a class on how to handle the media and the expectations of being an ND player on the field, in the classroom and in the community. Of course, we didn’t have cell phones. I thought Tony Smith was the man because he had a beeper. We could go to our rooms and hang out. [To escape] all we had to do was not answer the phone.” Kevin carried on the theme by saying, “social media takes away your privacy. Everyone has access to you and can pretend to be your friend or your lost cousin.”

“Manti,” Oscar added, “shows that you can be a super human athlete and a celebrity and still be naïve enough to gall in love with a woman who doesn’t exist. These kids are babies and they’re thrust into constant media attention. It was hard enough for us.” Kevin quickly interjected, “now they can take a picture of you on a cell phone and doctor it. It’s scary. Back in the day, you could take a picture with anyone. Now…”

Oscar jumped in, laughing, “I’m on the record: I’m glad I’m old.”

“This is Going to Help the Program Big Time. Recruits Want to Play for a Winner.”

Since I had the opportunity, I asked Kevin about the looming battle royale shaping up at QB. He said that it’s “[a] nice problem. It shows to the recruiting classes that Kelly has great respect for them. He kept Golson in the whole game and I think that’s going to have Golson coming back with fire in his eyes. We’re going to be fine because at QB, if you’re set, you’re ahead of the game.” Oscar, too, was upbeat about the QB position. “[It’s a] great problem to have great backups. Make reservations now for the spring game. That competition will be insane.”

“For People to Give Him Grief for Looking at the NFL is Completely Unfair.”

I wrapped up the interview by asking for Oscar’s and Kevin’s thoughts on us, ND Fan, and the Eagles situation. Oscar started us off. “[Notre Dame] fans have always been consistent. They are by far the classiest group of fans I’ve seen. But that creates an expectation that you will be as loyal to ND as they are. You look at Coach Kelly. He’s always been fiery, he’s always been a hell of a coach and I think that gets NFL interest. He took over a team that was beat down and demoralized. For people to give him grief for looking at the NFL is completely unfair. There’s no loyalty in sport anymore. That he stayed is incredible. The fact that he [Coach Kelly] knew what was going on [with Te’o]. I’m not a big Pete Carroll fan. He just happens to leave right before the sanctions come down? Come on.”

Kevin, too, was nonplussed, if not impressed, by the whole thing. “I’m definitely glad he stayed. Like Oscar said, you definitely want to check. We all do that. If you have a great price on a microwave, you’re going to go check the other store just in case. I respect that he looked.”

As you can see, loyal readers, we covered a lot of ground. I cannot thank Oscar and Kevin enough for their time and their candor. These are special, special guys.

The post A Season Considered: Talking the NCG, Coach Kelly and Manti Te’o with Kevin McDougal and Oscar McBride appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.