The Back Corner Fade

NOTE:  Mike Kane is a Notre Dame fan writing a weekly column about college football from a fan’s perspective.  

“Well, it’s a Dub.”

Those were the words used by my 16-year-old son right after the game as we both exhaled enough to kick start a windmill when Jack Plummer’s last-ditch heave hit the turf in the south endzone.

Make no mistake about it, the Irish’s 24-17 win will never go down in the pantheon of “ND Moments,” but it was as much-needed a victory as I can remember. Maybe the Utah game in 2009 after the horrible loss to Tulsa the week before might have been needed more, but this is up there. 

At the end of the day, they beat a bad Cal team that may be the second worst team in the Pac-12 behind Colorado, who might be the worst P5 team in the land. That being said, they showed a pulse. The O-line finally started to get a push, the D-line was excellent in the second half.  Chris Tyree and Audric “Ironhead” Estime (ISD Legend blairkiel’s nickname for him, all credit to him) both looked very good when it mattered most. Drew Pyne? Bless him. The kid has grit, and after Tommy Rees’ telephone explosion (which is going to be a great meme), he turned it up and did his blankety-blank job.

Congratulations to Marcus Freeman on getting his first win as head coach. Hopefully some day when he breaks Brian Kelly’s record for wins at ND, we can look back and say “remember that first one against Cal? Man, that was ugly.”

So what else did we learn this past week?

For starters, Auburn is not a very good football team as evident by getting run out of their own building by a “meh” Penn State team. Bryan Harsin had a great run up at Boise State, but this fit always seemed a bit of an odd fit to me and it’s getting worse by the week. There’s gotta be some ‘ol boy down in the Southeast who can coach them up and knows how to tip-toe around the NCAA (not like that’s hard.) Oh, Nick Singleton from Penn State is a dude. Goodness is he fast.

I was watching another game and the “Upset Alert” crawl came up that Missouri State was giving Arkansas all they could handle. I flipped over to it and low and behold Bobby Petrino is still around coaching up the Bears. This guy truly is a coaching cockroach whose career can never be killed. I guess the folks at MSU needed to win some ball games and win them fast hiring this fungus. Look for something interesting to happen down there soon. With Petrino, something wicked this way always comes.

Don’t look now, but the boys in Seattle are now 3-0 behind the rocket arm of Michael Penix. Yes, that Michael Penix of IU’s 10 minutes of fun. Honestly, I watched the first half of that game against Michigan State and he looked fantastic on his way to dropping 397 on Sparty (who’s very, very average this year.) Can Washington challenge SC or Oregon for the Pac-12 title? That remains to be seen, but they have a hell of an offense that can put points up on anyone (in the PAC-12, I mean let’s get serious it’s the Pac-12 that’s Triple-A college football.)

Marshall lost to THE Bowling Green State University. You simply don’t come in to Doyt Perry Stadium and just “show up.” Notre Dame lost to a team that gave up 34 points to friggin’ BG. The thought of losing to those pukes will never not make me wanna hurl.

How bad is Nebraska? Well, not only did they get whipped at home by Oklahoma, they lost to Northwestern……who lost to Duke…….and this week to Southern Illinois.

What do we have to look forward to this week?

In case you haven’t noticed Duke and Kansas are both 3-0 and we’re talking about football, not hoops. I give Kansas HC Lance Leipold a lot of credit. He’s taken as big a dumpster fire as you can have in college football after the Les Miles experiment went horribly wrong and is doing a heck of a job that nobody is noticing. They did beat Texas last year, played TCU and WVU tough, and gave OU all they wanted. He’s slowly building that puppy up and has a better than average chance of getting to 4-0 at home against Mike Elko’s boys. Rock Chalk goes to 4-0, 38-28.

Sneaky one in Winston-Salem as Clemson travels up to take on the Deacs for their first quasi-test of the season. The Tigers have held serve so far beating up on Georgia Tech and then the Franciscan Upper School for the Blind and Our Lady of Mercy Academy, so it will be our first deep dive into what they really have. Wake can score points behind highly underrated Sam Hartman, but does the defense have enough to slow down Clemson? Too much depth especially on defense spells doom for Wake. Good game for three quarters though: Clemson 31-20.

Appalachian State plays host to James Madison this week. I know, I know, who cares? Hell, I just want to see what happens this week in Boone. Week 1 score 40 points in a quarter and lose, Week 2 go in and beat A&M on the road, and Week 3 get a Hail Mary to win at the gun. These boys have had one wild September. JMU is in their first year of D1 after years of being studs in FCS, and I expect them to give Appy all they can handle. Boone Magic is real as JMU has a chip shot FG to win at the horn and the ball explodes from a lightning bolt from the one cloud in the sky. ASU 31-29.

Deal of the Week: Akron plays at Liberty and you can score some tickets for $3 to see Zippy the Kangaroo try to take down the Flames in “Jerry World.” Don’t scoff at it. It isn’t like you haven’t been watching really bad football the last two weeks.

Finally, The Irish travel to Chapel Hill to take on the 3-0 North Carolina Tar Heels. The Heels boast a wide-open offense that can score points…..a lot of them. Problem for NC is that might have trouble stopping your local D3 program. It’s been this way since Mack Brown got there, and this team is no different. They did bring in Gene Chizek as their new DC, but the early returns haven’t been great. He’s BVG without the sweet lip lettuce. 

This shouldn’t be a game that ND loses. Carolina in it’s two games against D1 competition has given up over 640 and 450 yards to Appalachian St and Georgia St, respectively. Even with the offensive issues, The Irish should be able to move the ball to some degree. I also find it very hard to believe that UNC’s offense is going to score at will against ND’s defense. This will be by far the best defense that Carolina has played, and I like the Irish’s chances of making a first year starting QB’s day very long. Drake Maye is a heck of a talent, but he is still a freshman: advantage ND.

In the end, it’s going to come down to Drew Pyne. Can he stretch the defense at all and make UNC have to drop back and not play 8 in the box? Can ND’s line play four quarters the way they did in the second half vs Cal and move some people? If they can do those two things with some regularity, I like ND’s chances….a lot. Even though UNC has had an extra week to prepare (thanks ACC, you suck) I think ND somehow, someway goes in there and finds a way to pull one out. ND 27-23.

Beat UNC.