The Back Corner Fade
Navy. Friggin’ Navy.
Once again, the boys from Annapolis come to town, played their hearts out, and was a play or two from sending ND fans into the garage for their torches and pitchforks ready to storm the Gug looking for a pound of flesh. Not much to say other than we survived and made enough plays on both sides of the ball to be in position for a high-stakes match-up with Stanford.
I respect the hell out of Ken Niumatalolo and the job he has done at Navy. I know there are plenty of guys in the ISD nation that don’t like the guy personally, and that’s fine. Bottom line, he’s a tremendous football coach. Sure, once every five or six years his boys, with the talent he’s playing with, should be able to jump up and give the Irish a scrap, but every, stinking year?!?! The guy is that good. I looked it up and Coach Ken is currently bringing in $1.6 million a year. That’s pretty low rent for how good Niumatalolo is. With the number of jobs that are or about to be open, someone give him a shot. Sure, his offense isn’t sexy, but he wins….a lot. More to the point, get him as far away from being on our schedule as humanly possible. I’m sure Buddy Teevens would look great singing “The Navy Blue and Gold.”
I’m not even going to bother with my usual “what happened last week” part of the column. It simply was a blah week of cruddy games. Here, I’ll give you a quick synopsis of what went down: the good teams beat on tomato cans. There you have it.
This week is a totally different animal with rivalry games all over the board. It’s simply a perfect time to crush leftover turkey sandwiches, get a sore thumb from flipping channels, and by God, those leafs can simply wait another weekend. They’re not going anywhere (expect maybe into your neighbor’s yard) anyway. Here we go….
- Friday night starts the fun as Virginia Tech and Virginia get it going in what really looks like a “toss-up” game. Virginia gave the U all they wanted for 3 quarters last weekend and have themselves a pretty good QB in Kurt Benkert (25 TD’s.) UVA is bowl-eligible and Bronco has quietly done a nice job rebuilding the dumpster fire that Mike London left him. Virginia Tech’s offense is as about as exciting as your local 7th grade CYO team. I like the ‘Hoos in this one.
- Georgia better keep focus. Sure, they have themselves a huge showdown in two weeks with Alabama, but first things first as Georgia Tech is by no means an easy out. If they don’t have their full attention on the triple-option, the SEC Title game won’t have much riding on it for them. I think UGA wins, but this one’s going well into the 4th quarter.
- Florida vs Florida St. Both teams at 4-6……who cares. I guess I hope, Florida wins. Every time Jimbo loses, an angel gets his wings.
- Clemson heads down the road to the South Carolina State Fairgrounds to take on, what has very quietly, become a fairly decent USC team. Buddy Hackett, I mean Will Muschamp, has the boys playing some pretty good defense, but in the end they simply don’t have the firepower offensively to hang with Clemson.
- The “under the radar” game of the week has USF going to UCF in the “The War of I-4” or whatever they call it. 10-0 vs 9-1. Charlie Strong has done a tremendous job in his first year in Tampa and Scott Frost has done such a fine job, Nebraska probably has “Osborne 1” gassed up on the tarmac in Lincoln ready to go get him to save NU Football.
- Has anyone noticed that Northwestern is currently 8-3? Yeah, well, they are and should get that 9th win over a truly putrid Illinois team. There isn’t a plane waiting to take Lovie Smith anywhere, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him breaking down Rutgers/Maryland games with Gerry DiNardo and Glenn Mason this time next year on the BTN.
- Michigan plays host to OSU in their annual showdown. Like most of you, I loathe both these programs, their coaches, fans, and their fans children. Bottom line, OSU should win this game and do it fairly easy. Michigan has no offense and not enough defense to slow OSU down. It should be fun watching Harbaugh cry for four quarters though. You ready for this guy, Indianapolis?
- Indiana and Purdue both at 5-6 are playing for a bucket and the right to play in a bowl-game sponsored by a bad, regional fast-food chain or trucking company. Get some, boys.
- Penn St plays Maryland on the last week of the season. Wasn’t Maryland one of the sacrificial lambs in Joe Pa’s rotation of sucks (along with Syracuse, Temple, Rutgers, and BC?) Just like old times in Happy Valley.
- Ok, not a rivalry game, but UAB, in their first year back, is 7-4 and should get win #8 against winless UTEP. I could care less if it’s C-USA or not, winning 8 games after not even having a team on the field for two seasons is pretty awesome. I just wish Greg Bryant was there to be a part of it all.
- Bob Davie is 3-8 heading toward 9 loses as SDSU will roll them this weekend. Hot dog machines in Albuquerque: you’re on notice.
- The Apple Cup should be fun as WSU heads to Seattle for their showdown with the U-Dub. Yes, I get the fact that the PAC-12 wasn’t great this season, but The Pirate has his team in position to win 10 games. Folks, that’s really impressive. Winning in Pullman can’t be easy to do, yet he has slowly built that program up to more than respectable. If you’re a great high school QB that loves to sling it 50+ times a game, why wouldn’t you want to go learn from this guy?
Finally, it all comes down to this…..
If someone would have told you back on the Friday before the Temple game that ND would be in position on Thanksgiving weekend to play for a New Year’s Six Game, would you have believed them? I said 10 wins at the start of the season (with loses to SC and NCSU,) but I think a great deal of that was “glass-half full” thinking and don’t know how much I really believed it. I think with a gun to my head, I would have said 8, possibly 9 with a break here and there. Well, here we are, in position to hit double digits and play in a big boy bowl to usher in 2018. It’s right there boys…..right there in front of you.
Three weeks ago, as I watched Stanford fumble and stumble through a game at Oregon St, I, like probably most of you, thought this would be a blow out. Doesn’t look that way much now does it. Stanford is playing their best football of the season, are playing surprisingly better on defense, and boast the most dangerous back in college football. This isn’t going to be easy…..at all. Three weeks ago, I would have said we would just line up and run these boys off the field. They couldn’t move Miami and they were below average against Navy. That’s, oh, just a bit of a cause for alarm. Couple that with the fact that Brandon Wimbush is struggling as much as he did way back against Boston College, and the defense, yes defense, just might have to take us home this weekend.
I hope I’m wrong, I really do. Nothing would make me happier than to see a locked-in ND offense shred Stanford the way they did USC. Stanford is nowhere near as talented as SC. It can be done. We all know the boys are beat up. It’s been a long season. They’re hurting, they’re tired, they’re mentally drained. 60 more minutes’ boys, that’s all. Sack’s out for 60 more minutes and then you have 5 weeks to get healthy, recharge the batteries, crush finals, and spend time with family and friends back home. I’m sick of seeing David Shaw walk across the field with that smug smirk on his face shaking BK’s hand. I want to see him head down, then listen to him cry in his post-game press conference. Make it happen. You’ve come too damn far to end on a down note.
It’s right there in front of you, boys…….now go and take it.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your dear families.
Beat Stanford.