The Back Corner Fade
Sunday morning.
There simply was nothing finer than waking up to the sound of the birds chirping, the smell of coffee brewing, and my two dogs waiting for me to come down the steps to pet them. This ritual takes place every day in the summer, but there was one small addition to this day that made it all the sweeter: Notre Dame had defeated Michigan.
Not only did they beat them, they beat them at their own game: being more physical, playing great defense and making the plays when they had to. It won’t go down as the prettiest of all wins, but did anyone actually think this was going to be a thing of beauty? For all the talk over the last few months about the big, nasty Wolverine defense, Shea Patterson who was savior of the Michigan program, and the questions marks about Brandon Wimbush, to send a finger to the lips making the “shhhh” sound to college football “experts” across the country was glorious.
This was just the first book of a twelve volume saga, and there will be twists and turns along the way, but this was truly as wonderful an opener as I can remember.
Oh yeah, there were a bunch of other teams that played football this weekend as well. What did we learn from the games this weekends, most of which were tune-up’s and payday’s for garbage programs and FBS schools.
Oh you got away with it didn’t you James Franklin? You should be happy as hell that Trace McSorley decided to hang around for another season. That loss would have been the most embarrassing thing to happen in Happy Valley since……
A Georgia buddy of mine called me after the Miami/LSU game and hit the nail on the head: “Miami got Richt-Rolled.” This does remind me of one of the many loses he had down there where they simply looked ill-prepared, lifeless, and played horrible football. Dude, you just got outcoached by Mongo…..and badly.
Navy looked as bad as I’ve ever seen under Coach Ken late Saturday night as Hawaii just torched them to the tune of almost 500 yards in the air. Even by Navy standards, this was as slow a defense as I’ve seen there in a long time. I mentioned something on the Board about it and a fine poster mentioned, and I paraphrase: “yeah, but they’ll play us to the wire.” Yep, I have little doubt they will.
Welcome back, BVG!! They last time we saw the well-mustachioed defense sieve, I mean defensive coordinator, Duke had delivered one of the darker days in Irish football. Two years later he’s back and well, not much has changed. Tua and Jalen where doing their best Joe Walsh/Don Felder impressions trying to out dual each other and in the end it was more of the same. If really smart kids at ND can’t figure out what the hell your talking about, what makes you think the future Wall Street traders at The ’Ville are going to have any clue what the hell you’re preaching? Good news, Brian: Duke isn’t on the schedule this season.
On a happy note: Montgomery Van Gorder was 16-23 for 233, and 3 TD tosses in Youngstown State’s 23-21 loss to Butler on Saturday. I’m happy for the kid. It was an awfully tough situation that he was in during the 2016 mess.
Gruesome Stat of the week: 1217. That’s the number of yards the Colorado St. Rams have given up in their first two games of the season. Do the right thing CSU, and give Tony Alford a shot at his alma mater when this train wreck ends in November.
Quick note: If you get a chance, check out Paul Burmeister and Ryan Harris on the radio broadcasts. I flipped them on in the second half when I finally had enough of the BC fidget and thought they were very good. Harris is fantastic as the color guy.
So what do we have to look forward to this weekend? Much better than last weekend, but still in the “ramp up” phase for a lot of programs. The teams that did have big games last week all have lay-up’s this week….including ND.
USC travels to Stanford in front of what should be a 50/50 crowd (enter their lame “the students aren’t back yet” line) and what should be an awfully good game. I didn’t see SC last week, but from what I saw out of Stanford, the line was just average at best. Bryce Love did nothing against SDSU. JJ Arcega-Whiteside, however did and often (6 grabs for 200+ and 3 TD’s.) I’m still not sold on Costello even with the numbers he put up (lots of jump balls that they simply won.) The Daniels to St. Brown combo is going to be a thorn in the side of PAC-10 defenses for the at least the next three years. It’s just not going to be enough to beat the Trees at home. SU by 5
Clemson heads down to College Station for the first test on their quest for a third straight trip to the Final Four. Over 100,000 swaying and chanting 12th people (let’s keep this PC) as well as the former Wake Forest defensive coordinator and crab-stealing enabler Jimbo Fisher will be lying in wait. I think this one will be close going into the 4th. I’m just not totally sold on Kelly Bryant and if they play Trevor Lawrence, this will be his first action in big boy football. That being said, the front four from Clemson is just too good for A&M to run the ball and Kellen Mond just isn’t good enough to beat a team like this yet. Clemson by 13.
Bob Davie and the boys head to Madison fresh off the big win against Incarnate Word. Good news: they scored 62. Bad news they gave up 30……to again, Incarnate Word.
Sparty vs Sparky as Michigan St, fresh off a scare from Utah St, heads out to the desert to take on Herm Edwards and ASU. I’d be hard pressed to see MSU play that bad in two straight games, but it would be fun to see Herm’s boys make it a show. We all know that they’ll be playing to win the game. MSU by 17.
In Chicago and have no plans this weekend? You can get tickets for $2 on Stub Hub to see Duke take on Northwestern. Watching smart student athletes for $2?!?! You can take a family of four out to the yard cheaper than an order of Fightin’ Irish Nachos in the Stadium.
Speaking of the Fightin’ Irish……
ND welcomes in Ball St for the first time in what should be an exhibition in brutality. Ball St, picked to finish in most cases last in the MAC, are coming off a 42-6 win last week against CCSU setting a school record for yards in a game. I’m sure BK and Clark Lea are using that as ammo during practice and films this week, but really, these are smart kids. I’m sure they’re taking it at face value.
The perfect scenario would be to get the offense and defense about 35-40 snaps each, get up by about 35 at the break, and get the younger guys some PT. I’d love to see Wimbush play well, get out of there by mid to late 2nd quarter, give Book the whole 3rd, and get our first look at Phil Jurkovich in the 4th. Same scenario holds true with a lot of positions.
I do, however, feel there will be at least some let down in this one. It’s natural to mentally be a little off a week after a huge win that was 9 months in the making. While I don’t think this will ever be remotely in doubt, I think we may see red-faced Kelly a few times in this one (not full on purple) but there will be some times when he just may have to chew a unit or player’s ass for mental breakdowns.
In the end, this will be pretty much what we thought it’d be a beat down of an outclassed football team. Stay healthy, take them out early, and get ready for Lionel Ritchie and the boys next weekend. ND 45-13
Beat Cardinals.
This is dedicated to our friend, Big Irish. He always had something to say about these articles and I appreciated him taking the time to read them. He was a great ND man. Rest in peace, Alec.