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Notre Dame Football

The Back Corner Fade

October 16, 2018
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NOTE:  Mike Kane is a Notre Dame fan writing his column from a fan's perspective and is not a member of the IrishSportsDaily.com staff.  Our readers love the fan perspective, and Mike tries to find the humor in our obsession every week.  Enjoy! 

Former Florida head coach Jim McElwain had a great line when his team escaped out of Nashville a few years back with a close win against Vandy. When asked his thoughts on the game, he said, and I paraphrase: “That win was like your wife delivering an ugly baby. Yeah, the baby is ugly but you take it home and love it anyway.”

I felt that way about Saturday’s nail bitter against Pitt…..after a few hours and watching almost half the Top 10 fall like dominoes. After the game, I was flat out flabbergasted. I never imagined Pitt could carry a lead almost the entire game. Yes, the Panthers have spoiled a few parties over the years for the Irish, but they also had better teams and Notre Dame was not nearly this good when they sprung the upsets. 

In retrospect, the Irish had played seven straight weeks, plus pre-season, mid-terms (in classes that don’t have titles like “A Tale of Two Cities: The First 25 pages to a Classic or Subtraction: Addition’s Pesky Friend” like some of the other schools out there) and to top it all off, your starting QB gets slandered on social media with bogus claims of academic impropriety. It was almost a perfect storm.

As ugly as it truly was, it’s 7-0. Let’s take a look at some teams that were not so lucky to get out of “Moving Day” with a win.

Did anyone else see Georgia getting beat down by 16 points at LSU? That one truly was a head scratcher. Georgia fans seemed resigned to the fact that it was on its way to laying a path of destruction through the SEC Least and it all was going to come down to beating Alabama in Atlanta in early December. Kudos to the Ogre for not only having his boys ready to go, but pasting the Dawgs.

Death, taxes, and West Virginia laying an egg when the heat starts to get turned up. The good news for WVU fans and couches, Lucy pulled the football in mid-October instead of deep into November. By the way, wouldn’t Matt Campbell look really good on a certain northern Indiana campus when the current head coach calls it a career and heads for Bristol? I highly doubt Campbell will be available when Brian Kelly retires, but he would be the first call I would make if he’s looking to bolt from Ames. He’s by far the best young head coach in the business. I can’t even think of anybody close.

One young head coach that’s not doing so well is Scott Frost. This time tanking a 10 point 4th quarter lead at Northwestern. I’m sure that NU fans knew that they had a rebuild on their hands, but not losing the first six games in the history of the program bad. Nebraska has been on a slow and steady decline since the day they jumped in the Big 10.  It’s really almost sad to see. Almost.

Thank you Sparty for going in to Happy Valley and kicking the Nitts out of any further Final Four talk. It was a joke that Penn St was even in the Top 10 to begin with and a home lose to a mediocre MSU team should have their fans looking at the best hotel options for Orlando on January 1st. I wonder if this one was the fault of players not going to class like it was after the OSU loss? 

Oregon is the new flavor of the week after their overtime win against the Vicious Animals. Isn’t it humorous that many of the hacks in the media that love this Oregon team are the same ones that are dismissing ND’s win over Stanford simply because “Stanford isn’t that good.” Remind me again who Oregon blew a huge lead to at home? 

So what do we have to look forward to this week? Actually, nothing too exciting. I’m sure many of you have a big list of “honey do’s” to catch up on since the Irish are off, but if you can plop down and watch some ball, here’s what to look for:

NC State heads down to take on Clemson after the Tigers had the week off to lay around their dorms watching the 60” TV’s that the school provides them. NC State really hasn’t played anyone yet, and Clemson has been fairly pedestrian to this point in the season. If a voter were to look at their resume so far, what have they really done other than beat Texas A&M on the road? That being said, they have talent all over the board and should paste the Pack. CU by 21

Tennessee got their first SEC win in 12 games this past weekend by going down to Auburn and taking out the Tigers. Congrats to them! Now, go play Alabama this week and make it two in a row. Yeah, not happening.

Colorado finally got exposed after USC’s mediocre defense completely shut them down over the weekend. This week, they get to lick their wounds and head up to Seattle to play, what should be, a very angry Washington bunch. The clock hit midnight in LA, boys. UDub by 20.

Is it a sign of the times that tickets for the Wake-FSU game at Doak are going for $21 on Stub Hub while the Akron-Kent clash are going for $38?

Looking at upset specials, I’m going with Oklahoma heading down to TCU and heading back with an L-piece. OU has to break in a new DC and I have little doubt that Gary Patterson will have some new looks cooked up for Kyle Murray. This one hopefully will get the Sooners out of any further playoff talk.

Trap game alert: LSU welcoming in Mississippi St. Two emotional weekends in a row for the Tigers and now they have a rested MSU team that had last week off and are coming in confident after boat racing then #8 Auburn. If this game was in Starkville, it would have upset written all over it. Death Valley at night in front of 90,000 lubed up Cajuns is a tall order. LSU wins, but it’s a 7 to 10 points meat grinder.

Bye week. Time to reintroduce yourself to your family, start raking leaves, and head over to your wife’s great aunt’s place for tea and looking at old pictures. More important, it gives the kids the chance to get out of dodge, see their families and friends, and not even think about football or school for a week. This really is the perfect time for a break this year. When the boys do come back, it’s going to be a five week pressure cooker. Navy will be their normal pain in the posterior, NW will play their best game to defend the honor of their butt-hurt coach, FSU stinks but still has loads of talent, Syracuse will be a tough out in the Happy Jack Cash Grab Classic, and then USC is USC. Not easy.

The first half of the year has been so much fun. The win against Michigan, the beat down of Stanford, and then the road blow-out of Virginia Tech are going to be memorable for some time. Even in the Ball St and Pitt clunkers, the team put it together at money time when teams in the reign of Brian Kelly might have checked out. 

This program has come light-years since walking off the field a defeated and dismal program at USC the last week of 2016. Just imagine what it’ll feel like if they can navigate the waters the next five weeks and have a Final Four date? If you would have told me that we’d be in this position in November of 2016, I would have laughed. But here they are.

5 weeks, boys. Finish this. 

Go Irish!

 

 
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