The Back Corner Fade
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!
Good, it’s over. That’s the way I feel every year after we play Navy and this one fell right in to that category. While this the worst Navy team in the Coach Ken era, you knew that this was going to be like swatting at a fly that just won’t go away. Sure, it’s no harm to you, but it just keeps coming back and you can never seem to kill it. That’s really what it felt like this past Saturday night.
The first half was a thing of beauty. 27-0, the offense was doing whatever they pleased, and the defense totally shut down the triple option. The second half, well, wasn’t pretty. Credit the Navy coaches (especially OC Ivin Jasper) for making the adjustments to get the option going and of course to their players for not giving up the ship (pun intended) and playing the last 30 minutes with their hair on fire.
It is what it is. A win against a team you should drill every time. Even though it wasn’t a thing of beauty in the 2nd half, and many of the Irish fans were not happy, it’s still a 22-point win, and gets the boys to 8-0. Next.
This really was a ho-hum weekend in college football with not many upsets, the big boys held serve, and not many shake-up’s. There were a few things worth noting. Here we go:
The first team to thank this weekend is the Georgia Bulldogs. They won their “knockout round” by taking apart Florida in the second half and ruining their outside chance of playoff dreams in Gainsville. While the Gators have certainly improved, their QB play is flat our dismal and it came back to get them. Georgia stays alive, and have another big one against Kentucky, yes Kentucky, this week.
We also need to thank Oklahoma State for relegating Texas to a bowl game sometime between Christmas and New Year’s after springing the mild upset at home. A typical Big 12, defense is an afterthought game, and a remarkable display of fake tough guy by Tom Herman at the end of the game. While he hasn’t made the splash folks in Austin have been hoping for, Herman is slowly building that program up. Will it ever be the same as it looked in the Mack Brown heyday is still a big question, but they are improving.
Losing to ASU at home might have been the death-blow to Clay Helton at USC. I feel bad for the guy as he seems to be a decent man. Jimmy Carter seems like a good guy as well, he was just a horrible president. You get the drift. Let’s just hope the boys don’t have a “let’s win one for coach as a parting gift” mindset on Thanksgiving weekend.
Speaking of teams with all kinds of talent and no fight, I give you the Florida State Seminoles. Each week they seem to hit a new low, this time suffering the worst home lose ever at the hands of Clemson. So far this season they’ve had to come back against Samford, were blown out against Syracuse, tanked a 20-point second half lead to the U, and now this. Wait until it’s 30 degrees at night in South Bend in a few weeks. It has the chance to get much, much worse.
November. Now its big money games and every week is going to have a lot riding on it. This first weekend is no exception.
Alabama heads to LSU for the game of the week. Both teams have had an extra week to get ready and all eyes (besides ours) will be watching this one. I just have a very hard time seeing LSU winning this game (shocking, I know.) As a matter of fact, I have a hard time seeing LSU coming within 20 points of Alabama. Yes, LSU has a very good defense, and I think they (finally) will give Alabama’s offense a test. I just don’t see them having an offense that can play with Bama. They’ll hang around for a quarter, maybe a half, and get slowly roasted. I see this one as being a 28-10 type final. The good news, this will be one less team to worry about taking a playoff spot.
I mentioned above that Georgia heads to the Commonwealth to take on Kentucky in by far the biggest game in school history. If you haven’t had the chance to see Benny Snell, do so. He’s a big, physical back that simply wears defenses down. UK also has themselves a very, very good defense. I really believe because of that defense, this is going to be a close game. I think that Georgia finds a way to get the win, but this one has the potential to be a last person with the ball wins type game. UGA 24-20.
Penn St travels to Michigan for a meteor classic against, the all of a sudden, “dangerous” Wolverines. Two months ago, Jim Harbaugh was in some experts mind on the hot seat. Fast-forward, and if you listen to ESPN, this team should be in ahead of Notre Dame (who I believe they lost to) and has been laying waste to the east of the Mississippi version of the Mountain West Conference. I don’t question that they have a good football team because they are. At the same token, take into account the body of work. They beat Northwestern on the road as their biggest win. Notre Dame would beat NW by, wait what? They play there this weekend? Michigan gets the win but I think it’s be fairly close. Corn and Blow 24-21.
Finally, the Irish take their 8-0 record 90+ miles up the road and take on the Northwestern Wildcats in the friendly confines of Ryan Field. Looking at NW, they truly have been an enigma. They lost to Akron at home, Duke at home, and struggled with a god-awful Rutgers team. They also had Michigan on the ropes, beat MSU on the road, and just knocked off Wisconsin. Jekyll and Hyde to be sure.
While on paper, this team isn’t in the same ball park as ND in terms of talent, they are going to give the Irish a huge test. Say what you will about Pat Fitzgerald, he’s a good football coach and has had his teams spring more than one upset over the years. Because of his special hatred of everything Blue and Gold, I’d be shocked if his guys didn’t take a break from talking about unionizing and weren’t ready to play.
That all being said, if ND takes care of the football and takes the emotion out of the crowd (for some of the Senior students, this might be their first game ever in the stands) early, I think the Irish will win this one fairly comfortably. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s just not going to be that easy?
In the end, I think that ND will find a way to get this one done, but it’s not going to have this one on ice until late the game. Northwestern will give ND their best shot, I just don’t think they have the horses in the end to get over on a team on a mission. ND 31-21.
Beat Northwestern.