In the most annoying blowout in Notre Dame football history, the Irish looked like the team we were promised all offseason Saturday, blasting a Purdue team that frankly looked like they were done about seven minutes into the game by a 66-7 margin. With every touchdown, the Irish's utter no-show against Northern Illinois looked more [...]
Notre Dame is the Make-a-Wish team of college football. I'll explain. Notre Dame only exists as a husk. A former blue blood whose only purpose in this sport is to make dreams come true for other programs. UConn. Tulsa. South Florida. Duke. (A half-dozen other programs nearly joined this list late in the Brian Kelly [...]
Repeat after me: There is no such thing as a bad top-20 road win. Notre Dame played an occasionally sloppy, uneven game Saturday night at Texas A&M. But at money time, the Irish dominated, and they ended the Aggies' four-game home win streak against Top 10 foes with a 23-13 triumph that serves as Marcus [...]
You knew we had to go over this one, right? There have been several other games since the 2000 Miami/FSU game we covered in our last entry way back in 2023 with an argument to be included in this series. Nebraska/Colorado 2001 and the 2003 Big 12 championship game are two obvious candidates, because the [...]
Marcus Freeman has gotten pretty good at the 'crush teams you're supposed to crush' thing, hasn't he? No offense to Oregon State, which wasn't remotely the same team today in a 40-8 beating at the hands of the Irish than it was during the season. Due to opt-outs, transfers, etc. the Beavers' offense was effectively [...]
There was no good way to resolve the 4-team College Football Playoff field for 2023 after the perfect sequence of events unfolded to create an impossible choice. Had any of the following happened Saturday - FSU losing to Louisville, Georgia beating Alabama, Texas losing to Oklahoma State or Michigan's bus crashing and forcing Iowa to [...]
When this season began, I doubt any Notre Dame fan was too concerned with watching the Pac-12 Network, but this is what you get for losing a couple of games you shouldn't have. Notre Dame sent the Pac-12 Network's football coverage out in predictable fashion Saturday, routing Stanford 56-23, though they took an annoyingly circuitous [...]
At some point, Marcus Freeman will have to figure out how to handle prosperity. But my goodness, can he handle adversity. Notre Dame laid the smack down on USC in its most complete performance of the season Saturday night, 48-20, probably putting a one-team end to Caleb Williams' bid to repeat as Heisman winner and [...]
I'm going to be honest: I expected to write something like this next week. Next week is ND's 8th straight game, on midterms week, against USC. I expected to get crushed. (I still do.) And then I thought I'd be writing about ND being at a crossroads under Marcus Freeman. Guess it arrived a week [...]
4th and 16. The 2023 season, not to mention a potential firestorm week the likes of which Marcus Freeman has never seen, hung in the balance Saturday night at Duke. And Sam Hartman worked his magic. You have to believe Hartman took it personally when he came up short, literally (in the first quarter) and [...]
When? When will this program, which can't catch a break anywhere under any circumstances, break through against one of the elite? It wasn't Saturday night. Ohio State delivered the latest dagger in what has been a life full of them for the Fighting Irish fan, scoring a touchdown as time ran out to beat ND [...]
So in the end, much of the hemming and hawing in our writers' room during Notre Dame's 41-17 win over Central Michigan didn't amount to much. The Irish won by a large margin, as expected, and moved to 4-0 in advance of the game against Ohio State. And yet, so much today felt like a [...]
Notre Dame fans spent 3 quarters mostly fretting, complaining, maybe even doubting as the Irish slopped to a 7-point lead against NC State. ND won by three touchdowns, 45-24. It's a choose-your-own-adventure type of day in the Irish fan base! Secondary is primary Remember barely a year ago, when ND was entering the Ohio State [...]
You obviously learn nothing of significance out of games like Saturday's 56-3 win over Tennessee State. The opponent is simply not good enough to make major qualitative judgments about your own team in such contests. Knowing that, I was looking for little things. Here are a few that stood out. Sam Hartman again We don't [...]
Sure, we could be measured in discussing today's 42-3 Notre Dame victory in Dublin, the opener of the most-hyped Irish team in some time. But what fun would that be? Why not dream big? All the usual caveats apply about a game against a much less talented opponent. Nevertheless, there was a whole heck of [...]
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