We are just a few days from a NCAA Football Championship semi-final appearance, and to read Notre Dame fans on Twitter and elsewhere, one would think we’d rather eat lint. This Notre Dame Fighting Irish team has given us a great and entertaining season, and they have done so under difficult circumstances. We owe it to this team to have a better attitude about this game.
The Situation Absolutely Requires a Really Stupid and Futile Gesture
We get it. Alabama is an extremely difficult opponent, and the good vibes built over the season evaporated within the first hour of the ACC Championship game. The Vegas oddsmakers don’t give us much of a chance, offering odds to win far worse than they did for Texas A&M, Florida or Georgia.
Fans have even written the unthinkable, that perhaps it would have been better had Notre Dame just gone to the Orange Bowl!
Folks, we asked for this opportunity. Now is not the time to sulk and fixate on the difficulty of the challenge. Let’s cheer on the win, friends! Let’s remember how good it felt in early November, and how excited we’ll be to research $2000 seats on StubHub and expensive Florida hotel rooms while the good people of Tuscaloosa scratch their heads in disbelief.
Nothing Is Over Until We Say It Is
As Notre Dame fans, and writers, we try to insulate ourselves from the potential hurt of losing by adopting a disinterested and detached veneer, as though agreeing we think the team will lose will make the inevitable “ND can’t win the big one” articles less annoying and more tolerable.
“I’ll be happy if they win, but I don’t think they have a chance”
“Someone has to be fourth, may as well be Notre Dame”
“They have thirty 5-star players, what do you expect?”
“Oklahoma survived several semi-final beatings, so will we”
And the worst:
“I just can’t”
Let us let you in on a secret, poo-pooing the Irish doesn’t make the hurt of a possible loss any less painful, and it doesn’t stop the naysayers from saying what they’re going to say. Frankly, it’s a garbage attitude to take as a fan of Our Lady’s University.
Who’s With Us?
It’s time to go all-in, people! Take the namby-pamby attitude somewhere else. If you’re holding off so you can later deploy an “I told you so,” put a sock in it. The boys gave us a great season and are preparing to give their all on the field. As fans and alums, we owe them the same in our support. We spent the other 51 weeks of the year proclaiming that at Notre Dame, the only goal is a National Championship, we don’t do conferences, etc. Well, the road to the National Championship runs through Dallas and over the Crimson Tide. May as well embrace it. The boys on the team certainly are.
#GoIrish
#BeatBama
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of 18 Stripes. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author’s.
lol
Hugs and kisses 😁
Surely it should be “authors'” in recognition of ND-Atl’s multiple personality disorder.
To be fair, there are physically two of us writing on this account, but to you point, one is well-adjusted and the other is working out some “issues”
Well put. I’ve been guilty of being too negative or distraught myself and that’s not a fun place to be. 10+ wins in 5 out of 6 years, two playoffs in the last three, the talk is often of ceiling and limits and talent gaps and not being the champion, but I think we all might lose perspective on how far the program has come, and how good they are to get to this point.
What better way to wash away the crap that was 2020 with a New Year’s miracle on the first day of 2021 and show that the new year will be cheery and bright? That’s my hope, anyways.
But, even if they lose a million to nothing, so be it. Gotta make the playoff to have a shot at the title. Gotta have a great year to make the playoffs. It was a great (football) year. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
I’m guessing the general pessimism is a product of not having won — and in most cases having been blown off the field in — a major bowl game since 1994. I’m 33 and I have no memory — none — of ND even looking like they belong in these kinds of games. My rah-ing for The Lads has yet to change that, and I doubt this time will be much different.
Of course, I thought we had zero shot of beating LSU the last two times we played them in bowl games, so there’s that. Les Miles and COACHO are not exactly Nick Saban, though.
The 2005 Fiesta Bowl is completely unfairly lumped in with this parade of blowouts even though it was 27-20 with less than two minutes left (with some help from the replay official) when Ohio State scored the clinching TD, but…yeah. I echo everything.
This post brought me back from a 4-year lurk after you all moved from OFD and I was too dumb to figure out how to sign up on wordpress. Go Irish (please, please just keep it within two scores but also yes let’s totally destroy them)!
Better late than never!
Great to have you back!
Pretty interesting and frankly an honest look at Notre Dame by anonymous opposing coaches.
https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2020/12/how-opposing-coaches-view-notre-dame-heading-into-game-vs-alabama.html
“The team official and both defensive coaches mentioned the same area as Notre Dame’s biggest deficiency on offense, though — the lack of speed and explosiveness at wide receiver”
The lack of involvement for Tyree and Lenzy could be an answer, but idk why it isn’t. Do they feel that just cuts against the identity/strengths of what has been built with all the tight ends and power offense? Seems like they’re maybe afraid isn’t the word but hesitant to mix up looks or showcase speed at all. Maybe if the Clemson loss taught them anything it should be they can’t just count on overpowering an elite team. Will Rees learn that lesson and adapt? Or stay stubborn and stick to what has brought them and see if that works? That’s a very interesting aspect to me. He might not even be wrong to stay with the power offense if it works, but if it doesn’t that would be disappointing to go down pretty much with the same ideas and concepts that didn’t work in the ACCCG.
And, call me crazy because these games are usually where ND’s offense falls flat on their faces, but I actually do think they can be effective offensively. That said, I have no idea how to even begin to address stopping an Alabama offense that averages 0.7 points per PLAY when Notre Dame has such deficiencies in their secondary.
But, just some fun food for thought this morning. Trying to get hype for this..
Bama seems like the worst possible matchup for us in terms of relative strengths and weaknesses. Their defense can be shredded by aggressive downfield passing attacks, but ND’s offense is…not that. Our defense is similarly vulnerable to deep passes, and Bama’s offense is very much that.
I don’t think ND should try to become Florida or Ole Miss for this one game, because this team is not that and never will be. I think we have to be Navy-like — excruciatingly long and slow drives with lots of designed QB runs, presumptively going for it on 4th and short, etc. Make it a weird, chaotic, uncomfortable game for Bama, and hope for mistakes.
Honestly, I don’t see us keeping it competitive for more than a quarter and a half. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Notre Dame seems to usually have Wu or rolls Crawford down to cover slot receivers. DeVonta Smith had 39 receptions from the slot. I won’t go on given the article is about being positive, but that just isn’t going to be pretty. Smith has 37 catches of 20+ yards, they just explode down the field and defending against explosive plays has been an achilles’ heel of ND. But we shall see, because Lea knows this too. I hope and pray there’s a new strategy for the corners, even though Bracy has had a tough go. It just can’t be Crawford matching on Smith, just can’t.
I do like your idea to get weird and fully lean into the strengths. That’s probably more likely. I wasn’t suggesting ND become a spread offense overnight, that’s impossible, but just looking at Buffalo last night and the way they use our old friend (kinda) Isiah McKenzie in motion and creative stuff…Wish that could be Lenzy. Seemed it was heading that way with him last year.
The only thing that bugs me there, is if Bama gets that offense off-schedule or puts them in a 14-0 hole and the game plan is out the window like 6 minutes in and that might bring panic.
Also, Saban being Saban, I imagine he will happily be prepping this week to stop a conventional power running scheme compared to the spread offenses that have given them fits. You can beat (or test) Bama if you’re last year’s LSU or UF….If you look like a (potentially lesser) version of Georgia, that’s not really going to bother him.
There are a couple of tiny straws to clutch at. (1) If we were gonna get exposed, as good as Lawrence is (and Venables, with this first team back to boot) better before Bama unlike in 2012. No illusions, but a chance to get better. Clark Lea’s presser today was very good. (2) I have to kind of sneaky think there is a chance Bama is genuinely overconfident. (3) It seems to me the advantage Trevor Lawrence has over Mack Jones is not just that he is an incredibly good runner, but that he makes the decision to run or pass in a microsecond. That is what kept us on roller skates. I know, I know — Bama passing AND Bama running. But still, maybe a tiny bit simpler for our D to work.
Wars over men, Lawrence dropped the big one.
What? Over, did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is!
Was it over when VanGorder called the offense? HELL NO!
Offense? Forget it hes rolling
And it ain’t over nowwwww. Cause when the playoffs get started!…. we play in the playoffs, who’s with me, let’s go, c’mon! Rah rah rah!
…
What the f*ck happened the Irish I used to know? Wheres the spirit, whereas the GUTS?! This could he throw greatest game of our lives…. but you’re going to let it be the worst.
“We’re afraid to go with you SubwayAlum… we might lose”
Well just kiss my ass! I’m not going to take this, not me!
Mac jones, hes a dead man. Devonta, dead.
SABAN!!!!!!!!
Dead!
Subway’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could play them with conventional play calls. That could take many overtimes, and need millions of yards.
Nononono no, in this case, i think we have to go all out. I think what this situation requires, is completely futile and stupid gameplan be done on somebodies part.
And we’re just the team to do it
…
Let’s do it
Dear ND – Atl — all I have to say to you is…Yes. Hell yes. Not only hell yes, but damn hell YES!
I get it where Murtaugh and the official 18 Stripes position is. We should not as fans fall into letting our love for this team and school suck us into unrealistic appraisals as we have done in past tough situations. Fine. We can all acknowledge all the awesomeness of a 50 pt/game offense, and the overwhelming power of those 30 or 40 five stars. Sure. So, don’t troll other fans, don’t boast, don’t bet.
But don’t lose the zeal! Don’t lose the love. This IS one hell of a good team, I doubt that any of us can realize how high character they are, and how much they sacrificed in this awful year to earn their way into this final playoff seed. It doesn’t sound like they think they are sacrificial lambs. Good on them.
This is weird, for 25 years I have spent all that time and energy trying to get our fans to be louder in our stadium at the key moments that count — and this year, there weren’t any damn fans (except the greatest student body in the world) and this team did great anyway.
So maybe they don’t need us in one sense. But in the macro sense, if you believe in fighting spirit, than hell yes. Bluto is on the stinking money. They need us, need our vibes
Nobody thought we had a damn chance against Ohio State in 1935, but hell we nailed it in the last minute. My old man was there. Nobody thought we had a stinking chance against the Tide in ’73, but we nailed it in the last minute. My old man and I were there.
This year, he can’t any more, and I am stuck on the wrong side of the ocean. In fact, hardly any of us can be there. But our spirits can.
Read Subway’s post. Proud to be a fan with you, Subway. Breathe it in. Be inspired, all. Realism is OK, but don’t let that extinguish hope. The Athenians knew there were 20 million Persians at Thermopylae (or was that the Spartans, anyway I am on a roll) but they didn’t quit, fought to the last man, helped win the war. Aaarcgh!
The odds have never been bigger — so don’t play the odds. Play to win!
Go Irish! Beat Bama!