Worth Repeating

After Auburn's thrilling 3-2 victory over Mississippi State last weekend and Georgia's 14-7 shootout with South Carolina my favorite beat-like-a-dead-horse topic is coming up again - the SEC defenses are just too good!

I continue to stand by my alternate conclusion that SEC offenses are plain offensive.

So if you love nothing better than 3-and-out series after series and MVP punters, by all means, tune-in to LSU v. Auburn, Florida v. Tennesse, or Alabama v. Arkansas this weekend. I'm sure you'll see one, maybe two touchdowns in the course of a 4 hour football game. But, man, look at the team speed on defense!

F&$#ing Commenters

With the exception of this lovely, family-owned blog, I really, really, REALLY hate the people who feel obligated to comment in response to articles online. The idea in itself is sound - comments provide a forum to respond to the opinion of others. Ideally, the comments would be sound, logical, thought out counter-arguments or well-reasoned kudos. Instead, the vast majority of commenters are semi-literate morons that, quite frankly, I'm surprised can even read and write.

The examples are too numerous to cite, so I'll just pick two from the sports world the past couple days...

1. Several days back a cell phone-taken video made its way online showing Dallas Mavericks player Josh Howard saying some unsavory things about the National Anthem. I'm 100% sure this is simply a case of a high-profile athlete making a stupid joke to a friend, assuming confidence. God only knows that if even one-tenth of the tasteless jokes I've made in my lifetime made their way to the interwebs people would have a significantly different opinion of me - they'd think I'm awesome and hilarious! The difference between me and Josh Howard is that he's a public figure and I'm not. But the point remains the same - sometimes you say things in confidence, and it's difficult, even for those that live in the limelight, to filter your mouth 24x7x365. The commenters to the linked article above would do well to keep that in mind before accusing Howard of treason, which several actually did.

2. First a disclaimer, I hate Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated, but still read him out of some perverse need to get my blood boiling. He always disses Notre Dame, I know every article will include one or two shots, and I know this will piss me off to no end; and yet, I still read him. So it was with reserved enthusiasm that I dove into his weekly college football mailbag yesterday. It's really hard for me to find blame with Steward here because the idiot Notre Dame comment basically served this up on a silver platter. This is a fairly typical reaction for Notre Dame fans in general. Flying way off the handle and proclaiming the team national title contenders after winning a game because of 6 turnovers. True, they caused and converted on all those turnovers, but the offense itself only had 260 yards total, so it's not like they're suddenly Southern Cal. They beat the worst Michigan team in decades at home, in a deluge, while being handed the ball multiple times within Michigan's half of the field. Let's not make this out to be more than it is folks. If they hadn't won that game, they'd be the worst team ever.

My point is this, the media in general are idiots. When you have idiots (commenters) responding to idiots (media) everything ends up getting blown out of proportion. Then the idiot comments become accepted as "public opinion" and we all get generalized. In the two examples above the Howard reaction will be characterized as a public outcry for him getting cut by the Mavs and the myth of the loud-mouthed, blind optimist Notre Dame fans will be perpetuated. All this because a bunch of unemployed losers have nothing better to do all day that trawl the web looking for hot-button subjects to which they can leave inflammatory responses.

So my plea is for commenters to please think everything out before commenting on anything. I'd love to see more major media outlets remove the anonymity from their comment sections. Maybe if people knew they could be held accountable for what they said they'd be a bit more reserved and the comments could fulfill their true purpose of constructive criticism.


P.S. I'd better get a shit-load of retarded comments in response to this post!

Smile!

I dare you to watch this play again and not smile or laugh out loud (as I did). We're gonna get clobbered by State this weekend in East Lansing, but it sure was fun laying the lumber to Michigan...

Notre Dame Schedule Analysis

I considered holding off on this until after the Michigan game because part of me thinks we didn't see everything Notre Dame has against San Diego St. But I decided, "What the hell!", and am doing it today because a bigger, smarter part of me believes we got a pretty accurate portrayal of your 2008 Notre Dame Fighting Irish last Saturday. Besides, last week I had predicted a 7-win season, so I wanted to explain where I saw those 7 wins coming. So without further ado, here are my game-by-game predictions for the season...

• San Diego St. - We'll win, but it will be ugly, and definitely not the blowout most are predicting. I'm betting a freak, goal-line fumble decides the game. Irish 1-0
  
• Michigan - My heart says loss, but my head says win. Mainly because they've also looked like shit against two suspect opponents and they'll be bringing two freshman quarterbacks to South Bend for their first road game. I'll stick with my head and say win. Irish 2-0
• @Michigan St. - Loss. A final win on the season for MSU before they go on their annual 6-game losing streak after beating ND. Irish 2-1
  
• Purdue - Loss. Irish 2-2
  
• Stanford - Win (At least they better since I'll be at the game). Irish 3-2
  
• @North Carolina - Win. Further, I don't know why everyone is saying we'll drop this game. UNC has a long way to go under Butch Davis. They barely got past McNeese St. and Rutgers was a one-hit wonder in an abysmal Big East and is now back to their regular suckiness. Irish 4-2
  
• @Washington - Loss, and won't all the Charlie haters just love it. I'll probably be replacing (a newly destroyed) TV shortly after this game. Irish 4-3
  
• Pittsburgh - Win. I'm fairly confident we can handle the mustache at home. Irish 5-3
  
• @Boston College - Loss, and probably another new TV. Irish 5-4
  
• @Navy - Win (At least they better since I'll be at the game). Irish 6-4
  
• Syracuse - Win, unless a time-traveled Jim Brown miraculously appears. Irish 7-4
  
• @Southern Cal - Loss. Big, fat, humiliatingly bad loss that will ruin my entire Thanksgiving. Irish 7-5
  

So there you have it, a 7-win season. That's not to say this can't, and won't, be all wrong. Who knows, maybe a win over Michigan will give the team and coaches a needed boost of confidence before hitting the road. Bottom line, after watching the team last week I think the team has a ways to go in the consistency (dropped passes, poor execution, stupid penalties) department before they get back to the point where they're regularly winning the games they should.

Amen Brother!

Print and keep in your wallet for future reference. It will be necessary after Saturday. No further explanation necessary. (Click the image to enlarge the font if you are older than 50)

Thoughts on the NFL

Things I was reminded of Sunday after 7 months without the NFL...

• Fox is still targeting that key demographic of 4-7 year old males with their retarded animated robot graphics.
• Apparently, every NFL fan has erectile dysfunction. I'm not a Bible-beater or anything, but someone (hellooooo, FCC?) needs to create a law to keep these freaking commercials off network TV in the middle of the afternoon. I can't wait until Zoe is old enough to watch the Bengals get killed with me and turns to ask me what a "prolonged erection" is during a commercial break.
• The experts' picks for sleepers always end up sucking. Cardinals and Vikings? Yep, still suck.
• Good teams always cycle, i.e. you can't stay dominant forever (just ask the 49ers). Hope you enjoyed your stay at the top, Colts and Patriots fans. It's a long fall down...
• Network executives can't say 'No' to retired football players. It doesn't matter that Michael Irvin, Keyshawn Johnson, and Emmitt Smith can't speak English, they used to be stars! Put them on TV! Fox now has 5 people in the studio. If this keeps up, they'll either need to switch the pre-game show camera work to pan-and-scan or letterbox the damn thing. Nothing more enjoyable that 5 idiots simultaneously trying to speak gibberish.
• Television scheduling is still incomprehensible. I was scheduled to get the Bengals/Ravens tilt for the 1pm game on CBS since Baltimore is a secondary market for DC, but nooooooo, that game gets bumped so we can revel in the glory of Brett Favre. Does Brett Favre own a 51% stake in the NFL? If I have to watch him every weekend, I'm going to be spending a lot of Sunday afternoons in the yard.
• Still no Sunday Ticket for cable. What a freaking joke. I don't know how much DirecTV is paying the NFL for the exclusivity, but it must be a shit-load of cash. By opening this up to cable at $200 a pop, they'd probably get at least 1 million more subscribers, which works out to $200m/season while, at the same time, expanding their product. I just don't get the logic behind this decision. It's available on cable in every country except the US!
• The Bengals still suck.

I always get really excited about the season, then am reminded how much it all annoys me. Maybe it would be better if I had SundayTicket and didn't have to watch the Redskins and Ravens every Sunday (with New York, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia as secondary markets). I feel like the NFL, with a level playing field of mediocrity and over-concern regarding image, is about to begin a downward slide.

The Glass is Half...

Empty

• San Diego State is bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. They lost to Cal-Poly, a Football Championship Subdivision team. In that game, just about everyone on their D-Line was injured. They rolled into South Bend and were an inch away from sealing the game before fumbling it away.
• Our offense stinks. We managed 105 yards rushing against said D-Line. This from a team that Weis said was "going to pound it." Our play selection is about as creative as my pinky finger.
  
• Our O-Line shows no improvement since last year. They couldn't move the pile on the rush against this rag-tag D-Line. What is going to happen when Michigan's stud D-Line comes to town?
• Will we ever kick a field goal?
• 4 turnovers. We made WAY to many stupid mistakes. Add to that the dumb penalties that seemingly prolonged every San Diego State drive.
• The ballyhooed blitz schemes brought by Tenuta did not seem to faze the mighty Aztecs.
• NBC's HD broadcast is awful. Hands down the crappiest HD quality programming since I got my new TV. Conan O'Brien and the Olympics look great. What gives with football? I can't wait to compare to Sunday Night Football.
  

Full

• We won the game. Somehow, ND pulled their act together and closed out the Aztecs.
• Zero sacks. Even if the D-Line we faced was subpar, they didn't get to Clausen.
• Despite the close nature of the game, it could have been much different. Hughes' fumble on the goal line was not a fumble. We score there, plus another score if Kamera just turns to look at the ball when Clausen threw that pick in the end zone, and we make 2 field goals and the score is 27-7 at halftime. Maybe worse if we don't turn it over two other times after big plays.
• Our receivers look really good. Golden Tate can fly, and now he can run routs too. He will be a beast. Floyd got a TD too. He will get better and better. Grimes is money. Then again Kamera is a bum. He caused the two INTs.
• Our D-Line actually did an OK job. They tipped a few passes and even picked one off - Jeff Alm style!
• Clausen looked really good. He was slinging it. I didn't see a single bad pass. That missed TD to Tate was a timing pattern that got screwed when Tate slipped.

I am still very concerned about the season. I am 100% Half Empty right now. I don't see any way this team beats Michigan next week. I was thinking we could go 8-4 this season. I am now revising my prediction to 6-6.

...And Then There Was One

Today is my last day before the kick-off of another Notre Dame football season. I've been asked probably 100 times what to expect from the Irish this season, and after reading every little article I could find and following them obsessively in the off-season I can confidently say... I have no clue. Will the fabulous recruiting classes that Charlie Weis has hauled in over the past three years finally start showing up on Saturdays? Maybe Weis isn't the coach he's been cracked up to be. Or maybe these players just really suck. I haven't the foggiest. My gut tells me they'll be better, but not the 9-win team many are predicting. My guess is somewhere in the 7-win area (+/- 1 game).

Here's what I do know - I'm approaching this season with a mixture of excitement, anticipation, and dread. Having a good football team to follow in the fall may be one of the greatest gifts in the world. Conversely, last year I would look forward to weekends simply to do yard work. I guess the most I can hope for with this team is that they win the games they're supposed to win, and maybe eek out one or two that they aren't. Go Irish!

Google = Skynet

Google is slowly taking over the world, and you know what, I don't care, in fact, it's awesome, the only thing I love more is using commas in sentences. Google maps, calendar, Picasa, chrome, gmail; I love them all and they are all interconnected.

I just started using the Picasa face recognition tool and it is amazing! It recognizes all of the gorgeous Heffernan faces, even mine. It also helps display how similar we all are. It seems to have the most trouble distinguishing between Molly and Ava, Ian and Bridget, and Kevin and Ted. We are all the same! It even recognized Zoe, Ava, and Molly from when they were tiny babies to now. Did I mention I love this thing?!

I love Google.

ND Opponent Weekend Review

Since Notre Dame was one of 5 D1-A Football Bowl Subdivision teams not playing a game this weekend. I spent my time getting sick watching their opponents play instead. Here's how things played out...

• San Diego State - lost to D1-AA Football Championship Subdivision Cal Poly 29-27. Frankly, if ND can't hang 30+ on these guys I don't know what Weis is doing.
• Michigan - lost to Utah 25-23. And it wasn't even as close as the score suggests. Inept officiating kept Michigan in the game, their quarterbacks did not.
  
• Michigan State - lost to Cal 38-31. Looks like they decided to switch things up in East Lansing and lose all their games before playing Notre Dame rather than after.
• Purdue - also did not play.
• Stanford - beat Oregon State 36-28. This is a bit disturbing as I was really hoping the Cardinal stunk this year, as I do every year.
• North Carolina - beat DII McNeese State 35-27. Meh...
• Washington - lost to to Oregon 44-10. Tyrone Willingham, Leader of Men, may not make it to the awaited October 25 match-up with the Irish if this continues.
• Pitt (I will never call them Pittsburgh) - lost to Bowling Green 27-17. The Dave Wannstadt era continues!
• Boston College - beat Kent State 21-0. Sadly, no plane crash was involved...
• Navy - beat Towson (it's in Baltimore) 41-13. The triple option is dead, long live the triple option!
• Syracuse - lost to Northwestern(!) 30-10. I didn't even realize Syracuse still had a football team. I thought I just had an outdated schedule.
  
• Southern Cal - beat Virginia 52-7, and looked frighteningly good doing it. Kudos for playing a decent team an ACC school on the road to start the season.

All-in-all, not a great start for Irish opponents as they went 5-6 in week 1 including a loss to a non-FBS team. Surprises included San Diego State, Michigan, Washington, Pitt, and Syracuse for how bad they looked and Stanford for how good they looked. The others were about par for the course. Next week we resume my regularly scheduled Saturday afternoon dry-heave sessions. Notre Dame Fightin' Irish football fever - catch it!