The Tim Tebow Thing, Or: Why Brady Quinn Shouldn't Have Gone to ND

Permit me for weighing in on the Tim Tebow Thing. And sharing a perspective that will have almost nothing to do with whether Tebow actually will be a successful NFL quarterback (my bet: not bloody likely).

Something hasn't stopped bugging me about the Tebow Thing the last few days. And, like you'd expect, it involves Notre Dame. If you tend to think any opinion held by an ND fan on matters involving college football is invalid - and I know more than a couple of people who do - you probably just ought to stop reading. Unlike most opinions I hold, this one's not all that strong, and I'm posting this blog more to explore the topic than because I really believe in anything I'm writing.

Mainly, the Tebow Thing has made me wonder if any good player - anyone who desires to be a pro - really ought to go to Notre Dame. More specifically, anyone at a skill position, and particularly at quarterback. Because of one big reason.

Basically, because Brady Quinn was sort of Tim Tebow before Tebow was Tebow.

No, this is not a direct comparison. It may not even be a good one. But to a guy who followed Quinn's career as closely as anyone's career, it seems that there are similarities.

Both players entered their schools in the early years of a new coaching regime (although in Quinn's case, that regime ended quickly). Both were beloved by their fans just as much, if not more so, for the way they carried themselves and the effort they gave as for the results they brought. Both received mountains of hype. Both had visceral haters emerge in response to that hype. Both were leaders. Both were demonstrative. Both were men of faith (Tebow more overtly so, of course). Both returned for their senior year when there was a chance they could have gone pro after successful junior seasons.

The main differences between them are obvious: They possessed different skill sets, with Quinn being a passer and Tebow being more of a hybrid. And of course, Tebow won national championships on loaded teams, while Quinn led flawed teams that didn't merit the hype they received, falling well short of the goal of a title.

Before they ever joined the professional ranks, each player had the NFL spotlight trained firmly upon them. But I noticed something about the run-up to each draft, the 2007 and 2010 drafts respectively. The two were not treated the same.

Everyone was after Quinn's flaws in '07. His lack of arm strength. His inability to 'win the big one'*. And...well, that was pretty much it, it seemed like. Any criticism of Quinn seemed to be vague.

* - Leaving aside the fact that the media seemed to determine retroactively which games were 'the big ones', leaving aside the fact that ND's defense gave up 30+ points in each of these media-appointed 'big ones' and leaving aside the fact that the same media who crucified Quinn for coming up short in big games were blasting ND for being an overrated team which couldn't recruit top-tier talent. There was no apparent cognitive dissonance in the media's collective mind on that point.

Criticizing Quinn wouldn't in itself have been noteworthy except for the fact that the guy being propped up at Quinn's expense was a man named JaMarcus Russell. Now, for some who might forget, JaMarcus Russell was a very large man who had never exhibited the kind of drive for football necessary to win in the pros. He also had a big arm - big enough to throw long bombs to his LSU teammates who would run wide open past slow secondaries. Slow secondaries like Notre Dame's. In the Sugar Bowl. Although Russell could make no other throws of note, everyone quickly tossed Quinn aside for Russell on the strength of Russell's performance against a horrible defense, and on the strength of Quinn's poor performance against a dynamite defense (with a pitiful offensive line, no less).

Russell, of course, was an unmitigated disaster in the pros for the Oakland Raiders. He didn't win. He wasn't accurate. He didn't care to improve himself. He basically ate himself out of the league. By the time his THIRD SEASON was over - absolutely unheard of for a guy who had as much invested in him as Russell did - he was done. Out of the league. No team had any interest in him. (Now, granted, Quinn has been a failure in the pros too, considering his draft status. No question of this. But Quinn is still in the league, which makes him the best QB selected in that 2007 first round, which is my only point.)

Alright. At this point the blog appears to have a fixation on Quinn. Quinn is my favorite collegiate athlete of all time to this point, so this happens a lot. I'm going to try, with monumental effort, to move to the topic at hand.

...and...here we go.

The 2010 draft. Tim Tebow.

Now, I had a vested interest in the media's opinion of Tebow as well, as it so happened that Jimmy Clausen, Quinn's successor at ND and a solid college QB in his own right, albeit one trapped on horribly coached Charlie Weis teams, was in that draft, a projected first-rounder. I was following all the QBs in that draft because of this.

I was utterly shocked at how Tebow's flaws were swept under the rug. His ridiculous throwing motion, which he claimed to have revamped (his NFL game tape shows this was a complete farce). His horrible accuracy. His happy feet. All in the name of "he's a winner!!!". His flaws were so blatantly ignored that he ended up being a first-round pick, as Denver's moronic coach Josh McDaniels (fired a year later, by the way) traded a bunch of picks to move up and get him, out of fear that he'd have been drafted by someone else...apparently, even though there was no indication another team was looking to take Tebow that high. Clausen, meanwhile, fell to the 2nd round for no other apparent reason than 'character concerns' that were vaguely expressed by no one with enough guts to put their name behind them - except of course Todd McShay, who was being less gutsy than legally retarded by doing so. Of course, Clausen appears to have crapped out as well, getting my Carolina Panthers Cam Newton in the process.

I will never stop wondering why Tebow, an overtly religious man, a demonstrative individual, and the same kind of intangibles-laden hype machine that Quinn was in college, was - and is - practically beatified by the football community when I have no doubt that Tebow's act would have earned him nothing but vitriol had he been wearing ND blue and gold.

Think about it. Consider an alternate reality where Clausen does what he probably should have done and just goes to USC, where you can do whatever you want and no one will evidently care, and your pro prospects won't be derailed by vague whispers about character even though you have a nearly-spotless record in all respects except the part where you're not supposed to think you're good even if you are.

Consider an alternate reality in which Tebow (who admittedly never considered ND to my knowledge) decides that with Clausen not going to South Bend, his chance is clear to become a star after Quinn graduates. Tebow has the exact same career, winning two titles (again, alternate reality, folks) and generating a cult of personality in South Bend instead of Gainesville.

Is there any way - ANY way - that Tebow's sanctimonious overt religion, his viewing of himself as a pseudo-prophet even though he plays football, his demonstrative behavior on the sidelines, and all the hype about the 'spark' and 'energy' he brings to the ND team does NOT result in him being universally loathed, not to mention lambasted by the ESPN machine?

I say no. And this is the sad conclusion (or happy if you hate ND): Why would any quarterback hoping to achieve NFL fame go to a place that seems so doomed to inspire so much vitriol? People who achieve the position of ND quarterback are so festooned with hatred that it seems a scarlet letter. I don't know why it is, but it seems clear that it does.

Just a thought or two - and again, don't take me seriously, because this is just a theory, and a half-baked, ridiculously biased theory at that.

D-Rose Raises the Stakes

Too few people get to see special seasons from their teams. I mean, truly special seasons.

I’m of the belief that the most fun sports seasons to follow are ones that were unexpected. Not necessarily from nowhere, though that would be even better, but reasonably unexpected. The best recent example I can come up with is the S.F. Giants’ 2010 championship season, which was SF’s first playoff appearance since the Juiced-Up Bonds Era after seven years of fielding reasonably competitive but never contending teams.

I have gotten to witness two sports seasons that I would qualify as truly special. One, the 2008 Cubs team that won 97 games, saw literally every player on the team be prominently involved in a game-winning play at some point, and proceeded to inexplicably turn into the Cubs of old in their three-game playoff series, were the first. The second’s outcome is TBD.

The 2010-11 Bulls were supposed to be good. It was well-documented before the season began that Chicago had done a splendid job rebounding from their failed pursuit of LeBron James and/or Dwyane Wade. The team regrouped and used their massive cap room to net one slightly smaller fish – Carlos Boozer – then surrounded Derrick Rose with role players such as Keith Bogans, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, and others. Most outfits – Sports Illustrated notably excepted – chose the Bulls to win the Central Division and most expected the Bulls to be a present but hardly threatening foil to the Magic, Heat and Celtics’ further domination of the Eastern Conference.

But none of the pundits – and certainly not me – expected what happened to Rose.

In terms of raw numbers, it was a noticeable but not mind-blowing leap. Rose went from 20.8 points a game to 25, six assists a game to nearly eight, and 77 percent free throw shooting to 86.

But Rose’s rise couldn’t possibly be explained by numbers. Emboldened out of the rejection of the big stars, the removal of all the remaining veterans that preceded him (save Luol Deng) on the Bulls, a new coach in Tom Thibodeau, or some combination of the three, Rose became The Man overnight. This new status meant that Rose took more shots (was effectively forced to take more shots out of necessity) and his shooting percentage took a hit, going from 49 percent in his 2^nd season to 44.5 percent. This earned him some criticism from some statheads, who preferred LeBron James’s usual sterling numbers to be rewarded with an MVP award rather than Rose – a natural reaction to the freight train of Rose’s MVP candidacy that shot from nowhere midseason.

But LeBron James had consciously chosen a situation where he didn’t always have to carry the load. He had Dwyane Wade to take big shots here and there. He could choose to distribute in big moments rather than put it on his own shoulders. Rose had no such luxury. Not only is there no one else on the Bulls’ team who can consistently make big shots, no one else wants to even try.

I haven’t even mentioned to this point that Rose pulled this rise off while missing two of his most important sidekicks. Carlos Boozer missed the first month and a half with a broken hand, and before you had even gotten used to seeing him in the Bulls’ lineup, Joakim Noah followed with hand surgery (what is it with the hands on this team?) that kept HIM out until the All-Star break. Rose played essentially the first 55 games of the season without his whole team – and incredibly, that was his best stretch of the season.

And now, after a couple of tough playoff series with Indiana and Atlanta, the Bulls find themselves in the center of a morality play. James, Wade and the Heat are coming to town in a series that no less a basketball mind than ESPN’s Bill Simmons has repeatedly dubbed a series that will test everything he ever knew about basketball. A well-constructed team built around one star and a bunch of guys who know their role versus a couple of studs.

The series begins Sunday. Will my magical season continue?

Inspiration

What inspires people?

Everyone is inspired by different things. I am inspired mainly by two things: the sports teams at the University of Notre Dame, and seeing good things happen to my college classmates.

I have definitely seen a lot of the latter. It seems like every time I look around, another awesome thing has happened to someone I graduated with. A slew of people I graduated with are now on their second job; ironically, in most cases, their first job is one I'd have killed to have. Hell, someone who graduated a year behind me (albeit from Notre Dame, a much better school than my own) just got promoted to his second position, barely a year and a half out of college.

It's not like I never want good things to happen to my classmates. After all, many of them are my friends - according to Facebook at least, they all are. The selfish part of me feels alone, though, because none of those professionally good things are happening to me. Hell, one of my friends who can barely write at all got a job which includes a weekly sports column. It is in North Dakota, granted, a state I have no intention of going to ever, and I'd probably rather just live here with a shitty job the rest of my life than go there. But the simple fact that anyone out there would rather employ someone besides me when I'm a better writer stings.

I recently applied to a position in Maryland, a position that wasn't yet open but was expected to be. The present occupant of said position was expected to be going to grad school, but did not get in. I wouldn't have gotten the job anyway, but it was indicative of the marketplace - people are trying to get out of it, and I still can't sneak in. I've almost completely given up on the idea of having a sportswriting job and now I'm kind of just hoping I can get a 9-5 job that would allow me to have a family and continue to be a sports fan. It's a sad turn of events in a life that most people once believed had such potential.

Perhaps I've been wrong all along to view being a sports fan as my real calling. I have placed too much emphasis my whole life on being the best sports fan I can be and not enough on making myself employable. I suppose, in a way, this whole situation is my fault. I have long prefaced any complaint I had about my life by saying that no one is more responsible for the predicament than I am. And it's true, unfortunately. It'd be nice I guess, to blame someone besides me for what my life is, but I can't, because it wouldn't be true.

I'm not sure what set me off on this off-topic post except that I ought to keep this blog alive, if only for my own self-interest. Maybe the occasional personal entry isn't such a bad idea.

Brady Quinn Redux

For the second year in a row, a Notre Dame alum calling signals in the NFL has been yanked from his job partway through his third start and benched.

Guys like Kyle Boller, Jason Campbell and Rex Grossman were allowed to murder NFL franchises for years, and ND quarterbacks apparently get less than a fifth of the season.

No further comment.

The Agony of Being Irish

Being a Notre Dame football fan used to be easy. It used to be the thing that got you accused of the most egregious offense a sports fan can commit - 'fair-weather fandom'. You were the fans everybody loved to hate. Your team always won, your team never got in trouble with the law or the NCAA, and your team did all of it without compromising its unique place in college football.

Those days are long past. In my opinion, since the end of the 1993 season, when Notre Dame had a national title stolen from it so that the pollsters could give it to their buddy Bobby Bowden, there is no more tortured fan base than Notre Dame football's.

If you're not interested in the self-serving whining of a Notre Dame fan, read no further. This is way too long for you to enjoy, I'm guessing.

It's a laughable thing to say on the surface. But look closer at this claim. What are the ingredients to being a tortured fan base?

Well, first, there is the obvious: losing. Notre Dame hasn't exactly been awful since 1993, but they have performed far below the usual standard. And I mean FAR below. Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis combined to notch three of the worst winning percentages in the history of Irish football - Davie and Willingham tallied identical .583 winning percentages, while Weis, who was actually fired post-UConn last year with the same winning percentage as his predecessors, coached and lost one extra game to lower his mark. The only coaches to do worse than those three are Terry Brennan and Joe Kuharich (the only losing coach in ND football history apart from interim coaches).

The Irish haven't won a national title in 22 years now, the longest stretch without a title since ND notched their first one in 1924. They have only competed three times in BCS games since that term was introduced to the public in 1998, and they have lost them all by an average of 24.3 points a game. They only have one bowl win since 1993, as a matter of fact, and that one was a meaningless Hawaii Bowl that they probably shouldn't have even bothered playing in, since they were 6-6.

The second ingredient to being a tortured fan base is agonizing losses. Notre Dame has that market cornered. Against Michigan State alone, the Irish have suffered 4 of the most soul-crushing defeats in history in just the last 11 meetings.

Soul-Crushing Defeat 1: In 2000, ND coach Bob Davie, for reasons unknown to me to this day, blitzes his safeties on 4th and 10 with the Irish up by a point and less than 2 minutes left. The Spartans complete a pass to Herb Haygood, who races between two ND defenders and all the way to the end zone. The Irish lose 27-21.

Soul-Crushing Defeat 2: With the game tied late the very next year and the Spartans facing a crucial 3rd and long, Davie inexplicably, unforgivably, unbelievably blitzes the safeties again. In a near-carbon copy of the play the year before, Charles Rogers gets the ball and races all the way for the winning touchdown. The final is 17-10. This was also known as the "DAVIE, YOU SUCK!" game, because of a clearly audible yell from the student section during an injury delay in the second half. This loss, combined with the next week's pathetic showing at Texas A&M which gave ND its first 0-3 start ever, probably sealed Davie's fate.

Soul-Crushing Defeat 3: In 2005, Charlie Weis was taking the college football world by storm after his team clobbered Pittsburgh and Michigan on the road in back to back weeks to open his first season. The Michigan State game was expected to be a coronation for Weis, but instead it turned into a nightmare. About everything that could go wrong did for ND. Brady Quinn turned the ball over a few times. Asaph Schwapp fumbled at the MSU goal line on a play that probably should have been whistled dead for forward progress being stopped. ND's defense, solid to this point in the year, turned into a sieve. The Irish trailed 38-17. But they roared back, led by Quinn's school-record five touchdown passes, and tied it up. They even had a chance to win in regulation after recovering a fumble, but weren't able to get a drive into field-goal range.

The familiar script unfolded from there. ND kicked a field goal in overtime, and lost on MSU's first play - on an option pitch, no less. I'm pretty sure over half of ND's OT games have ended when they kicked a field goal and the other team went in the end zone. MSU plants a flag at ND because the win is their 5th in a row at the stadium, another 'first' in ND football history.

Soul-Crushing Defeat 4: This one you all know, because it's fresh in your minds in 2010. ND plays a sloppy, uninspired game at Michigan State but manages to get the game to overtime and kick a field goal for the lead. Michigan State proceeds, on 4th and 16, facing a 46-yard field goal attempt, to win on a fake field goal touchdown. I am not sure how much more gonad-kicking a loss can be than that one. It's such a big win for MSU that their coach has a freaking heart attack that night - and thankfully, is now perfectly healthy.

Again, that's just Michigan State. There are a whole slew of kicks to the nuts I could reel off since then:

• 1998 at Michigan State: Not included in the prior list because it wasn't an end-of-game loss, but with ND fans on top of the world after blowing out defending champs Michigan to open the season, the Spartans knock ND off its mountain with a first-half blitzkrieg unlike any ND has ever seen. The Irish trail 42-3 at halftime and end up losing 45-23.
• 2000 vs Nebraska: With a chance to jump legitimately into the national title conversation with a win over top-ranked Nebraska, ND struggles due to Arnaz Battle breaking his arm partway through the game ("luck of the Irish") and somehow continuing to play QB. But two special-teams touchdowns in the second half tie it and ND goes to overtime thanks to a gutless decision by Bob Davie to run the final minute-plus off the clock in regulation rather than try to kick a field goal. Needless to say, ND kicks a field goal in OT and Eric Crouch scores a TD for Nebraska.
• 2002 vs Boston College: With the entire college football world loving Tyrone Willingham's undefeated 8-0 team*, the Irish have risen all the way to #3 in the BCS rankings going into an unremarkable matchup with 4-3 BC. Willingham, for some unbelievable reason, pulls out the green jerseys for this stupid game, pumping the Eagles up. ND's offense puts the ball on the ground a ridiculous six times, and the officials call an Omar Jenkins TD catch out of bounds when he clear as day catches the ball in bounds. ND goes down 14-7, and the shine comes off Willingham for good. ND only wins two more games, having to come back late to beat a pitiful Navy team and then creaming hapless Rutgers two weeks later.
  
• (* - It figures in today's environment that ND had to hire a black coach to get any media love - and naturally, when they fired him two years later because he sucked, they were accused of racism even though racists wouldn't have hired said black coach to begin with. Moral: If you don't want to be accused of racism, just don't hire a black coach, because if you fire a white coach after 3 years because he sucks - see Ron Zook of Florida, Keith Gilbertson of Washington, Walt Harris at Stanford...the list goes on - no one bats an eye. And for the record, that 2002 team had a horseshoe up its ass all season and was the exact kind of lucky-to-be-unbeaten team that would've been castigated if Charlie Weis had been coaching them.)
  
• 2003: This pitiful exhibition gets its own entry. ND somehow manages to lose two games (Michigan and Florida St) 38-0 and 37-0 respectively, USC cleans their clock in South Bend 45-14, and the final insult comes when they go down in flames 38-12 to a bad Syracuse team in the final game, punctuated by Willingham taking knees to end the game.
• 2004 at BYU: Tyrone Willingham doesn't even take Darius Walker on the team plane to open the season at BYU, a game moved from October 30th to early September by savvy athletic director Kevin White to give the Irish a tune-up game before playing Michigan. ND's offense is toothless and the Irish go down 20-17. Walker, of course, runs for over 100 yards in essentially a half when a desperate Willingham plucks him off the bench the next week against Michigan.
• 2004 vs Boston College: Willingham punts from the BC 34-yard line at one point, then later sends D.J. Fitzpatrick out to try a 60-yard field goal with ND down a point on the final play. That sums up this game, and the Willingham Era, frankly, in one sentence.
• 2005 vs USC: I don't think I even need to describe most of this game for you, so I'll skip to the end. ND gives up a 4th and 9 conversion, a timekeeping error results in the Irish and their fans thinking they've stopped USC's 27-game win streak, the field is cleared, and then the Trojans win on a blatantly illegal shove in the back by ineligible player Reggie Bush on a QB sneak with 3 seconds left. Ultimately, this costs ND what almost certainly would have been, assuming all else remained equal, a shot at Texas in the Rose Bowl for the national title (in which they would have gotten stomped, but still).
• 2005 vs Ohio State - Fiesta Bowl: The "ND sucks" narrative is always that the Irish got blitzed in this game, but the truth is, the game didn't end until just over a minute left when the Buckeyes scored on a long TD run to make it 34-20. The Irish could have easily won the game if not for replay officials inexplicably ruling despite no video evidence that Anthony Gonzalez's fumble, which is returned for a TD by Tom Zbikowski to give ND a 20-19 lead, is an incomplete pass.
• 2007: Again, a pathetic season gets its own entry. The Irish start 0-4 for the first time ever (and then 0-5 too), give up more sacks than any team in the history of college football, go through three quarterbacks, lose to MSU at home for the 6th straight time, lose two games (Michigan and USC) 38-0, lose to Navy for the first time since 1963 when Weis inexplicably eschews a makeable field goal to go for it on 4th and long late in regulation, and notch the worst season in Notre Dame history. In a touch of irony after years of being blasted for soft schedules (a ridiculous gripe in any case), ND faces an absolutely brutal slate in which their first TEN opponents attended bowl games. The Irish beat their only two nonbowl opponents, Duke and Stanford, to end the season. (Side note: There will never be a worse matchup that aired on national network TV than 1-9 ND vs 1-9 Duke in November 2007.)
• 2008 at North Carolina: Being a freshman, Michael Floyd, instead of going down with his first-down catch on the Irish's final drive, giving ND a chance to get down the field and spike the ball before the clock starts again (there were 4 seconds left), inexplicably tries to lateral the ball. UNC recovers for the win.
• 2008 vs Pittsburgh: The Irish blow a double-digit lead (they did this 3 times that year for L's) and lose in quadruple overtime because they settle for one too many field goals and unreliable kicker Brandon Walker can't come through (in his defense, he nailed a 48-yarder in double OT to save the game for the moment).
• 2008 vs Syracuse: ND loses to an 8-loss team for the first time ever, as already-fired coach Greg Robinson celebrates a victory when his team erases a double-digit deficit. National media runs with a rumor that ND students were firing snowballs at their own players when in fact they were just throwing them around in general. Somehow, Manti Te'o decides he wants to come to ND after visiting for this game, a minor miracle.
• 2009 Part 1 - at Michigan: Probably one of the most blatantly stolen games in the history of football officiating. Replay review overturns an Armando Allen TD with absolutely no video evidence at all, costing ND 4 points in a game they lost by 4. Golden Tate is allowed to be mugged the entire game by Michigan defenders without a single flag. Eric Olsen is punched in the face after a play by a Michigan defender with no repercussions. Allen is flagged for taunting for making the "shh" gesture, probably the first time that has ever happened. Michael Floyd gets hurt on Michigan's field, leading to true freshman Shaq Evans missing a catchable ball that would have clinched the game. Tate Forcier leads Michigan to the winning score. The officials practically tackle Greg Mathews on the winning score to ensure he can't commit a penalty that they'd be forced to flag (seriously, watch the tape, they grab his arms as he's headed to the goalpost to dunk the ball). When Weis tries to get some answers regarding all of this, the refs race into the tunnel and ignore him (video of this exists as well). It was a robbery, plain and simple, and a script that would repeat itself two weeks later at the Big House when Michigan played IU.
• 2009 Part 2 - vs USC: ND by all rights should never have been in this game, as the Trojans dominated the first three quarters. But a surprise rise-up by a previously overmatched ND defense and the offense finally waking up leads to ND actually having the ball with a chance to tie the game. With Jimmy Clausen, who has led game-winning drives in the previous four games (the Michigan one was stolen from him but I'm still counting it), ND fans are confident. Clausen drives the Irish down to the red zone, helped by some nice plays by his wideouts. He throws what could have been a TD pass to Kyle Rudolph, but replay review rules that he did not have control with a foot down (in about the most bang-bang of plays you will see). After a second is put back on the clock after a 3rd-down incompletion (shades of 2005), Clausen hits Duval Kamara for the tying TD on a slant. Or he would have if Kamara hadn't slipped on his route. ND loses.
• 2009 Part 3 - vs Navy: With a BCS bid still a remote possibility with four wins to end the season, ND begins one of the most shameful November swan dives ever by losing to Navy, a loss punctuated by Clausen being sacked for a safety in his own end zone BY FREAKING NAVY. ND loses, of course, by 2.
• 2009 Part 4 - at Pittsburgh: ND plays like crap but somehow still has a remote chance at the end thanks to a Golden Tate punt return for a score. On 3rd and 16, Clausen is under heavy pressure and has his hand hit as he is getting rid of the ball to throw it away. A Pitt player scoops up the ball well after the play is blown dead. Somehow, replay review rules the pass a fumble even though video evidence clearly shows Clausen pushing the ball forward with his hand to get it out and even though THE PLAY WAS FREAKING BLOWN DEAD FIVE SECONDS BEFORE ANYONE TOUCHED THE BALL. (You might notice that ND gets shafted on replay reviews here and there.)
• 2009 Part 5 - vs UConn: Two stupid fumbles by Michael Floyd and Armando Allen keep UConn in a game they have no business being in, and ND once again loses in overtime after kicking a field goal to lead things off, then giving up a touchdown. Weis is fired the Monday after the game, though this doesn't become public knowledge for a while after that.
• 2009 Part 6 - at Stanford: In a classic Weis game to send off the outgoing coach, the offense plays brilliantly as the mastermind empties his bag of tricks, knowing he has no reason to hang on to any of them. But the defense is epically bad and in the final insult to Weis, he is forced to tell his defense to lay down and give up the winning TD in faint hopes that Clausen can use the final 45 seconds to get his team down the field and tie it. He actually may have come close if not for his offensive line allowing him to be sacked early on and then committing a penalty later. But ND loses and with Clausen and Tate already decided to go pro and with no coach or offensive coordinator, the Irish don't go to a bowl at 6-6. Naturally, they are criticized for their arrogance for this decision because apparently you are obligated to go to a bowl at 6-6 no matter how little sense it makes for your program.
• 2010 vs Michigan: Denard Robinson becomes the latest ND opponent-turned-Heisman-favorite by ripping off over 500 yards of offense, but the Irish still could have won. Dayne Crist randomly not being able to see out of one of his eyes for a half is one of the all-time "luck of the Irish" nonsensical things ever, and Brian Kelly's eschewing a chip-shot field goal to give his backup QB a chance to score a TD with 3 seconds left was absolutely nonsensical. Naturally, the Irish were in field goal range on the game's final play, but because of the decision not to kick it at halftime, were down 4 instead of 1. Take the freaking points, Kelly. Crist wings the final pass well out of the end zone and ND loses again.
• 2010 vs Tulsa: First of all, we were playing freaking Tulsa, which is a travesty. But anyway, ND gives up a pick-six, a punt return TD and a blocked PAT return for 2 points. ND is still in a position to win at the end despite having to insert Tommy Rees after Crist suffers a season-ending injury early in the game. They have a makeable field goal in front of them and a perfect kicker on the sideline. But repeating his mistake from the UM game that year, Kelly elects to chuck it into the endzone. With a true freshman QB. Rees throws a pick, ND loses, and I give up on Brian Kelly for the time being. (He might, slowly, be winning me back.)
• 2011 vs USF and at Michigan: ND has 5 turnovers in each game, so despite being far and away the better team in every other respect, they lose. I cannot describe how frustrating these games were to watch, particularly Michigan, which seems to be fated to find more insane ways to defeat ND in the final 30 seconds every year. In the Michigan game, BTW, they fumbled a ball near the goal line but it bounced right to Denard Robinson ('luck of the Irish') and he took it into the end zone for a TD.
  

And after that long list of pain, we are brought to the third reason Notre Dame fans are the most tortured fan base of the last nearly-20 years: the hate. Notre Dame is now hated perhaps more universally and more uniformly by college football fans than they ever have been before, and the brunt of that hate is directed towards any ND fans that those haters happen to be friends with. The PTI-ification of sports opinion has led to anyone's like or dislike of anyone being amplified significantly, and social networking sites have given sports fans the chance to make their opinions known whenever they feel like.

The problem for Irish fans of my age and younger is that they didn't get to see any of the winning that brought this hate about. I was two when the Irish won their last national title and seven the last time they were in the mix going into the season's final weeks. It feels like you're being blamed for something your older brother did when other fans trash Notre Dame. As a fan you feel obligated to defend your team, but in the back of your mind you keep thinking "I don't deserve this. I didn't see any of the winning."

I have tried my best to be as logical as possible regarding my defense of ND in recent years, because other fans' vitriol towards ND has basically necessitated it.

The accusations and claims hurled around about Notre Dame grow more ridiculous every year, such as the claim that ND has an easy road to the BCS.

(The road for ND is actually more difficult, in terms of ranking needed to get an auto-bid, than it is for other non-automatic qualifiers. And why does ND get blasted as having an easy road when ACC teams with eight wins seem to get into the BCS every year, and when teams like Illinois get to go to the Rose Bowl just because they happen to be in the Big Ten? Truth: Eligible Irish teams have been passed over for BCS games twice - 1998 and 2002 - and no ND team with more than two losses has ever played in a BCS game.)

There are hypothetical scenarios thrown at you that you can't really even defend against because there's no way of knowing what would happen. Fans hurled accusations pre-season that even with ND's softer-than-ever slate, that a 12-0 record would result in a title bid, deserved or not. This despite the fact that there's really no reason to believe that an unbeaten ND would vault an unbeaten SEC team (certainly not with all the media love bestowed on that league these days) or an unbeaten Texas or Oklahoma or Ohio State (schools with much less baggage being hurled at them than at Notre Dame). This is all of course an academic issue since the Irish have again fallen short of their fans' hopeful expectations.

ND fans are always accused of arrogance for the expectations they have of their team. I'm not quite sure where this came from. Irish fans are so hospitable at South Bend that I think it comes to the detriment of their home-field advantage. ND Stadium is not intimidating anymore because the powers that be have priced out the real fans, leaving old people and people that don't really care as the only ones that can afford to come in. Even the student section isn't that great anymore, since none of the existing four-year students have seen a winning regular season and they are now jaded. Certainly there are some bad ND fans - there are more fans of ND in the country than any other college football team, so it would stand to reason there are more bad fans of ND than there are of any other college football team too. But to dismiss the entire fan base as arrogant is ridiculous. I, for instance, hate Michigan more than just about anything and most of my experiences with them have been bad. But one of my friends is also a Michigan fan and for the most part he's just fine. That doesn't mean I won't still joke about Michigan fans being awful, it just means that that's what they are - jokes, and not serious accusations like the ones hurled at ND fans.

The truth: ND fans just want to win. They are quick to jump on the bandwagon when the team is good, probably just as quick to jump off when the team is not. The ones that aren't quick aren't in denial - they're just more hopeful. The Irish fan base's desire to win doesn't come out of arrogance - it comes out of wanting to freaking win, just like everybody else. ND fans aspire not to be the dominant force in all of college football again, because most all of them accept that they will never be able to be what Notre Dame once was. But they do want to be, perhaps, what Florida, Alabama, USC, Ohio State, etc. are now - consistent contenders. And frankly, there's no reason they can't be. They just need the right coach.

Remember, all four of those programs I just mentioned were pretty much nonentities on a national scale before they got the right coach. Zook, Mike Shula, Paul Hackett, John Cooper - those were the dudes that preceded Meyer, Saban, Carroll/Kiffin, and Tressel, the giants who now rule their programs. ND's struggles are probably due much more to the fact that they hired two guys without any big-time coaching experience (Davie and Weis) and one who wasn't really any good at it to begin with (Willingham) for three straight coaches than they are to the 'fact' that ND can't win big anymore. That's a ridiculous idea. The Irish have great facilities, a great tradition, and the best TV exposure in the country. They're as equipped to win as anybody.

Will Brian Kelly turn out to be the guy to turn around that agony? Early returns say no. But Lou Holtz also started 1-3 at Notre Dame. Then again, so did Bob Davie.

And that stat in itself shows you the Jekyll and Hyde nature of being a Notre Dame football fan.

A New Era Begins for the Panthers, and for My Sports Fandom

After an ugly and occasionally depressing 0-2 start, the Panthers made the only move they could make on Monday, installing Jimmy Clausen as the new starting QB and benching Matt Moore.

The move wasn't a shock, but the rapid decline of Moore has been. The Panthers spent the off-season handing the keys to Moore, cutting Jake Delhomme as well as basically anyone else over the age of 26 on the team. Then, in April, Jimmy Clausen fell into their laps because of the gold helmet he wore in college. (That was also the last entry I wrote in this blog, due largely to a very uninspiring summer turned in by the Cubs and the Bulls not collecting any of the big prizes in free agency.)

And thank God he did, because Moore has fallen off the face of the earth. Whether this would have happened without Clausen on his tail as the backup quarterback, we'll never know, but the Panthers would have had no other option if it weren't for Clausen appearing at pick 48 in April.

For me personally, Clausen's first start against Cincinnati on Sunday represents a bit more than the normal week 3 game with an 0-2 Panthers team would for me. Clausen is sort of my sacred cause as a football fan. Like a pitcher stuck on a horrible baseball team who sees his win/loss record suffer, I found myself defending Clausen just as vehemently during and since the 2009 Notre Dame season as I once did Brady Quinn - only this time, I was even more certain of myself.

I've always been outspoken in my belief that Jimmy Clausen was the best college football player in America in 2009 for what he did with a Notre Dame team that by all rights was awful and should have won 2 or 3 games. Were it not for errors by his teammates and/or outright corruption from officials at various points in the 2009 season, the Irish could and should have finished with 10 wins or perhaps even 12, but because Duval Kamara slipped on a route against USC, because the refs flat-out stole the Michigan game and ended the Pitt game before Clausen had a chance to work magic, and because his teammates played so badly at times against Navy, UConn and Stanford that one could be forgiven for wondering if they were on the take, Clausen was denied what in my opinion should have been a Heisman Trophy.

Through all this I vehemently defended him further against accusations of cockiness and attitude, pointing out (correctly) that the cocky prick he was accused of being would have never shut up about how he basically never screwed up (he threw 2 interceptions that were his fault all season) and how his teammates and coaches were incompetent. But there isn't a single quote to be found that includes Clausen complaining - not about the 2007 offensive line that tried to get him killed, not about the 2009 defense that cost him wins he rightfully earned, and not about the incompetent coaching staff that allowed both things to happen.

Anyway, on Sunday the day will come for all that defending I did of Clausen to be proven right or wrong. He's said and done all the right things since being drafted (and frankly since Christmas Eve 2008 when he announced his awesomeness with the greatest bowl performance in ND history, albeit against Hawaii), but now it's prove-it time.

I thought I was going to be a genius about Brady Quinn, until he broke a thumb in his 2nd start against Buffalo and was never (given the chance to be) the same as the promising player he looked to be through 6 quarters of being the Browns' starting quarterback. He's riding pine now in Denver and unless some sort of miracle occurs, he will probably never start another meaningful NFL game. He's started 12 times. It happens that fast in the NFL.

Now's the time for Clausen. And the stakes are doubled this time because it's my pro team that took a chance on him. His destiny is intertwined with the Panthers', the team I've been rooting for throughout their entire existence - a fact that gives me something of a closeness with them because I can't say that about any other team I pull for. And on Sunday, my Panthers fandom will change forever.

Good luck, Jimmy.

When College and Pro Alliances Collide...How Sweet It Is

It's not too often that your favorite pro team uses a high draft pick on one of your favorite players from your favorite college team. It's something that I wasn't sure I'd ever see. Other than a brief, albeit successful, flirtation with Rocket Ismail in the latter stages of his NFL career, my team had never had a notable Notre Dame player on roster. I didn't expect that to change last weekend during the NFL draft. Every indication was that Carolina was going to select either a possession wideout or a defensive player with their first pick in the 2010 draft, neither of which portended an Irish player.

Watching the draft, I was much more concerned with where two of my all-time favorite college players, Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate, were headed than I was with Carolina's pick. I'm rarely enthralled with the Panthers' early picks - DeAngelo Williams in 2006 excepted - although often I turn out to be wrong.

The most shining examples of this wrongness came in 2005 and 2008, when I wanted different players at the same position as the Panthers drafted in round 1. In '05, I was smitten with Derrick Johnson and was thoroughly bummed when Carolina selected fellow linebacker Thomas Davis one pick before Johnson. In '08, I wanted Rashard Mendenhall instead of our pick, Jonathan Stewart. As of now, Davis is a Pro Bowler and Stewart is part of one of only four double-1,100 yard rush tandems in NFL history, while Johnson has been virtually nonexistent and Mendenhall has been good, but not as good as Stewart. Since then I've generally trusted the front office's judgment.

Anyway, it didn't even occur to me, even when Clausen slipped out of the first round mostly due to the fact that he wore a gold helmet in college, that the two rooting interests would intersect. I had good reason not to suspect this.

For one thing, entering this year, Carolina had not selected a quarterback before the FOURTH round of the draft since their first-ever draft pick of Kerry Collins back in 1995. (Impossible for me to believe, but true.)

For another, coach John Fox and general manager Marty Hurney are in the last years of their contract, and both would probably have been fired three months ago if not for the looming lockout, and our owner's reluctance to potentially be paying two different coaches and GMs during it. With that factor in play, selecting a rookie quarterback, pretty much the only position where the media will freak out on you if you dare to play a rookie, seemed impossible.

I could write a whole article about how asinine it was that Jimmy Clausen, the most accurate quarterback I've ever witnessed play (that's college OR pro, and yes, I'm going there) was still available at 48 when Sam "My Throwing Shoulder Is Held Together by Spellotape" Bradford is going to get $50 million guaranteed and the Denver Broncos traded half their draft to select Tim "I've Never Used My Current Throwing Motion in a Game" Tebow. But luckily for me, I don't have to, because the very, very fine folks at WalterFootball.com wrote one for me. It was written pre-draft, but it's still a very enlightening read.

Back on topic. I was so certain that Clausen would not be taken when pick 48 rolled around and he was still there that I posted a Facebook comment on a friend's "Carolina will get a QB" status stating, basically, that I'd love to be wrong, but I didn't see any way we were going to do it.

About a minute later, I received a Tweet on my feed that I will never forget. It came from ESPN's Chris Mortensen, who had been among the handful of people occasionally Tweeting draft picks, or at least predictions, before they were made. The Tweet read simply, "Clausen to panthers #nfldraft".

I had to read it like 3 times before I registered it. This could not be true. Clausen, the guy who I vehemently defended for the last 3 years? Clausen, who both Mel Kiper Jr. and myself had both basically stated that if Clausen couldn't succeed in the pros, no quarterback could? Clausen, a QUARTERBACK?

Sure enough, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell emerged a couple of minutes later and read the pick. It was Jimmy Clausen. My team, for the first time since Collins, had a legitimate franchise quarterback.

I'm pretty sure I blacked out. When we picked Williams in 2006, I ran around my dorm room pumping my fist. When we picked Clausen, I'm not quite sure what I did. I think I got up and did a little dance. I'm not even sure. I do know that I sent my mom, a die-hard ND fan whom I was updating on the proceedings, an all-caps text with the news. I then fielded at least 4 Facebook wall posts congratulating me, as well as a call from my best friend, Mark, congratulating me as well.

Let me tell you what this means. This is a game-changer for the Panthers' franchise. Up until now, I wasn't sure where Carolina was headed. They had spent the off-season slashing costs by cutting highly-compensated veterans. Our entire QB corps has a total of 8 starts (all by Matt Moore) among them. We had some building blocks - a good offensive line and secondary, and of course Williams and Stewart - but nothing indicated that this was going to get put together this year.

Well, it still probably isn't getting put together this year. After all, I'm the biggest Jimmy Clausen fan without a blood relationship on the planet, but even Peyton Manning was pretty bad his rookie year. (Then again, Manning didn't have the benefit of said offensive line and running backs.) But the future of this franchise is set. And Jimmy Clausen is the man to guide it. Coach Fox was quick to inform Clausen that Carolina's offense is all but a carbon copy of the offense he ran under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame - no surprise, since Jeff Davidson, the offensive coordinator, is a Weis disciple.

So by the end of 2010, expect the Jimmy Clausen era to begin at Carolina.

I still have to pinch myself that I get to write that sentence.

Go Irish. Go Panthers. Go Clausen.