 |
| Manti Te'o and his Irish might accomplish the unthinkable. |
No Notre Dame fan probably would have admitted it a couple of months ago, but now that it’s happened, I think we all agree — none of us ever thought this would happen again.
Not after 15 years of mediocrity. Not after the brain trust at Notre Dame, and I use that term loosely, hired Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis, none of whom had ever had any substantive head-coaching success*, in rapid succession. Not after Weis’s two trips to BCS games resulted in the talent gap between ND and their opponents being mercilessly exposed. Not after Weis proceeded to put together three straight nonwinning seasons after that, including the worst team the Irish have ever fielded, and God willing, will ever field.
* - Whenever I argue that Tyrone Willingham had never had substantive head coaching success before coming to ND, some wiseacre inevitably responds that he took Stanford to the Rose Bowl. Dragging an 8-3 Stanford team through a terrible Pac-10 when all the other California schools were in the toilet does not count as substantive head coaching success, not when you’re there six years and that’s the best you can do.
Hell, for some of us, namely me, the thought of Brian Kelly being the man to do the job died after, in a seven-day stretch in 2010, the Irish were blitzed by Navy as Kelly inexplicably identified Navy’s triple-option attack as “the veer” and claimed he’d never seen anything like it; Declan Sullivan died thanks to a reprehensibly stupid decision to send videographers 50 feet into the air in the middle of, basically, a tornado; and ND lost to Tulsa when Kelly inexplicably called a play that resulted in his true freshman quarterback that had played one series of college football in his life coming into the day chucking a Hail Mary into the end zone even though the Irish were down by one, were in field-goal range and had a kicker that didn’t miss a field goal when healthy the entire season, then told people who might question such a decision to “get used to it” in the postgame press conference.
The idea that that same man, with mostly the same coaching staff, would be the one to field this team would have been inconceivable to me two years ago at that time. And yet here we sit: Notre Dame is 12-0, with a first-year starting quarterback who’s been yanked for performance issues three different times this season and zero blue-chip wide receivers leading the offense, while a stacked defense led by the Heisman runner-up points the way to win after win. Notre Dame will play in the national championship game, coming in with the #1 scoring defense in the land and coming in as the lone eligible unbeaten in the entire country.
I mean, read that paragraph again. Can you BELIEVE this?
Like I said, now that it’s happened, I think it’s become clear that most ND fans never really thought this would happen again. I remember talking a lot of nonsense about how obviously ND would win again if they just hired the right coach, that the idea that they wouldn’t win again was really just a myth perpetuated by a bunch of haters who HOPED Notre Dame wouldn’t win again so they could keep kicking dirt on their grave as a football power. That ‘nonsense’ turned out to be true, but I used that word because, in retrospect, I didn’t really believe it. I’m 26 years old and I’ve never seen the Irish compete for a title beyond November 2nd in my conscious lifetime. Now that I’ve actually seen what happened and what it took for ND to be 12-0 - a great defense, a terrific-when-he-needs-to-be quarterback and a healthy dose of luck - I didn’t really think it could happen. And yet it has.
----------------------
The first time I let myself believe that unbeaten was a real possibility wasn’t until November 3rd, when Notre Dame, with the help of some iffy officiating, some Panthers’ chokage and the most improbable Notre Dame comeback I’ve ever witnessed in person, escaped a Pitt team that went 6-6 this year. Up until then, I had enjoyed the hell out of every stop on the unbeaten tour, especially week after week watching the Irish shove it in the face of pundits who said this was surely the week ND was going down.
The Irish won’t be able to move the ball on Michigan State. (Yes they were.)
Denard Robinson will tear Notre Dame’s defense apart just like he has the last two years. (Alabama had exposed him, but ND put the nail in his coffin.)
ND hasn’t faced an offense like Miami’s. (Three points given up.)
ND hasn’t faced a defense like Stanford’s. (Got enough points to win.)
Winning in Norman is impossible for this bunch. (No, it’s not.)
But at no point did I believe this team was definitely running the table. It was fun to smear it in the face of everyone who said ND couldn’t compete for titles, but surely it wasn’t going to be this year.
So it wasn’t all that surprising to me when I made my annual pilgrimage to ND Stadium and Pittsburgh jumped up on the Irish 20-6. Of course ND was going to lay a giant, steaming turd all over their unbeaten season at home, just like they had 10 years ago, when I was also in the building.
Just like they had proven me wrong the week before when they’d rebounded from Oklahoma’s tying touchdown and ripped off the final 17 points of the game, though, they proved me wrong again. They eked out a touchdown with the help of a key fourth-down interference call, which while blatantly obvious to everyone in the stadium, with the benefit of replay, it was...not so much obvious.
Everett Golson, yanked earlier in the game until Tommy Rees threw his inevitable game-changing interception, threw one of his own with under four minutes left in the game. While the Irish had timeouts, it looked like the season was doomed.
The Irish defense came together, though, and stopped Pitt. Then came Golson’s announcement that he was on his way.
On three consecutive plays, Golson did this: Danced around in the pocket for about a minute and a half before lofting an excellent deep ball to DaVaris Daniels for a first down; turned a doomed QB draw into a TD pass by abandoning the draw and rolling to his right; danced around again for a minute and a half before finding a seam, bursting through it and diving in for the game-tying two-point conversion.
That was when I believed. Then Pitt’s kicker missed an easy game-winning field goal in the second overtime and ND pulled it out.
Brent Musburger called ND ‘destiny’s darlings’ towards the end of the USC game. While part of me resents that statement because it implies that the Irish are not actually good and have somehow lucked their way to 12-0, I also embrace it to some extent. This team has had the feeling of a team of destiny ever since the goal-line stand against Stanford.
This feeling was only cemented when the Irish made fools of USC with another goal-line stand. Lane Kiffin, in his singular genius, let three minutes off the clock while trying to get the ball in from the 2-yard line and couldn’t do it. A couple of PI’s against Marqise Lee, stuffing the run a couple of times, a timeout, stuffing the run again, and then pressuring the QB into a bad throw on fourth down. It was glorious. My immediate thought was “GROWN MAN FOOTBALL”, referring to the SEC’s response to a derisive comment by a Missouri player earlier this season. This team plays grown man football.
----------------------
So here we are, with Notre Dame playing Alabama, the team that’s been deified by every college football pundit and every blindly homerific SEC fan even though they’ve played three good teams this year, lost to one and barely escaped the other two. It’s the matchup I’ve wanted since the moment ND hit the #1 mark. Because if the Irish win - and they can - there will be no more excuses left. The blind haters can throw whatever they want against the wall to see if it sticks - the Pitt game, the fact that the schedule wasn’t as taxing as it first looked, the goal-line ‘controversy’ against Stanford, whatever - but it won’t matter. Notre Dame will have won the 2012 national championship if that comes to fruition, and every blindly biased person who makes wild claims about the Irish losing to half the SEC, every chump who claims the only reason ND can stop people at the goal line is because their secondary is under orders to mug receivers in the end zone (even though the same goal-line stand would be being raised to the heavens if an SEC team accomplished it) and every person desperate to discredit the school at any cost, even if it means outwardly bigoted or blatantly false statements, will just be talking to themselves, whining and crying and making up excuses while Brian Kelly and Manti Te’o hoist the crystal football.
It’s a scene I really want to see. And for the first time in my conscious life, I might have a chance to.
