Chasing Sports Perfection

I did game by game diaries of the Celtics in the NBA Finals and the Dodgers in the World Series.  I have to do one for Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff.  Much like the Celtics and the Dodgers, Notre Dame needs to win four games to win the championship.  The difference is there’s no wiggle room.  The Celtics and the Dodgers both won four out of five.  Notre Dame needs to win four in a row.  Anyway, let’s get to it.

Round 1

Today was my last day of school before Christmas vacation.  In my 20 years of being a Notre Dame football fan, I think I’ve had to work the day after a game a few times (we’ve played on Labor Day and I think there was at least one bowl game that came on my last day of Christmas vacation), but I don’t think I’ve ever had to work the day of a game (there was the BCS Championship Game 12 years ago, but I took that day and the next day off because I went to the game).  Fortunately I had a half day and the game didn’t start until 8:00.  So I had plenty of time to relax before the game.  I felt good going into this game.  I think my dream scenario was getting the 5 seed and Arizona State or Iowa State getting the 12 seed.  We missed out on the cold weather advantage that we would have had against a team from the South or West, but we had a significant talent advantage over Indiana.  Of course, we had a significant talent advantage over Northern Illinois and we lost that game.  So there’s always some uncertainty.

The game got off to a rough start.  After forcing a punt on Indiana’s first possession, we threw an interception on our second offensive play.  It was a batted ball so that’s just something that happens, but it wasn’t good.  Indiana was set up with good field position.  But it didn’t matter because Xavier Watts intercepted a pass at the 2 yard line.  He might work his way up to my favorite Notre Dame football player ever if we win the National Championship.  He’s awesome.  And then on the next play Jeremiyah Love ran 98 yards to give us the early lead.  Indiana moved the ball a little bit on their next possession, but then they punted on 4th and 8 at the Notre Dame 37.  What are you doing?  You’re down seven points as an underdog in a playoff game.  You’re one first down away from field goal range.  You’re one big play away from tying the game.  You have to go for it there.  In a video game, you go for it there without hesitation.  In a real game, you should absolutely go for it in that situation without hesitation as well.  Anyway, after a bad punt, we went 83 yards on 16 plays to make it 14-0.  And really, the game was over.  Later in the first half, Indiana kicked a slightly more defensible field goal.  It was 4th and 4 at the Notre Dame 16.  If it was 7-0, I probably would have kicked the field goal.  Down 14, I think you should go for it in that spot.  But we answered that with a shocking 49 yard field goal from Mitch Jeter.  He’s been bad lately (probably because of injury, but it doesn’t really matter what the reason is), but I was definitely happy to go into halftime up by 14.  He made another kick later in the game so I was hoping that would help restore some confidence, but then he had a kick blocked after that.  So yeah, I’m still not going to feel good any time we have to kick a field goal as the playoff continues.  Indiana had another ridiculous punt down 20-3 in Notre Dame territory in the fourth quarter.  That led to a Riley Leonard touchdown run to make it 27-3 and the game was completely over.  Indiana scored a meaningless touchdown, got a two point conversion, and then recovered an onside kick.  They scored another touchdown and had a two point conversion attempt to make it a one possession game.  There were only 25 seconds left so we still would have been heavily favored to win even if they got it, but it would have made for an uncomfortable onside kick if they had gotten down to 8 points. But we stopped the two point conversion, recovered the second onside kick, and took a knee to win 27-17.

The defense was really good.  Indiana had 63 rushing yards (2.3 yards per carry) and only 215 passing yards (6.3 yards per attempt) when they were behind for pretty much the whole game.     The offense left something to be desired.  We had a 98 yard run, but finished the game with only 5.5 yards per carry.  Jeremiyah Love didn’t get over 100 yards rushing until the fourth quarter (even after the 98 run in the first quarter).  He only had eight carries in the game.  He got hurt against USC and didn’t do much tonight in the seven carries that didn’t go for 98 yards.  So that’s at least a little concerning.  Riley Leonard was decent after the interception, but we didn’t have much success trying to get the ball down the field in the passing game (although he did complete a 44 yard pass to Jordan Faison to set up the touchdown that made it 27-3 in the fourth quarter).  And field goal kicking remains a concern.  We will be playing Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.  Georgia is definitely beatable, but we will not have the significant talent advantage that we had over Indiana.  We will need to be better offensively than we were tonight to beat Georgia.  I think we have a chance, but I don’t expect to win.  If we do win, then we are very real contenders to actually win the championship.  This was our first postseason win against a top 10 opponent since we beat Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1994.  So it’s definitely a good win.  But beating Georgia would be a much better win.  But for now, I’ll enjoy this one and hope that the road teams win tomorrow.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a Go Irish!

Round 2- Sugar Bowl

The game ended two and a half hours ago and I just remembered I was doing this blog.  It’s been almost two weeks since we played Indiana.  Of course, we were supposed to play a day earlier, but the terrorist attack in New Orleans pushed the game back.  When I heard about it, I figured that they might postpone the game.  There was no news about that until the Peach Bowl was going on and they announced that it would be postponed for 24 hours.  I was hoping they would move up the start of the game.  There was no reason to start at 8:45 if you weren’t going to be playing right after the Rose Bowl.  Fortunately, they eventually announced that the game would be at 4:00.  After what happened in New Orleans, I definitely think it was the correct decision to postpone the game.  But I felt bad for all the people who had travelled to New Orleans.  If I had gone to the game, the plan definitely would have been to come home today.  So the postponement would have meant missing the game or staying for an extra day, extending my hotel stay, and changing my flight.  That probably would have been pretty expensive.  I saw that notable Notre Dame alumna Jessica Smetana was supposed to go to the game, but she did not because she left today as originally planned.  I’m sure a lot of other fans were in the same situation.

Since my time as a Notre Dame student, this is our third time playing postseason football with a chance to win a national championship. In 2012, I thought we would win.  It was a magical regular season and I was overconfident.  We got spanked by Alabama.  In 2018, I was hopeful, but not too optimistic.  We lost to Clemson.  It was actually competitive until we lost Julian Love and then we had no chance.  In 2020, I knew Alabama would beat us pretty easily.  Of course, this year is a totally new format.  I felt confident about beating Indiana.  Now we had to play Georgia.  This was the type of game I would not have had any confidence in winning under Brian Kelly.  I wouldn’t say I expected to win, but I felt like we had a good chance.  Marcus Freeman gets the team ready to play big games.  Brian Kelly did not.

It was clear that our defense was ready to go.  Georgia was threatening late in the first quarter, but we recovered a fumble to put a stop to that.  After a scoreless first quarter, Georgia got on the board first with a field goal.  We responded with a 44 yard field goal by Mitch Jeter.  We took the lead with a 48 yard field goal with 39 seconds left in the half.  Then a sack and a forced fumble gave us the ball at the Georgia 13.  On the next play, Riley Leonard threw a touchdown pass to Beaux Collins with 28 seconds left.  Suddenly, we were in very good shape going into halftime.  In the first half, Jon texted in the group text that the first team to 13 was going to win.  We were at 13.  Jayden Harrison started the second half with a 98 yard kickoff return for a touchdown to make it 20-3.  Besides rarely getting the job done in big games, my least favorite thing about Brian Kelly was always taking the ball when we won the coin toss.  I’ve known since I was 10 years old playing Madden that you would rather have the ball to start the second half than to start the first half.  Why couldn’t he figure that out?  Freeman defers when we win the toss and that definitely paid off in this game.  All year, we’ve dominated the middle eight minutes of the game and we did it again in this game.  Georgia cut it to 20-10 in the third quarter and it felt like it would be competitive the rest of the way.  It really wasn’t.  After we got stopped at a fourth down at midfield, we got a big fourth down stop to get pretty good field position.  A questionable penalty cost us a first down, but Mitch Jeter made a 47 yard field goal early in the fourth quarter to make it 23-10.  He was excellent today and that was good to see.  A fourth down pass interference kept the next Georgia drive alive, but then we forced an incompletion on fourth and five at our nine yard line.  Then we had a fourth and one at our own 18.  After sending out the punt team, we rushed the offense onto the field and got Georgia to jump offsides.  That was a great move by Marcus Freeman.  That let us take a whole lot more time off the clock and the game was pretty much over after that.  Georgia got the ball back, but we got a sack on fourth down with less than a minute left and the game was over.

After the Indiana game, I said that we needed to be better offensively to beat Georgia.  We were not better offensively and we still won.  We had 90 yards passing (3.8 per attempt).  Love and Price combined for 56 yards rushing on 16 carries.  Despite the lack of passing yards, I thought Riley Leonard played well.  He protected the football and ran for 80 yards on 14 carries.  That was the best part of our offense.  Love has been hurt since the USC game and that’s a problem.  We managed to win this game, but it’s hard to keep winning like that.  The defense and special teams came through in this one.  You have to figure that it will take more from the offense to beat Penn State and hopefully win the national championship.

Whatever happens, the monkey is off our back as far as major bowl games.  We hadn’t won one since January 1, 1994.  We had plenty of bad coaches since then, but Brian Kelly wasn’t a bad coach and he couldn’t win one in 12 years at Notre Dame.  Marcus Freeman got that done.  I hope he has more accomplishments ahead in the next few weeks.  We’ll be taking on Penn State in the Orange Bowl on my birthday.  I despise Penn State.  This is the school of Jerry Sandusky.  Joe Paterno allowed Jerry Sandusky to happen and Penn State fans still worship him.  I think I would despise Michigan for cheating to win a national championship no matter what, but the fact that I’m a Notre Dame fan makes me despise them more.  I root against USC and LSU (Brian Kelly) because I’m a Notre Dame fan.  But I would root against Penn State regardless of what team I rooted for.  Of the 12 teams that made the playoff, Penn State winning the national championship would be the worst possible outcome.  It would be nice to be the team that prevented that from happening.  Go Irish!

We won a trophy that means something.  Yay!

Round 3- Orange Bowl

I was confident about this game.  James Franklin annoyed Marcus Freeman at the press conference the other day.  James Franklin is Penn State’s Brian Kelly.  He beats bad teams and loses to good teams.  Marcus Freeman gets his team ready to play big games.  We were not going to lose this game.

The first college football game I remember watching was Notre Dame and Penn State in 1992.  I wasn’t a Notre Dame fan at the time.  I didn’t remember the result (we won 17-16 on a late two-point conversion), but I remember watching it because of the snow.  When I was a student, we beat them 41-17 in 2006.  I was hoping that tonight would be more like the 2006 game than the 1992 game.  It was much more like the 1992 game (except for the weather).

There were rumors before the game of a bunch of our players having the flu, but supposedly they were mostly backups.  I don’t know how true that was.  We looked pretty bad in the first half.  We couldn’t really stop the run and we couldn’t do anything on offense.  We fell behind 10-0.  Riley Leonard got hurt late in the first half and Steve Angeli came in and gave us a lift.  We got a little lucky to recover a fumble when Angeli got sacked, but he was able to move the ball other than that.  We got a field goal and we went into halftime down 10-3.  It was only a one score game even though we hadn’t played well.  The good news was that we were getting the ball to start the second half (once again, I’m still annoyed by Brian Kelly refusing to defer and one of the reasons that I love Marcus Freeman is because he gets a simple thing like that right).  We came out of halftime and moved the ball very well on our first drive.  Riley Leonard finished off a good drive with a three yard touchdown run and suddenly we were tied.

It was still tied going into the fourth quarter.  We had a nice drive at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth quarter.  Jeremiyah Love finished it with a man’s touchdown on a tough two yard run.  He’s still hurt, but he battled and had a good game tonight.  It was 17-10 and we had the lead for the first time.  It seemed like all the momentum was on our side.  And then it wasn’t.  Penn State tied it up and then Riley Leonard threw an interception with about 10 minutes left that gave Penn State good field position.  I let out an involuntary noise of disappointment.  Penn State scored to retake the lead 24-17 with 7:55 left to play.  All the momentum was back on Penn State’s side.  But we were not done.  Jaden Greathouse caught a pass, made a beautiful move, and went 54 yards for a touchdown to tie the game with 4:38 left.  It was the best play we’ve had from a wide receiver all season.  He played a great game (7 catches for 105 yards and the game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter).  It was tied, but Penn State was in a position to go on a long drive and score with very little time remaining.  They didn’t do that.  We got a three and out (aided by a false start on first down).  Now we were in good shape. But we couldn’t take advantage.  We had one first down and then we had to punt.  Penn State had it with 47 seconds left.  They got 13 yards on their first play.  But then the defense made the one huge play that we needed.  Christian Gray intercepted Drew Allar with 33 seconds left.  It was his biggest play since he returned an interception for a touchdown against USC.  We had it on the Penn State 37.  Mitch Jeter ended up kicking a 41 yard field goal to give us the lead with eight seconds left.  Penn State had no timeouts left.  We were in great shape and we probably would have won no matter what Penn State did, but they made a mistake.  They let the kickoff go for a touchback.  You have a better chance of returning a kick for a touchdown than you do to go 75 yards in eight seconds.  They threw an incomplete pass and then one desperation play that didn’t work and we won.

For the first time in 12 years, we will play for the National Championship.  We went 31 years without winning a major postseason game.  And now we’ve won three playoff games (all against top 10 teams), including two major bowl games.  That’s different from getting to the championship game in 2012 when there was no playoff and only two teams played for the championship.  We’ve accomplished a lot this year, but I hope we’re not done.  We’re going to be underdogs against Texas or Ohio State.  I expect it to be Ohio State and we’re going to be bigger underdogs against them than against Texas.  But it’s one game and anything can happen.  We played them last year and we should have beaten them.  Marcus Freeman is going to have the team ready to play.  I don’t necessarily expect to win, but we’ve accomplished enough to believe that it’s possible.

Today was my birthday.  It was a good birthday.  I think this is now my favorite Notre Dame football win that I watched (and that has nothing to do with the fact that it came on my birthday).  Hopefully it will move into second place on that list on January 20.  Tomorrow is Marcus Freeman’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Jim!  Happy Birthday Marcus Freeman!

We’ll be going back to Miami to start next season and hopefully to finish next season in the National Championship Game.

Round 4- National Championship Game

Well, it wasn’t the end that I hoped for.  I was one win away from the year of sports perfection.  The Celtics won the NBA Championship and the Dodgers won the World Series.  If Notre Dame won the National Championship, that was everything I ever wanted in sports all in a span of seven months.  It was not to be.

The game started out beautifully.  We had a drive that lasted almost ten minutes.  We converted third and fourth downs and Riley Leonard scored a touchdown.  My concern was that our offense would be too predictable.  When we needed a yard, Leonard ran and got it.  But was that going to work all game?  As it turned out, that wasn’t the problem.  The problem was we couldn’t stop Ohio State.  They scored to tie it.  The game ended with our running backs getting 16 yards on seven carries.  It would have been nice to get them more involved.  Our second possession was costly.  It will probably get lost in everything that happened, but I think it was the biggest possession of the game.  We started the possession with an incomplete pass, a five yard penalty, and a ten yard penalty.  Not surprisingly, we didn’t get a first down and then we punted.  We couldn’t stop Ohio State and they scored a touchdown to take the lead.  Now we were playing from behind.

We were down 21-7 at halftime.  Ohio State was getting the ball to start the second half because they won the toss and deferred because Ryan Day is a better coach than Brian Kelly.  If we had won the toss, it still might have been a 21-7 game at halftime, but then we would have gotten the ball because Marcus Freeman would have deferred.  If that was the case, maybe we score to start the second half and make it interesting.  But they got the ball first and scored another touchdown to make it 28-7.  Then we had a fake punt on fourth and 2 from our own 33 that didn’t work.  I didn’t mind going for it in that situation, but we should have just gone for it.  We brought Steve Angeli out with the punt team and that pretty much telegraphed the fake punt.  Shocklingly, we held Ohio State to a field goal on the ensuing possession.

We were down 31-7 and then we started playing.  We got a touchdown and two-point conversion to make it 31-15.  Then we recovered a fumble.  We moved down the field and had first and goal at the 8.  I didn’t like the first down play.  I saw the formation and knew it would be a quarterback run.  It went for a loss of 1.  Then we had two incomplete passes.  With fourth and goal at the 9 with 9:27 left, we kicked a field goal that hit the upright.  People did not like that call.  I would have been okay with going for it, but I don’t think it was a bad call (the result was terrible, but I don’t think the call was terrible).  If you go for it, you’re not likely to score.  But if you do, you still need a two point conversion, another touchdown, and another two point conversion to tie.  All of that is very unlikely.  And even if you do all of that, you’re still only tied.  Most likely, you will need two more possessions to take the lead even if you get the touchdown on fourth and 9.  If you kick the field goal and make it (and you should make it from the 9), then two touchdowns and two extra points gives you the lead.  This supports the idea that kicking the field goal was marginally better than going for it:

We had a 22% chance of success if we went for it.  Let’s be generous and assume we have a 50% of getting the two point conversion.   That would mean that going for it has an 11% of resulting in a touchdown and two point conversion and only needing possibly one more possession to tie (we would still need one more possession or overtime to take the lead).  So we would have an 89% chance of not getting the touchdown and two point conversion and still needing two more possessions.  Obviously we didn’t make the field goal, but this gives us an 88% chance of making it. In all likelihood, we were going to need two more possessions after this one.  Making the field goal gives us the opportunity to take the lead with two more possessions without needing any two point conversions.  The result doesn’t make the decision bad.  As Stan Van Gundy has said about basketball, “Write the story when the ball is in the air.”

It seemed like the game was over, but we finally made Ohio State punt.  We scored a touchdown and got a two point conversion with 4:15 left.  We still had all three time outs left so we kicked off.  We had a chance to get the ball back on third and 11, but Will Howard completed a pass to Jeremiah Smith for 56 yards.  We brought a blitz that didn’t get there and Ohio State’s best wide receiver beat one on one coverage.  And then the game was over as long as Ohio State didn’t fumble or miss a field goal.  They ended up kicking a field goal to make it 34-23 and that was the final score.

Ohio State should have won.  They had a pretty good talent advantage even if the teams were at full strength.  I’m sure Ohio State had injuries also, but I doubt that injuries affected them the same way they affected us.  We were missing Anthonie Knapp (he spells his first name incorrectly, but losing our starter at left tackle in the semifinals didn’t help), Ashton Craig, Jordan Botelho, Boubacar Traore, Rylie Mills, and Benjamin Morrison.  These players played, but were probably not at 100% because of injuries:  Jeremiyah Love, Charles Jagusah, Rocco Spindler, Howard Cross, and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa.  I’m probably missing somebody.  With or without the injuries, Ohio State should have won this game, but we definitely didn’t play our best game.

Hopefully this is the start of something good.  It’s disappointing to get this close and not finish it, but this was a special season.  We won 14 games.  We beat three top 10 teams in the college football playoff (including the SEC Champion).  We won two major bowl games after not winning any since winning the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1994.  We played a bad game, but still had a chance to win with 2:38 left to play in the fourth quarter.  This was the best team we’ve had since 1993 and that should not get lost in the disappointment of tonight.

Tonight was not the best game Marcus Freeman has coached.  But I hope he stays at Notre Dame for a long time.  Overall, he’s been very good in his first three years and he’s a great representative for the university.  I was surprised that we weren’t more competitive early in the game tonight.  But I do feel like if we had fallen behind the way we did with Brian Kelly as the coach, we would have lost by a lot more than 11.  Like Freeman, Kelly made it to the National Championship game in his third year (he probably wouldn’t have if we had to win three playoff games to get there).  He was at Notre Dame for another nine years.  If Freeman stays at Notre Dame for another nine years, I believe that he will win a National Championship during that time.  Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

It was a disappointing end to a great season.  I’m not going to work tomorrow because I knew that whatever happened tonight, I would not want to deal with children tomorrow.

We waited 12 years for this chance.  Let’s not wait that long for the next one.  Go Irish.

Fixing College Football’s Postseason

There are a lot of problems with sports these days.  I like coming up with solutions that will never happen for those problems.  I tried to fix college football in general three years ago.  Of course, things have just gotten worse since that blog post.  So I’m not going to try to fix the entire sport, but I am going to try to fix college football’s postseason.

The 12-team playoff is here and I hate what it’s done to college football’s regular season.  Oregon and Ohio State played the biggest game of the regular season and it meant nothing.  Ohio State lost that game and they lost to a bad Michigan team and they still made it to the College Football Playoff.  Notre Dame had one of our worst losses ever, but we still made the College Football Playoff.  Of course, I’m happy with Notre Dame being in the playoff, but I am perfectly fine with the idea of college football being a sport where losing to Northern Illinois ruins your season.  So yeah, I’m opposed to the 12-team playoff, but it’s not going away (if anything, it will expand further) so I’m going to try to make the postseason better.

The easiest problem to fix is the seeding.  Boise State and Arizona State were ranked 9th and 12th, but they got the 3 and 4 seeds because they were conference champions.  With all the stupid conference realignment we’ve seen over the last couple of decades, it was entirely predictable that something like this would happen.  Because of the stupid seeding, the 5 and 6 seeds have easier second round opponents than the 1 and 2 seeds.  It sounds like they’re going to fix that problem.  Guarantee spots for five conference champions, but just seed the 12 teams in the order that they’re ranked.  It would also make sense if they reseeded after each round, but I can live with not reseeding if the seeds make sense.

Another problem is the calendar.  The football calendar and the academic calendar do not line up in a convenient way, especially when it comes to the transfer portal.  Players are leaving their teams to enter the transfer portal before the season is over.  One of the many things I love about college football is having games on Saturdays.  But with the playoff going deep into January, they lose Saturdays to the NFL.  The playoff started with the first round split between a Friday night and Saturday.  That was excellent.  The second round is New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  Of course this year, that’s a Tuesday and Wednesday, but that’s fine because people will be off and New Year’s Day is college football’s traditional holiday.  But then we have problems.  The semifinals are on a Thursday and Friday.  Friday night is fine, but if Notre Dame wins the Sugar Bowl, we will be playing in the Orange Bowl on Thursday, January 9.  I absolutely hate the idea of having to go to work both the day of and the day after a Notre Dame football game (it was pretty weird working the day we played Indiana, but that was okay because it was a half day and then I was off for two weeks).  And then the Championship Game is on a Monday night.  The Monday night championship game has been a problem for a long time.  This year it’s Martin Luther King Day.  So it’s cool that the championship game is on a holiday, but it’s not cool that the next day is a work day.  But if Notre Dame makes it, I am absolutely taking that Tuesday off.

Anyway, I think we can fix the calendar issue.  First of all, get rid of conference championship games.  Conferences are stupid to begin with and conference championship games have gotten especially stupid now that conferences have ridiculous numbers of teams and they’ve done away with divisions.  Like you can end up with three-way ties and no logical way to break the ties (because so many teams in the same conference don’t play each other).  With divisions, you played everybody in your division and having the best team from each division play in a championship game made some sense.  But look at the Big 10 this year.  The Big 10 had four good teams:  Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State, and Indiana.  Ohio State played the other three.  Penn State and Indiana only played Ohio State.  Anyway, Oregon and Penn State played in the championship game.  If they just didn’t play the game, what would have been different?  Oregon still would have been the 1 seed in the playoff.  Maybe Penn State would have been the 5 seed instead of the 6 seed.  Who cares?   The game meant nothing.  Conference championship games also made a little more sense when only four teams made the playoff, but this year we had Ohio State, Indiana, and Tennessee all make the playoff without playing in their conference championship games.  We don’t need the conference championship games (especially if they’re fixing the seeding so that they’re not determining byes anymore).  Just get rid of them.  Besides conference championship games being stupid, I want to get rid of them so that we can start the College Football Playoff the first weekend in December.  The second round would be the second weekend.  The semifinals would be the third weekend.  And then the championship game would be January 1.  Then you could play all the games on Friday/Saturday in the first three rounds, January 1 would once again be the most important day of the college football postseason, and everything would be done before the spring semester starts which would help with handling players transferring.

One thing that people seemed to like about the first round was having playoff games on campus.  I remember Mike Francesa saying years ago that one reason that there wouldn’t be a playoff is that it would mean a lot of traveling for fans and selling tickets would be an issue.  Like if you’re an Oregon fan, you’re looking at having postseason games in Pasadena, the Dallas area, and Atlanta if Oregon makes it to the championship game.  How many fans can go to more than one of those games?  So the 8 seed gets to play a home game, but the 1 seed only plays neutral site games (of course they do get a bye in the first round).  I would have the first two rounds on campuses.  So what happens to the bowls?  Hold on, I’ll come back to that.

Another idea that I’ve seen that I’m on board with is creating a football version of the NIT.  Why not?  It’s no crazier than having all these bowl games that mean absolutely nothing.  They would be more interesting to watch if they had another tournament where they were playing for something.  So I would have a 12-team tournament for teams not in the college football playoff.  Any conference that didn’t have a team in the college football playoff would be guaranteed a spot.  So here’s what it could have looked like this year:

Byes:

1 Alabama

2 Miami

3 Ole Miss

4 South Carolina

First Round

5 BYU vs. 12 Jacksonville State (Conference USA)

6 Iowa State vs. 11 Marshall (Sun Belt)

7 Missouri vs. 10 Ohio (MAC)

8 Illinois vs. 9 Army (American)

So the NIT would have the same format as the playoff (and you could expand both tournaments up to 16 teams and the format and scheduling still works fine).  The first two rounds are on campuses.  The final game of the NIT would be on either December 31 or January 1 also as the undercard for the National Championship Game.

So what do we do with the bowls?  Well, if the College World Series can always be in Omaha, the National Championship Game in college football can always be in Pasadena.  The Rose Bowl is the National Championship Game on January 1 every year (or January 2 if January 1 is a Sunday).  The Rose Bowl has the most history and tradition.  And if we’re not going to play the championship game in cold weather, give me outdoors and on grass in a beautiful setting any day over an NFL stadium, indoors, and/or on artificial turf.  What happens to the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Peach Bowl?  I would have them in a rotation.  Each year one of them would be the championship game for the NIT on December 31 or January 1 before the Rose Bowl, two of them would be the College Football Playoff semifinals, and two would be the NIT semifinals.  As for the lower level bowls, I would still have as many as possible, but some would probably have to die.  Looking at the system I just came up with, the only teams ranked in the playoff committee rankings who wouldn’t make the College Football Playoff or NIT would be Syracuse, Colorado, UNLV, and Memphis.  So the lower level bowls are not going to be all that interesting, but they’re already mostly not very interesting.  If we lose some, that’s fine.  Like how many bowl games do we need in the state of Alabama?  How many bowl games need to be played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando?  Right now there are three bowl games played in Alabama and three played at Camping World Stadium.  Do we really need that many in those places?  There are a few bowl games that I would not want to lose:  the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium, (I like football in Yankee Stadium), Pop-Tarts Bowl for their creative marketing, etc.  I would want some others as well just to have football on TV during the week in late December.  But if we don’t have the 68 Ventures Bowl (that was an actual bowl game this year, not something I made up) anymore, that’s fine.  The games that really matter would be played on Fridays, Saturdays, and January 1.  The bowls that are left over would be used to fill in the weekdays between the semifinals and the championship games.

I think this would make college football’s postseason better and more interesting than what we have right now.  And the schedule would make a lot more sense.  The schedule we have now is better than it once was.  One of the things I always thought was silly was the ridiculously long gap between the end of the regular season and the big bowl games.  Before the Big 10 had a championship game, the 2006 Ohio State team finished the regular season by beating Michigan on November 18 and then they didn’t play again until they played in the National Championship Game on January 8.  My idea would take us right from the end of the regular season to the playoff and we’d end the season on January 1.

How would all of this affect Notre Dame?  I think there would be some good and some bad.  Notre Dame had 40 players take a final the day before we played Indiana (I’m sure most of the SEC would laugh at that idea).  Moving up the playoff calendar would mean that Notre Dame’s players would be dealing with academics and football for the first three rounds of the playoff instead of just the first round.  But it might help with transfers coming to Notre Dame.  Let’s just say Texas makes it to the National Championship Game on January 20.  Their players have five days after that to enter the transfer portal.  But Notre Dame’s spring semester starts on January 13.  Is the football team able to get somebody into school for the spring semester who goes into the transfer portal like 10 days after the spring semester started?  I would think the answer is that they would probably have to wait until the summer to get him into Notre Dame.

Of course, this is another one of my ideas that won’t happen.  The biggest thing for me is keeping Saturday and January 1 as the biggest days in college football.  If they could figure out a way to get the championship game on a Saturday, I’d be good with that, but that seems unlikely with NFL playoff games.  Maybe a more realistic option would be moving the championship game to a Friday night.  That would be a million times better than playing it on a Monday night.  Having the championship game on a Monday night is probably my least favorite thing about college football other than Michigan.

Anyway, the second round starts today.  And if Notre Dame wins, that means we’ll be playing in the Orange Bowl on my birthday.  That would make this birthday either my best birthday ever or my worst birthday since I had to go back to work after losing to Alabama in the championship game 12 years ago.  Many weeks ago, I was talking with my college friends about how we had such a wide range of possibilities.  I thought that we could lose in the first round if we got a bad matchup.  Fortunately that didn’t happen.  I also thought we had a chance to make a very deep run.  I wouldn’t say that I expect to beat Georgia, but I think we have a much better chance to win this game than we had to beat Clemson in the playoff in 2018 or Alabama in the playoff in 2020.  If you want to get to where you want to go, you have to win a game like this.  Clemson’s win over us in 2015 and Georgia’s win over us in 2017 helped get those programs to another level. This game is an opportunity for us to do that.

Go Irish!  Beat Bulldogs!

Three Games and Three-Point Field Goals

We’ve gotten to the point where the only three teams I really care about are Notre Dame football, the Dodgers, and the Celtics.  I would still call myself a Ranger fan, but I just don’t have the time to pay much attention to them until the playoffs.  As for the Jets, I was once a huge Jets fan.  But I’ve just lost so much interest in the NFL.  The combination of the Patriots cheating and winning all the time (I mean that’s over now, but it lasted a long time) and the Jets being terrible, Rex Ryan, USC quarterbacks, and Aaron Rodgers have made it very difficult to care about the Jets.  Anyway, of the three teams I really care about, I’ve been to a ton of Dodger games in my life.  I went to a very good number of Notre Dame games over the years.  I’ve been to a relatively small number of Celtics games compared to the other teams I care about.  I’ve been to a few at Madison Square Garden, a few at Barclays Center, and one in Boston.  Like the rest of the world, I stopped going to sports in 2020 because of the pandemic.  I’ve pretty much gotten back to normal in terms of attending baseball games.  I hadn’t been to a Notre Dame football game or a Celtics game since 2019.  So I wanted to see them in person this year.  I was able to make that happen in November.

With the Knicks coming off a good year and the Celtics winning a championship, seeing the Celtics at Madison Square Garden would cost a ridiculous amount of money.  But seeing the Celtics play the Nets in Brooklyn was very affordable.  I was supposed to go with my dad, but then he couldn’t go.  But I got to see them.  The last time I saw the Celtics in person was January 14, 2019 in Brooklyn.  That was in the middle of Kyrie Irving making that the most miserable season since before they won the championship in 2008.  He didn’t play in that game so the Celtics had a starting lineup of Tatum, Brown, Horford, Terry Rozier, and Marcus Morris.  Tatum had 34, Brown had 22, and the only other Celtic in double figures was Brad Wanamaker with 13.  The Celtics lost 109-102.  Net fans chanted “Kyrie’s leaving!”  Little did they know that the joke was on them and he was going to come make them miserable.

So after almost six years, it was time to go see the Celtics again.  It was nice to see the Celtics wearing their green uniforms and the home team wearing white.  That so rarely happens these days thanks to Nike’s ridiculous influence on the NBA.  They got off to a bad start, but they only trailed by two points after the first quarter.  They played well for the rest of the game and led 65-60 at halftime.  It was 103-89 after three.  And the Celtics ended up winning 139-114.  Tatum had 36 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds.  Brown had 24 points and 12 rebounds.  Payton Pritchard had 23 points off the bench.  Teams have caught on to the fact that he wants to shoot from anywhere at the end of a quarter and he can make it.  They’re not just giving him 50 footers at the buzzer anymore.  Jrue Holiday and Sam Hauser were also in double figures.  I think my two favorite players are Derrick White and Al Horford.  White got off to a rough start with early fouls and turnovers.  He ended up with 9 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.  And as expected, Al Horford didn’t play the second game of a back to back.  So I didn’t see great games out of my favorite players, but I did see my favorite team play a great game.  The Celtics were 22/48 on threes.  The Nets were 19/45.  That’s pretty good, but they still lost by 25 points.  You’re just not beating the Celtics if they’re shooting 46% on threes.  I was surprised to see Kristaps Porzingis working out before the game.  He looked pretty good and he ended up coming back a month before I expected (I was expecting him to make his debut on Christmas).

The Celtics should always wear green on the road.

I have one other basketball thought before I move on to football.  The Tournament of Meaninglessness is going on right now.  The Celtics finished 3-1 in group play.  The Celtics did not win their group because they finished tied with the Hawks and the Hawks beat them.  They would have won the group if the Cavaliers had beat the Hawks.  I was absolutely rooting for the Hawks because the Celtics are behind the Cavaliers in the standings that actually matter.  The Celtics still might advance to the elimination round as a wild card depending on what happens on the final night of group play.  I’m rooting for the Knicks because a Knicks win means that the Celtics are almost certainly not advancing.  There is absolutely no benefit to advancing.  If they advance, they’ll have to play a road game in the elimination round.  If they win that one, they will have to play a game in Las Vegas instead of in Boston.  I don’t want to give up a home game.  And then if they won their first game in Las Vegas, they would have to play another game in Las Vegas that literally means nothing in the standings.  It’s just an extra game that’s an extra chance for your players to get hurt.  If they end up getting to that game, I will want them to lose (unless they were playing the Lakers) and not get anybody hurt.  Why would I want them to lose?  Because the NBA would make them hang up a banner for winning a tournament that means absolutely nothing and I would be embarrassed if they had to hang that up.  The Celtics only hang banners for stuff that actually matters (I would make the banner a handwritten sheet of paper for winning the Tournament of Meaninglessness).  So to summarize, advancing in the Tournament of Meaninglessness would mean the possibility of losing a home game, the possibility of having to play a game that means literally nothing except for an extra chance for players to get hurt, and the possibility of having to hang a banner for winning a completely meaningless tournament.

As for football, the last time I got to a Notre Dame football game was when we played at Duke in 2019.  I was also supposed to see us play Virginia in 2019, but my flight got canceled.  This year, we had games at MetLife Stadium and Yankee Stadium.  I’ve seen us play twice at MetLife Stadium.  That’s enough for me.  I definitely wanted to see a game with Marcus Freeman as the head coach and I was not going to miss a game at Yankee Stadium (I was there before the blog in 2010 and then again in 2013 and 2018).  It’s easier to get to and I can get good tickets at a reasonable price.  Before I get to the game, let me set the stage.  Our season got off to a great start with a road win at Texas A&M.  And then we had maybe our worst loss ever.  We lost to Northern Illinois and all the air seemed to go out of the balloon.  Somehow, the air has gotten back into the balloon.  I remember lining up for a 62 yard field goal on the last play of the game losing by two against Northern Illinois.  It was a pretty terrible feeling knowing that we had no chance to make it and we were going to lose to Northern Illinois.  After that game, everybody was very down on Marcus Freeman.  My friends seemed like they had given up on him.  And that was entirely understandable.  I was very down on Freeman also, but I would say I was still more hopeful than my friends.  I wasn’t optimistic, but I still had hope.  And it’s been quite a turnaround since then.

We won eight straight games after Northern Illinois going into the Army game at Yankee Stadium.  We’ve played many big games against Army over the years.  This year was the 100th anniversary of the Four Horsemen game.  That one was at the Polo Grounds.  We won that one 13-7 and went on to win the National Championship.  The year before, we beat Army 13-0 at Ebbets Field (our only game at Ebbets Field).  And the year after, we lost to Army 27-0 in our first game at the Old Yankee Stadium.  We also beat Army 17-0 in 1965 in the only game we ever played at Shea Stadium.  This was probably Army’s biggest game since 1958.  From 1943-1958, Army finished 13 seasons ranked.  They beat us and finished ranked third in 1958.  That was the last time they beat us.  They also beat us and won the National Championship in 1944 and 1945.  We tied them and we won the National Championship in 1946.  The 1944-1946 games were all at Yankee Stadium.  Since finishing ranked third in 1958, Army has finished two seasons ranked.  They came into this game undefeated and ranked 19th.  They controlled their own destiny for the college football playoff.  If they beat us, they would move ahead of Boise State and be in position for an automatic bid in the college football playoff by being one of the top five conference champions.  Fortunately I never had to worry about that.  We went up 14-0 in the first quarter on touchdown passes to Jordan Faison and Jeremiyah Love.  Army tried to make it somewhat interesting.  They scored to make it 14-7 and then stopped as on the goal line for a turnover on downs as we tried to run the Knute Rockne box shift.  But the defense was good for the rest of the half and Love and Jadarian Price ran for touchdowns to make it 28-7.  We missed a 48 yard field goal before halftime, but we were in control of the game.  The second half started with Love going 68 yards for a touchdown.  It was cool seeing that one in person.  As soon as he hit the hole, I knew he was gone.  Price added another touchdown and Aneyas ran for a long touchdown and we ended up winning 49-14.  Good times were had by all.  Except for Army.  The last two sporting events at Yankee Stadium have been won by the Dodgers and Notre Dame so I approve of that.

I had to go black and white for a Notre Dame-Army game at Yankee Stadium.

People complain about playing games in baseball stadiums.  I don’t agree.  If we’re going to play in New York, I would much rather play at Yankee Stadium than in MetLife Stadium (a terrible stadium that isn’t in New York).  If we’re going to play in Boston, I’d rather play at Fenway Park than Gillette Stadium (not in Boston).  If we ever play in San Francisco, I’d rather play at Oracle Park than Levi’s Stadium (not in San Francisco).  Other baseball stadiums where I would play would be Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, Rogers Center, Oriole Park, Target Field, Nationals Park, Truist Park, and Petco Park.  I’m not sure if you could fit football fields in all of those places, but I’d be willing to play in those stadiums if you could.  A football game in Dodger Stadium would be cool, but if you ever played a Shamrock Series game in Los Angeles, it should be at the Rose Bowl (it would probably end up being at Sofi Stadium, but it should be at the Rose Bowl).  I will say that football games in baseball stadiums should be rare.  We’ve played five in the last 15 years.  That’s too many (but one was the Pinstripe Bowl so that wasn’t planned).  People complain about sight lines.  And there are definitely seats that have really bad views for football, but I had a good view.  Yeah, I was far away from the field, but I was at about the 45 yard line and the tickets were not overly expensive.  It’ll take that view over being in a corner of an actual football stadium.

One legitimate problem with playing at Yankee Stadium was getting into the stadium.  I remember it was bad in 2018 (I don’t remember it being like that in 2010 or 2013).  So I got to the stadium around 6:15 thinking that it would be plenty of time to get in.  It was really bad.  You’re in a line that isn’t moving and you think maybe another gate would be better.  But then you also think, another gate could be just as bad and then you wasted time going from one gate to another.  So I stayed where I was.  It took a solid 45 minutes to get in.  Game time was 7:00, but fortunately it didn’t actually start at 7:00.  I was worried about making it in time for kickoff.  But when I got up to the upper level where I was sitting, I saw the clock counting down to the start of the game and I had about nine and a half minutes to spare.  I was able to get a hot dog and a water and get to my seat in time for the start of the game.  I don’t get why it was so bad.  The Yankees play games with big crowds on a regular basis.  They should be able to handle this.  But the last two football games I’ve been to there have been really bad getting into the stadium.  So if we ever play there again, I hope I will read this blog post again to remind myself to get to the gate more than an hour in advance.

I got a hotel room in the Bronx because it was a night game.  I figured I didn’t want to deal with getting home after a night game and also it gave me the opportunity to watch other games in my hotel room.  I saw the end of Florida beating Ole Miss before I went to the game and that was fun.  I watched a good amount of Penn State-Minnesota.  Penn State took the lead before I left for the game and sadly, they ended up winning.  And I watched the end of the Texas A&M-Auburn game and some of USC-UCLA before going to sleep.  I thought about going to Mass before the game.  Fortunately I decided not to do that because I probably wouldn’t have gotten into the stadium in time for kickoff if I had.  I ended up going at 7:45 the next morning.  I wouldn’t have gone so early, but it was the only convenient English Mass I could find in the area (the rest were in Spanish).  I’m pretty sure that was my first ever Mass in the Bronx.  So I’ve now been to Mass in three of the five boroughs.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to Mass in Brooklyn and I’m like 99.9% sure I’ve never done anything on Staten Island other than drive through it and go to a Staten Island Yankees game.

The win over Army meant that we were playing USC Thanksgiving weekend with a chance to clinch a spot in the college football playoff.  It was a competitive game.  We were tied at 14 at halftime and it felt like we should have been winning.  When we went up 21-14, I texted my friends that we should be up by more.  USC tied it at 21, but then it seemed like we were taking control of the game.  We scored back to back touchdowns and then we got the ball back early in the fourth quarter.  If we score there, the game was over.  We had three plays for no yards and then we punted.  But if we got a stop there, the game was over.  USC scored in five plays and it was 35-28 and now it was a game.  On our next possession, we had five plays for a total of three yards and we punted.  I wasn’t feeling great.  USC was moving the ball.  On the broadcast, Nessler and Danielson were talking about if USC would kick the extra point or go for two and the lead if they scored.  Matt texted “This is not going to end well for us” and Jon texted “36-35, Lincoln will go for 2” and right after that Christian Gray returned an interception 99 yards to give us a 42-28 lead with 3:39 to play.  It was looking very good at that point, but it still wasn’t over.  Then Xavier Watts returned an interception 100 yards to make it 49-28.  USC added a meaningless touchdown to make it a 49-35 final score.  Xavier Watts is my favorite player on this year’s team.  He started out as a wide receiver and it didn’t look like he was going to be a player.  He moved to safety and turned into a great player.  And he’s stayed for five years when he definitely could have left after last year.  He went out of the game earlier with an injury, but it looks like he’s fine.  As I’m writing this right after the game, I’m enjoying my last Summer Ale of 2024 as I celebrate a wonderful victory to get us to the college football playoff (the bottle says on it to enjoy before December and I am certainly enjoying it).  So it was an awesome win, but we did miss a short field goal early in the game.  Field goal kicking is a huge concern right now for Notre Dame.  I hope we don’t need one to win a playoff game.

We have a good chance to be the 5 seed in the playoff and that would be really good.  That would mean a first round game against the 12 seed and then if we win, Boise State would be the likely second round opponent (but all of that could change with conference championship games).  Whatever happens, I think our first two playoff games will be very winnable.  If we win those two, anything could happen after that.  I don’t think there’s a team like 2012 Alabama, 2018 Clemson, or 2020 Alabama that we’re going to see.  The range of possibilities is very wide.  We could lose in the first round and I wouldn’t be shocked (I’d be very disappointed, but not shocked).  I also think winning it all is not out of the question.

I’ll finish up by going back to Marcus Freeman.  It’s been a bit of a roller coaster so far.  It is still to be determined how he will be remembered at Notre Dame.  But he’s done a fantastic job after the loss to Northern Illinois (he also did a fantastic job to win nine games in his first year with Drew Pyne playing quarterback).  Hopefully the Northern Illinois loss will end up being the turning point in his career as a coach.  If we had beaten Northern Illinois, I don’t think we would have been undefeated.  Somebody would have beaten us along the way.  Maybe we would have still ended up 11-1.  But maybe it would have been worse.  Let’s say we beat Northern Illinois and lost to Louisville.  A loss to Louisville would have been much more excusable and then maybe we would lose to somebody else after that.  But since an inexcusable loss to Northern Illinois, we’ve played fantastic football.  In 2022, Notre Dame, USC, LSU, and Oklahoma all had new head coaches (Freeman, Lincoln Riley, Brian Kelly, and Brett Venables).  A few weeks back, I texted my friends saying that Freeman was looking pretty good out of that group (Luke Fickell was another possibility for us and his first two years at Wisconsin haven’t been too good).  I said “Kelly is maybe even with him, but we had reached our ceiling with Kelly.”  We had definitely reached our ceiling with Kelly (or more accurately, we reached Kelly’s ceiling), but Freeman and Kelly are not even anymore.  Freeman has clearly pulled ahead of him late in this season (Freeman is also a million times more likable than Kelly).  I hope we haven’t reached our ceiling with Freeman yet.  I hope we’ll reach it this season by winning the National Championship.  Go Irish!

Party Like It's Later in 1981

I did a game by game diary of the NBA Finals.  Of course, I had to bring it back for the World Series with the Dodgers playing the Yankees.  I’ve been waiting for the World Series my whole life.  It’s the most common World Series of all time.  It happened 11 times in the 41-year stretch from 1941-1981.  But then we went 43 years before it happened again.  So for the first time in my life, we got Dodgers-Yankees in the World Series.  I was hoping it would be like 2008, when I got the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals I had been waiting for (it had happened before in my lifetime, but 2008 was the first Celtics-Lakers Finals I could remember and it was wonderful).  When the Celtics won the championship this year, my blog post was Party Like It’s 1981 and one of the reasons I picked 1981 for the title (there are lots of years I could have chosen for the Celtics) was because the Dodgers won the World Series later that year.  Much like 1981 (and 1959, 1963, and 1965), the Celtics and Dodgers have won championships in the same year.  This was the first time I got to experience my two favorite professional teams winning championships in the same year.  So anyway, here we go.

I did not expect this for most of the season.

Game 1

I wore my 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Champions shirt.  I heated up a leftover slice of Little Vincent’s and a leftover slice of Chefs broccoli cheddar and drank a Brooklyn Lager as the game started. I was ready to enjoy this game.  Game 1 was a great baseball game.  While it still looked like I might not be happy about the result, it was a great baseball game.  And then we got the most memorable ending of a World Series Game 1 since 1988.  Both teams got good pitching from their starters.  Jack Flaherty was good, but Gerrit Cole was better.  Fortunately Flaherty was a lot better than he was in Game 5 against the Mets.  NLCS MVP Tommy Edman (what a great acquisition by Andrew Friedman) had a really good game that will probably end up being forgotten.  He had two hits, scored a run, and saved a run with a really good play in the field.  Gleyber Torres came very close to giving the Yankees the lead in the ninth, but it ended up being a double on fan interference instead of a home run.  When it happened, I thought right away that it wasn’t a home run.  I’m glad that was the initial call, because I don’t know if you could overturn it if it had been ruled a home run.  It was reviewed and they said the call was confirmed.  But it didn’t seem confirmed to me looking at the replays.  Like I don’t think it was going to be a home run, but I’m not 100% sure.  The fan clearly reached out over the wall, but he also caught it above the wall.  Blake Treinen stranded two runners in the top of the ninth, but then he gave up a lead in the top of the tenth.  He stranded a runner at second and we went to the bottom of the tenth with the Dodgers trailing 3-2.  I felt like they had a pretty good chance.  If one runner reached, Shohei Ohtani would get to hit as the game winning run.  Gavin Lux walked and then Tommy Edman got his second hit of the game.  With one out and the game winning run on first, the Yankees brought in Nestor Cortes, who hadn’t pitched in more than a month with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman coming up.  Ohtani hit a fly ball that Alex Verdugo made a really nice catch on.  The problem for the Yankees was that Verdugo had to go into the stands to make the catch. I knew the rule and that meant that the runners got to advance.  I knew they would then walk Betts and have Cortes pitch to Freeman.  Freeman didn’t waste any time and hit a game winning grand slam on the first pitch.  The Dodgers won 6-3 and it was amazing.  It didn’t take any stupid Rob Manfred rule to end an absolute classic game in ten innings.  Joe Davis had a fantastic call that referenced Vin Scully’s call of Kirk Gibson’s home run in Game 1 in 1988.  I’ve watched it like 15 times already (I’m writing this like an hour after the game ended).  So that was Game 1.  It was amazing.  But it’s a long series.  I don’t expect this to be like the NBA Finals when I expected the Celtics to win fairly easily (I’m still confused about why people thought the Mavericks would win).  The Dodgers have beaten the Yankees thrice in the World Series.  And in two of those three series, they lost Game 1.  So there’s a long way to go in this one.

I was aware of Kirk Gibson's home run as a young Dodger fan, but I'm sure I didn't watch it live.  It was pretty awesome that I got to experience this.  They were both hit at 8:37 Pacific time with the Dodgers trailing and down to their final out.

Game 2

We all know that the Astros cheated in 2017, but the Dodgers still could have won that World Series.  They let Game 2 slip away.  The Dodgers almost let Game 2 slip away tonight, but fortunately they held on to win.  The Dodgers did their scoring early.  Tommy Edman continues to be amazing.  He got it started with a home run in the second.  The Yankees quickly answered with a home run by Juan Soto in the third.  Juan Soto is terrifying.  But that was the only hit Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed.  He was fantastic for six and a third. I’m hoping his season is now done because he is in line to pitch Game 6.  If Game 6 doesn’t happen, the Dodgers will be World Series Champions.  Anyway, the Dodgers quickly retook the lead with a two run home run by Teoscar Hernandez and then a solo home run by Freddie Freeman in the third.  And that was all of their scoring.  Anthony Banda and Michael Kopech were excellent out of the bullpen.  But Blake Treinen was shaky in the ninth.  He gave up a run and loaded the bases.  But he struck out Anthony Volpe for the second out.  After Treinen got two outs on 33 pitches, Alex Vesia got the third out on one pitch when he got Jose Trevino to fly out to center.  So the Dodgers won 4-2.  I would think Treinen should pitch in no more than one game in New York.  He’s thrown a lot of pitches the last two nights.  I would go to Kopech or Graterol in the ninth in Game 3.  But the big concern is Shohei Ohtani.  He got caught stealing and hurt his shoulder.  The way he looked coming off the field wasn’t good.  It’s good to be up 2-0, but this series is far from over.  The last two times these teams met in the World Series, a team went up 2-0 and then lost the next four games.  So hopefully that history won’t repeat itself this year.  Also Notre Dame beat a ranked team, Brian Kelly predictably lost a big game on the road, and the Celtics won.  So today was a good day of sports.

Game 3

The Dodgers are one win away from being World Series Champions.  Walker Buehler was excellent for five innings.  He had a pretty bad year coming back from his second Tommy John surgery, but he’s looked good in the playoffs.  He’s going to be a free agent so he’s picked a good time to start pitching well again.  We’ll see what happens in free agency, but he will always be a big part of helping the Dodgers win two championships as long as they can finish this off.  Freddie Freeman hit another home run and he’s on his way to being World Series MVP.  Teoscar Hernandez made a great throw to get Stanton at the plate and end an inning.  The bullpen was a little shaky.  They got out of some jams and then Kopech gave up a two run home run in the ninth, but they held on to win.  Tomorrow is a bullpen game.  Up 3-0, the Dodgers will probably use at least two of Landon Knack, Ben Casparius, and Brett Honeywell.  So the Yankees should have a decent chance to get a win, but there’s always the possibility that the Dodgers score 10 runs and don’t need a great game from their pitchers.  I’m in favor of that tomorrow.

Game 4

Well, this was like Game 4 for the Celtics.  I wore my Sandy Koufax jersey hoping for the sweep like 1963, but the sweep was not to be.  Freddie Freeman hit a first inning home run (to break cheater George Springer’s record for most consecutive World Series games with a home run), but the rest of the game wasn’t good.  Ben Casparius and Landon Knack were solid.  Daniel Hudson and Brett Honeywell were not.  The good news is that they were able to rest the high leverage bullpen guys other than Hudson.  Hopefully they’ll finish it off in five like the Celtics did.

Game 5

I planned on doing a running diary of Game 5 like I did for Game 5 of the NBA Finals when the Celtics finished off the Mavericks.  I started it and gave up in the second inning.  Here are two of my entries from before I gave up:

8:21- Jazz Chisholm hits a home run.  It looks like we’re getting bad Jack Flaherty like we did in Game 5 against the Mets.  The good news is the Dodgers are up 3-1.  The bad news is that unlike against the Mets, the Dodgers don’t have their low leverage relievers available today to eat up innings so they’ll probably have to use their high leverage guys even if this game isn’t competitive.

8:25- Anthony Rizzo strikes out.  If the Dodgers can somehow get into the Yankees’ bullpen early tonight, they’ll have a chance.  If Cole pitches well, the game will probably be out of reach by the time it gets to the bullpen.

Well, they had to use their high leverage guys.  Cole pitched well, but the game was not out of reach by the time it got to the Yankee bullpen because of some truly horrendous fielding in the fifth inning. The Dodgers scored five runs when they shouldn’t have scored any that inning.  After two errors, Mookie Betts drove in a run on an RBI single because Cole didn’t cover first base on a ground ball to Anthony Rizzo.  Freddie Freeman drove in two runs with a single.  And Teoscar Hernandez drove in two more with a double to tie the game.  The Yankees retook the lead with a sacrifice fly by Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth.  The Yankee bullpen couldn’t get it done.  Tommy Kahnle gave up two hits and a walk to load the bases.  The Yankees brought in Luke Weaver.  He gave up sacrifice flies to Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts and the Dodgers led 7-6.  The problem for the Dodgers was the problem I thought was going to ruin their season.  They were running out of pitchers.  Brusdar Graterol got two outs and allowed three walks and a hit and gave up the run that gave the Yankees the lead back.  Blake Treinen came in and gave the Dodgers everything he had.  He got seven outs.  He got out of a jam in the eighth after Roberts went to the mound with one out and left him in.  They still had one more inning to go and the only relievers they had left were all guys that pitched yesterday.  Hudson was the only high leverage guy left and he wasn’t good yesterday.  Casparius, Knack, and Honeywell all threw a lot of pitches.  So Dave Roberts went to Walker Buehler.  Walker Buehler had a terrible regular season coming back from Tommy John surgery.  I wasn’t excited about him pitching in the playoffs, but the Dodgers really had no choice because they only had two other starting pitchers left.  He made one start in each series.  His numbers against the Padres were bad, but that was almost entirely because of bad fielding.  He was good against the Mets, but he only got through four innings.  He was great in the World Series for five innings in Game 3 and then he got the save two days later.  Freddie Freeman obviously deserved the World Series MVP (looking back, there was no way the Dodgers could lose this series after the Freeman grand slam to win Game 1), but Walker Buehler will forever be a Dodger legend.  He’s pitched in three World Series now.  He’s 2-0 in 19 innings pitched with one run allowed and a save in a World Series clinching game.  He’s going to be a free agent.  The Dodgers let Corey Seager get away and that was a mistake.  They need to bring back Walker Buehler.

Walker Buehler already would have been remembered favorably by Dodger fans, but now he's a legend.

When the Dodgers swept the Yankees in 1963, Sandy Koufax said, “I had two great thrills in the World Series–when I thought it was over and then when it actually was over.”  That’s how I felt about this series.  It was a thrill to go up 3-0.  But after losing Game 4, I definitely wanted to wrap it up in Game 5.  If the Yankees won Game 5, the Dodgers still would have been in very good shape, but anything could have happened at that point.  Fortunately the Dodgers didn’t let the Yankees come back to Los Angeles with them.

Four years ago, the Dodgers didn’t get the parade they deserved.  I didn’t get to celebrate with my favorite beer, Summer Ale (if not for the pandemic, I definitely would have made sure I had enough Summer Ale to get me through November). Well, the Dodgers will get their parade on Fernando Valenzuela’s birthday and I just enjoyed a Summer Ale.  I am particularly happy for the guys who were on the team in 2020 (Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernandez, Austin Barnes, Chris Taylor, Gavin Lux, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol, Dustin May, Blake Treinen, and Joe Kelly).  If there are any other 2020 players who aren’t currently under contract with another team, I would invite them to the parade.  Right now I’m drinking a Brooklyn Lager in honor of the Dodgers’ roots.  If I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow, I would drink an Octoberfest also (I completely missed out on Octoberfest in the fall of 2020 because of the pandemic).

Andrew Friedman deserves a lot of credit.  He made some great acquisitions with Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Teoscar Hernandez in the offseason.  Flaherty, Kopech, and Edman were in-season acquisitions who all helped the team in big ways (even if Flaherty was bad tonight).  Dave Roberts was masterful in the postseason.  I’ve always been a Dave Roberts fan, but a lot of Dodger fans criticize him constantly.  Finding a way to win the World Series with the pitching staff in the condition that it’s in is absolutely amazing.  He’s going to the Hall of Fame as a manager and I hope he stays with the Dodgers for many years to come.  And Clayton Kershaw gets his second World Series ring.  Injuries derailed his season.  He only made seven starts and didn’t pitch in the postseason.  It’s kind of like he gets the ring that he deserved in 2017.  I hope things go better for him next year.

In one of his interviews after Game 5, Mookie Betts credited Clayton Kershaw with helping getting the team going when they were struggling.

Baseball is a weird sport.  The Dodgers were the best team in baseball.  They finished with the best record.  They beat the Padres and the Mets, who were pretty much the two best teams in the NL for the last four months of the season.  They beat the Yankees, who were the best team in the American League.  So there is definitely no argument to make that any other team was the best team in baseball, but there have definitely been better Dodgers teams in recent years that didn’t win the World Series that were better than this year’s team (2017*, 2019, 2021, 2022).  The Dodgers easily could have lost to the Padres in the Division Series.  But they found a way to win.  Once they beat the Padres, I was hopeful that they would beat the Mets and Yankees, but anything could have happened.  Once they got to the World Series, I thought they would win, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they lost.  It pretty much did turn out to be my baseball version of the 2008 NBA Finals.

Like 1959, 1963, 1965, and 1981, my favorite basketball and baseball teams have won championships.  Of course, I wasn’t alive for any of those.  I completely expected the Celtics to win the championship this year.  I did not expect the Dodgers to do it for most of the season (they were bad when I saw them in Los Angeles in July and in September I wrote a post where I mentioned how they were running out of pitchers).  In 1966, the Celtics and Notre Dame both won championships.  In 1988, the Dodgers and Notre Dame both won championships.  It’s never happened that the Celtics, Dodgers, and Notre Dame all won championships in the same year.  There’s still a chance that Notre Dame could do it this year (it’s a long shot, but we have a solid chance to make the College Football Playoff).  As one of four Notre Dame/Dodgers/Celtics fans in the world (my dad, cousin, and uncle being the other three), I hope 2024 is the year.