1. USC converted 4th and 9.
2. USC fumbled and benefited from it. It went out of bounds short of the goal line. Had it stayed in bounds, either we recover and win or they recover and the clock runs out and we win. Had it gone out of bounds past the goal line, it's a touchback and we win. As all of this was going down, the clock hit triple zero and the student section stormed the field. I saw what happened and figured they would put time back on the clock, but I wasn't going to not storm the field when everybody else was.
3. The Bush Push won the game for USC.
The Bush Push should have been a penalty, but it was always the fumble that bothered me more. There were so many ways that could have been bad for USC, but doing something bad ended up helping them. Reggie Bush committed a penalty that is never called and if it was Brady Quinn trying to sneak for the game winning touchdown, I'd want Darius Walker to be pushing him in if he was going to be short. In later years, the fact that Reggie Bush was a professional athlete playing college football would bother me more than anything.
Last year after we beat USC to get to the National Championship Game, it made up for the Bush Push game. Still, I needed to see us beat USC in person. I didn't go in 2007 and I didn't miss anything. In 2009, we almost had a big comeback to win (we had a chance to tie it on the final play). In 2011, we got off to a terrible start and might have come back and won if not for us snapping the ball on the USC 1 and having the play result in a USC touchdown (one of two snaps that season for us on the other team's 1 that resulted in a touchdown for the other team and huge momentum swing).
So I went back this year. This game didn't have the luster of 2005 or last year's game, which is too bad. Notre Dame and USC are the Celtics and Lakers of college football. College football is just better when Notre Dame and USC are good. I want USC and the Lakers to be good, but I want Notre Dame and the Celtics to be better (Michigan and the Knicks, on the other hand, could lose all of their games forever and I would be totally cool with that). Despite not having the same luster as most Notre Dame-USC games, it was the one game this year that I needed to go to. No game haunted me like the 2005 game (not even Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, which is the worst loss I've ever experienced as a fan, but that's only because the Celtics won the championship in 2008). Still, I had a hard time getting excited about this game.
Last year I spent every waking minute after we beat Wake Forest to get to 11-0 thinking about our game with USC which could get us to the National Championship Game. Sure the stakes weren't nearly as high this year, but I still usually spend about 60-70% of my time awake thinking about our next football game. Not last week. I was more concerned about the Dodgers in the playoffs. I realized that Game 6 was going to be starting during my flight on Friday night and Game 7 was going to be going on at the same time as the football game. For Game 6, I found a really good deal on a room at the Chicago Airport Hilton. I also paid $50 to get a flight two hours early so that I would land before the start of the game. For Game 7, I didn't know how I would have handled that if the Dodgers had gotten there. I had never left a Notre Dame football game early, but I might have if the Dodgers had been playing Game 7 of the NLCS. Considering the way the football game turned out, I still don't know what I would have done.
Game 6 was a disappointment. I got to my room in time for the bottom of the first. The bottom of the third was a disaster and the Cardinals were on their way to the World Series. I actually stopped watching and went to the bar to drink my sorrows away. I didn't do as much drinking as I might have because one Sam Adams Octoberfest was $14 plus tip. So I only had one beer. I finished the game by listening to Vin Scully call the 8th and 9th innings on my phone. I'll miss him until next season. Clayton Kershaw, easily the best pitcher in baseball, had his worst game of the season. He pitched three great games in the playoffs, but he didn't have it in Game 6. It happens. The Dodgers lost two winnable games. That was why they lost the series. They never would have gotten as far as they did without Clayton Kershaw. I felt bad for him. But hopefully he'll get a big contract from the Dodgers during the offseason and he'll be right back in the playoffs next year. He had one bad game and I won't let that diminish my appreciation for the amazing season he had. I'll never forget being there for his performance on Opening Day. I can't wait for March 22, 2014 when the Dodgers open the season in Australia (it might be March 21 in the United States, I haven't figured that out yet). If it was in the middle of my Easter vacation, I would use it as my excuse to get to Australia. Sadly, that won't happen. But I'll try to get to a couple of Dodger games in cities other than New York. 2013 was fun. Hopefully 2014 will be better.
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| This is an old picture of Vin Scully (you can tell by the color of the seats), but I really like it. He's the best. |
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| Thanks for a fun year, Clayton. Hopefully you'll be able to add a World Series MVP to your Cy Young Awards in 2014. |
The Dodgers made me pretty sad, but it allowed me to refocus on football. I took the bus and got to campus at 11:00 on Saturday. I met my friend Jon and relaxed for a bit in his room at my old home, St. Edward's Hall (Jon's a law student and the assistant rector there). Jon left to set up his tailgate and I went to the Grotto. Then I walked around the stadium and took pictures of the statues of Notre Dame's legendary coaches. Each one has a gate named after him. Gate E remains unnamed. Hopefully someday it will be the Brian Kelly Gate.
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| The greatest coach in the history of football. |
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| I love Lou. |
Then I met up with Jon, who put on quite a tailgate. There were burgers, brats, Guinness, and Octoberfest. All good stuff. Kyle's brother Michael and his wife were there. Former St. Ed's resident Kevin and his parents were there. We talked about tailgating before the game in 2011. I'm not sure, but I think I fed Kyle a hot dog after I tried it and it was amazing. Unfortunately, Kyle was not there to reenact that scene. I left to go to the 4:00 mass in the Basilica. The Basilica mass on a football Saturday is always ridiculously crowded, but if I rated the Basilica and Stepan Center (the alternative to the Basilica for mass on gameday) on aesthetics on a scale of 0-100, the Basilica is a 100 and Stepan Center is a -43. After mass, I went back for a little more tailgating. This year was kind of the opposite of 2011. 2011 featured tailgating that ended with the most delicious hot dog ever and then Notre Dame losing. 2013 featured tailgating that ended with Michael injuring Jon's hand (the swelling was pretty scary looking, but he soldiered on) and then Notre Dame winning.
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| Mass in the Basilica. |
The game got off to an ominous start, but unlike Michigan and Oklahoma, the ominous start did not portend defeat.. We had a long drive that ended with us failing to score on a fourth and goal from inside the 1. USC took over on their own 4 and went 96 yards for a touchdown. They scored three points for the rest of the game. Tommy Rees looked very good after some shaky performances. He led us down the field and finished the first quarter with a touchdown to Troy Niklas. With 1:13 left in the second quarter, Rees threw a nice touchdown to T.J. Jones that gave us a 14-10 lead, which happened to be our first lead at home against USC since Brady Quinn put us up 31-28 in 2005.
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| My view from the grad student section of the celebration after T.J. Jones's touchdown gave us the lead. |
The second half was dominated by defense. Tommy Rees got hurt and we wouldn't score again (I think we would have gotten at least one more score if he had played the whole game). Fortunately, it didn't matter. Stephon Tuitt looked like Stephon Tuitt from 2012. Jaylon Smith continued a very impressive freshman season (an actual freshman season, unlike Johnny Manziel last year who was closer to being a junior than a freshman). The defense was great, but our offense looked horrendous without Tommy Rees. I actually called one of our offensive plays exactly. It was our second to last play before the kneel downs. After several runs where George Atkinson came in motion from a wide receiver position into the backfield and took a hand off, I said they should fake it to Atkinson and have Andrew Hendrix keep it. That's what happened and it was actually a good call with Hendrix running for seven yards on 2nd and 9, but we couldn't get the first down on 3rd and 2. Fortunately, our defense took care of business. I'll tell you, in these days with so much scoring in football, a scoreless second half is a thing of beauty when your team is winning at halftime. After the defense stopped USC with 54 seconds left, it was really nice to see us line up in the victory formation.
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| I waited eight years to see that on the scoreboard. |
Notre Dame put me in a good mood after a miserable final game for the Dodgers in 2013. I finally saw us beat our biggest rival (our only true rival, really) in person. I might be there for Notre Dame-USC in 2015, but I'm not sure (I would be going for sure if we had lost again). What's most important is that it seems that our season has turned around. I was not optimistic after Oklahoma. I said I just wanted us to beat USC. It was good to do that, but after beating Arizona State two weeks ago (which I didn't expect), I want more. This can still be Brian Kelly's second best season at Notre Dame. The next two games (Air Force and Navy) should be two of our three easiest games of the season (with Temple being the other one). Then we have Pittsburgh and BYU. Those are games we should win, but I expect at least one of those to be tough. If we survive the next four games (far from a certainty, but possible), we go to Stanford at 9-2. Stanford's next four games are at Oregon State, home for Oregon, at USC, and home for Cal. I definitely expect them to beat USC and Cal. They'll be favored against Oregon State and underdogs against Oregon. There's a legitimate possibility that Notre Dame and Stanford will go into the final game of the season with the same record and be playing for a spot in a BCS bowl (to be clear, I don't expect to make it to a BCS bowl, I just think we have a real shot to be a win against Stanford away from making a BCS bowl). I definitely didn't expect that after the Oklahoma game. Go Irish!
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| Me and Jon celebrating the victory. |
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