Party Like it’s 1988 (Not 1993)

Things that happened in 1988:

The Lakers won the NBA Championship

The Dodgers won the World Series

A vice president won a presidential election

4th ranked Notre Dame beat the number 1 ranked team at home

All of those things have happened in 2020.  Unfortunately, the Lakers winning the championship is way too common.  But the Dodgers won a World Series and a vice president won a presidential election for the first time since 1988.  Notre Dame has won two other games against the number one ranked team since then.  We beat Colorado in the 1990 Orange Bowl and we beat Florida State in 1993.  The 1988 college football season ended with Notre Dame winning the National Championship.  Hopefully this season will end that way too.

This was our first game against the number one ranked team since I was a student.  And much like that game, this one lived up to the hype.  Ian Book played the best game of his life (so far).  He threw a couple of deep balls, he ran the ball well, he threw the ball away when he was under pressure (this is something he has not done often), and he led a 91 yard drive with less than two minutes left to tie the game.  Kyren Williams has been amazing.  I wasn’t expecting much out of him this year, but he’s been great.  Even when we’ve been able to run the ball well in the past, we couldn’t do it against the elite teams.  We did it yesterday.  Williams had the long run on the second play of the game to give us the lead.  His average for the rest of the game wasn’t great, but it seemed like he made plays whenever we needed one.  And he had the best game I’ve ever seen from a Notre Dame running back picking up the blitz.  That was fun to watch (it was like watching Mookie Betts running the bases).  Our wide receivers were a pleasant surprise.  Avery Davis made the biggest play of the game and Javon McKinley made some good plays.  They’ve both been better than I expected.  Ben Skowronek has probably been about what I expected.  The offensive line did a pretty good job.  We’ve had great offensive linemen under Kelly, but it always seemed like the offensive line didn’t perform in our biggest games.  We were able to out-physical Clemson last night.

Our defense gave up 40 points, but I thought they were pretty good.  Travis Etienne was shut down.  D.J. Uiagalelei set a record for passing yards against Notre Dame, but we made Clemson one dimensional.  They didn’t have Trevor Lawrence and I did think Uiagalelei missed a couple of throws that he could have made, but they definitely didn’t lose the game because of poor quarterback play).  Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoah’s fumble return was kind of like something I did once or twice in the old NCAA Football video games where you intercept a pitch and return it for a touchdown.

Special teams was mostly good.  Jonathan Doerer made four field goals and only missed a really long one (and Jay Bramblett made a great tackle on that play to save a potential disaster going into halftime).  I was thinking missing an extra point at the end of regulation or at the end of the first overtime would be the worst possible way to lose, but there was no reason for concern.  Kickoff coverage was very good.  Matt Salerno has been sure-handed on punt returns, but I’d like to see somebody who is a threat to do something returning punts.  But if they do everything else well, I’ll live with not having a threat on punt returns.

When we fell behind by seven, I was thinking we should go for two if we scored a touchdown, but then when we scored, I didn’t want to.  Kelly was asked about it after the game and his reason for not doing it was pretty much the same reason I changed my mind:  we worked too hard to score that touchdown and have the opportunity to get to overtime.  But then in overtime, I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to stop Clemson.  (Speaking of overtime, I’m morally obligated to talk about how stupid college football overtime is.  It’s slightly less stupid than Notre Dame playing in a conference because the idea of overtime is not stupid, but the rules that they came up with are just so dumb.). We get back to back sacks to put Clemson behind the chains.  I had flashbacks of when we were one play away from beating USC in 2005.  We had 3rd and 20 after a Trevor Laws sack and then 4th and 9 and then it was the Dwayne Jarrett catch for 61 yards that led to the Leinart fumble and then the Bush Push (by the way, I looked up how long the Jarrett catch was just to make sure, but I definitely didn’t have to look up how many yards USC needed on third and fourth down, I remembered).  But this time we finished it off.

I almost got to see an all time classic win in person against USC in 2005.  After the game I had the thought that if not for the pandemic, I could have been there last night (this game was on our original schedule).  But really, I probably wouldn’t have gone.  I haven’t been to a night game since Jon was in law school.  It would not be fun to have to drive back to a hotel after a night game.  And ticket prices would have been ridiculous.  The other reason I wouldn’t have gone was that it’s November.  I haven’t been to a November home game since Navy in 2013.  After the Stanford game in 2014 (which was early October, also check out that post for my favorite games, the list needs to be updated because this one is definitely at the top of the list of games that I didn’t go to), I pretty much decided that I didn’t want to go to any cold weather games at Notre Dame anymore (this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but September games are definitely my preference).  Of course, it turned out to be much warmer than the last football game I went to, which was at Duke 52 weeks ago.  So it would have been cool to be there in person for a game like that, but I probably wouldn’t have been there even if I could have gone.

I have this ranked as our best win since 1988.  You could obviously make the case for the Florida State game in 1993.  But I think this one was bigger than that.  In 1993, Lou Holtz was in the sixth year of the best extended stretch of Notre Dame football since Ara Parseghian was the coach and Florida State hadn’t won a National Championship yet.  This win was more like beating Miami in 1988.  Clemson has been one of the top two programs in college football for half a decade and Notre Dame has not been on their level during that time.  And also in 1988, our last two wins came against undefeated teams that were two wins and one win away from a National Championship when we played them (USC and West Virginia).

I hope this year’s team can finish like the 1988 team.  It’s going to be tough.  We should win our next four games before a rematch with Clemson, but we play three teams that are better than anybody we’ve played so far other than Clemson (plus Syracuse, who is terrible).  We do have some wiggle room now that we’ve beaten Clemson.  If we did lose a game and then beat Clemson again, that should be good enough to get to the playoff.  But being undefeated in the regular season would give us a chance to make it to the playoff even if we lost the rematch with Clemson.  It would be so nice to play in this stupid conference for a year, win it, and then be independent again.  Really our worst case scenario should be getting the ACC spot in the Orange Bowl.  But I hope this team isn’t satisfied.  This was a great win for Brian Kelly (we can move this game ahead of the Oklahoma game in 2012 as his best win) and the team, but there’s so much more that they have a chance to accomplish.  If we get to the playoff, we’re looking at the possibility of Round 3 with Clemson and teams like Ohio State and Alabama.  If you want to do something great, it’s not going to be easy.  The 1988 team beat teams that were ranked 9, 1, 2, and 3 when we played them (those teams were 4, 2, 7, and 5 in the final poll).  Let’s finish this season the way the 1988 team finished the season and not the way the 1993 team finished the season.  Go Irish!

If Not Now ... Then Hopefully Six Weeks From Now

It’s our biggest home game in 15 years and it means … well … nothing.  Being in a conference is so stupid.  I was okay with being a member of the ACC this season because of extraordinary circumstances, but I was wrong.  We should have just played as an independent.  We already had six ACC games scheduled and I’m sure we could have picked up like two more ACC opponents plus BYU and Army or a Big 12 team or two to put together a decent schedule.  But we’re in the ACC for the year and now we’re playing Clemson, but it means absolutely nothing because we should play them again in the ACC Championship Game and that’s the game that will matter (although I don’t know what would happen if we end up tied with Miami since we don’t play each other and we could both end up with our only loss coming against Clemson).  So being in a conference has turned the most important regular season in sports (college football) into the least important regular season in sports (college basketball).  But we’re playing the game and if we win, I’ll be pretty excited.  If we lose, whatever, but we have to win one of these games one of these days.

I did some research with the help of Alexander Bless’s Notre Dame Football Database and we are 8-16-1 all time against teams ranked number 1.  I was there for the last time we played the number 1 ranked team, the USC game in 2005, and we would have won if not for USC’s highly paid professional player Reggie Bush.  The last time we beat the number 1 ranked team was Florida State in 1993.  Lou Holtz was 3-1 against the number 1 ranked team with that win and wins against Miami in 1988 on the greatest day in the history of sports and a win against Colorado in the 1990 Orange Bowl.  His loss came the following year in a rematch against Colorado in the Orange Bowl by a score of 10-9 (from what I understand there was a terrible penalty call on a punt return that cost us).  Dan Devine was 1-1 against the number 1 ranked team and the win got us a National Championship when we beat Texas in the 1978 Cotton Bowl.  Ara Parseghian was 2-4 against number 1 ranked teams, but he won two out of his last three.  His last win against a number 1 ranked team got us a National Championship when we beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Eve in 1973 (and Alabama still claims that National Championship even though we were undefeated and we beat them).  Frank Leahy was 0-1-1 against number 1 ranked teams.  The tie was one of the classic college football games ever, a scoreless tie against Army in Yankee Stadium in 1946 (one of the many problems with college football’s overtime system is completely eliminating the possibility of a tie).  There were no polls during the season in Knute Rockne’s time.

We’ve played 23 teams who finished the season ranked number 1.  Of course, teams that finish the season ranked number 1 don’t lose much so it’s not surprising that we’re 1-22 against teams that finished ranked number 1.  But we should be 0-22 because the win came against Florida State in 1993 and we should have finished the season ranked number 1.  It’s been a long time since we played a number 1 ranked team, but it hasn’t been that long since we played a team that finished ranked number 1.  The National Championship Game against Alabama and the Cotton Bowl against Clemson were the last two games that we played against teams that finished ranked number 1.  Hopefully this year we won’t play the team that finishes ranked number 1 because hopefully it will be us.

To finish up my thoughts on college football, I was wrong.  I didn’t think they’d finish the season and it looks like they’re going to.  But it’s such a weird season.  Wisconsin will end up playing seven games if they’re lucky.  They might get through their coronavirus outbreak and not be the reason that any more games get cancelled, but they could have an opponent who has an outbreak and then have another game cancelled because of that.  But imagine you had Wisconsin go 7-0.  How do you judge them against a Notre Dame team that hypothetically went 11-1?  Of course, the more likely Big 10 playoff contender is Ohio State and that’s not a fun thought.  I’m glad that the Pac 12 is coming back because I get like 14 hours of football on Saturday now that we have Pac 12 After Dark again, but I didn’t need the Big 10 back at all (actually seeing Penn State lose to Indiana and Michigan lose to Michigan State was fun, hopefully those two have some more losses in them).  Other than not wanting the BIg 10 back, my attitude about this season was that I’d be thankful for whatever college football I could get.  I’m pretty much not holding anything that happens this season against Kelly.  But it would be nice if we could win this game and a major bowl if we’re going to be playing these games.

As for other sports, I’m reminded of what Rogers Hornsby said:  “People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”  That quote takes on new meaning this year.  We now have no sports other than football.  Although I hated everything about how the NBA season ended, I am looking forward to it coming back next month so that I have something to watch.  Congratulations to the Lakers on their 12th championship.  You’re thinking the Lakers have won 17 championships, but you’re wrong.  Five of them were won by the proto-Timberwolves.  It’s like how the Ravens were a new franchise when they moved from Cleveland to Baltimore.  The Minneapolis basketball team was replaced by the Timberwolves so the Lakers don’t get credit for those first five.  And the first one wasn’t even an NBA Championship.  It was a BAA Championship.  Giving the Lakers credit for that one is absurd.  And let us never forget that the Celtics hold an 8-3 lead over the Los Angeles Lakers in head to head matchups in the Finals (9-3 if you include the one time they played the proto-Timberwolves).

So if the Lakers only have 12 championships, that means the Dodgers only have six championships, right?  Wrong.  The Dodgers moved, but they were never replaced.  The NL had teams in Brooklyn and Manhattan and now they have a team in Queens.  The Mets don’t get to claim the championships won by the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants.  So that means I have to give the Giants credit for their five championships won in New York, which gives them one more than the Dodgers.  I can live with that.  You can’t say that I’m logically inconsistent.  So the Dodgers are one World Series Championship behind the Giants.  They’ll catch them soon.  They’ve retaken the lead in NL Pennants.  And they have won the NL West 11 more times than the Giants.  So yeah, Giants, congratulations on your World Series Championships in 1905, 1921, 1922, and 1933 that give you the lead over the Dodgers (this is the equivalent of Michigan’s head to head advantage over Notre Dame).  Since my father was born, it's been 7-4 Dodgers.

I have more baseball thoughts.  I had the idea of writing a blog post about Ken Burns’s Baseball documentary when live sports didn’t exist.  But then I started watching old games and that didn’t happen.  It might happen now, but we’ll see.  His Tenth Inning came out in 2010.  He’s talked about the possibility of doing an Eleventh Inning starting with Armando Galaraga’s perfect game that wasn’t.  I would love to see it.  A big part of the Eleventh Inning could be the story of the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw over the past decade.  And a big part of that would be the story of the Astros cheating and beating the Dodgers in 2017.  Fortunately there’s a happy ending to that story.  I hope we get to have a baseball season with fans.  I want to go to games again and the Astros are supposed to go to Dodger Stadium in August.  Ideally, I’ll be able to get out to Dodger Stadium and see how the renovations turned out (I already loved Dodger Stadium and the renovations that they did all seemed like good ways to improve the stadium).  The Dodgers are supposed to come to Citi Field in August for three games so hopefully I’ll be able to go to those (I would not rule out the possibility of going to all three to make up for not going to games in 2020).  I have the Lakers winning the championship as the worst thing in sports during the pandemic, but the second worst thing was the Astros not having to face the fans.  Hopefully next year Altuve, Springer, Bregman, Correa, Gurriel, and Reddick will get what they have coming to them.

It will be fun to have college basketball back.  We were so close to the NCAA Tournament last season when this all went down and there are very few things that I love as much as the NCAA Tournament (no NCAA Tournament was probably the third about sports during the pandemic).  I don’t have particularly high expectations for Notre Dame this year, but I just want to watch college basketball again.  In an ideal world, I’ll be able to get vaccinated and go to the Big East Tournament in March, but I’ll settle for just being able to watch the NCAA Tournament on TV.

In the NFL, the Jets have a quarterback from USC and they’re terrible.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Trevor Lawrence pulled a Peyton Manning and stayed in college to avoid playing for the Jets.  But the Patriots are bad so that’s fun, but Tom Brady winning games isn’t fun.  I haven’t been particularly motivated to watch the NFL this season, but Chase Claypool is having a terrific rookie season.  I wish the Jets had drafted him, but I guess I should be happy for him that they didn’t.

I just did some googling about the NHL and I can’t find any updated information about when it’s coming back.  How is there not a story from the Canadian media about this like every half hour?  I read a story in earlier in the week about the possibility of having the Canadian teams just playing each other because of border crossing issues.  I watched a little hockey when the NHL came back, but the Rangers weren’t around long and you had baseball, basketball, and college football that I was definitely more interested in with the Rangers done.  It’s too bad that Henrik Lunqvist never won the Stanley Cup.  He was a great goalie.  The Rangers have had a top two pick in the draft the last two years so hopefully they’re on their way back up.

Anyway, everything is still weird.  But the Dodgers won the World Series.  Hopefully I’ll look back at 2020 someday and say that’s when everything started going in the right direction again.