Quinn to Samardzija

There’s not much going on.  We’ve gone over a month without sports.  I’m trying to watch as many classic Notre Dame, Dodger, and Celtic games as possible.  Notre Dame has streamed games on the last four Saturdays on YouTube. This was the first one from my time as a student so it was time to break out the running diary.  It was UCLA at Notre Dame. Apparently we were favored by two touchdowns. UCLA came in at 4-2 and we were 5-1. I remember thinking we should win easily, but this would be my last opportunity to see a competitive game at Notre Dame Stadium as a student.  The only home games we had left after UCLA were North Carolina and Army teams that both finished 3-9. Here we go:

7:41- I put the game on just a little late.  It’s still the first minute of the game and the first play I see is a Darius Walker fumble recovered by UCLA.

7:42- Next we have offsides on Notre Dame and we get our first shot of Charlie Weis.

7:43- As they show the Notre Dame defensive starters, Tom Hammond just mentioned Ronald Talley quitting the team.  People make all sorts of shirts for Notre Dame football. My favorite one said “Play Like Ronald Talley Today” with a picture of him looking intimidating.  Unfortunately, he was not a very good player.

7:47- UCLA made a field goal, but a false start pushed it back five yards and then they missed.

7:49- David Grimes, or “Grimey” as he likes to be called, makes a catch, but he’s tackled short of the first down and Notre Dame goes three and out.

7:53- UCLA goes for it on fourth down on their side of the 50, but they’re stuffed on a quarterback sneak.

7:55- Brady Quinn just overthrew Rhema McKnight after faking the end around.  It would have been a touchdown.

7:57- On third and one Notre Dame lines up in a strange formation with Brady Quinn crouched directly behind the center and two gentlemen lined up behind Quinn in the backfield.  What year is this?

7:59- Quinn completes a play action pass on 4th and 1 to John Carlson for 24 yards.  That puts Quinn over 10,000 yards passing in his career. I lived in the same dorm as John Carlson.  He was also a history major so I had a few classes with him. I definitely didn’t know him well at all, but he seemed like a good guy.  He had a few nice years in the NFL. He scored 15 touchdowns in his career and made almost $15 million. I always rooted for him. Unfortunately he had to play for Pete Carroll for two years.

8:01- Quinn completes a play action pass to Jeff Samardzija in the back of the end zone and the extra point is good.  Notre Dame goes up 7-0.

8:03- Terrail Lambert picks off a pass.  It was a shaky start, but now we’ve got things going.

8:06- Or maybe not.  We go three and out.

8:11- I just checked the schedule of games Notre Dame has been showing.  This is the fourth week. I didn’t watch 2015 Texas, which was the first game.  That was a very fun game. I’ve watched the last three weeks. The second game was 1993 Florida State.  How was that not the first game? It showed how ridiculous Florida State getting voted National Champions that season was.  Our crime was that we lost later than they did. If we had lost early in the season, we win the National Championship. But we both finished with one loss and we beat them.  And we didn’t just beat them, we dominated that game. Yes, it was only seven points, but it wasn’t really that close. We were up by 14 and then Florida State scored a lucky touchdown on 4th and 20 with 1:39 left (it hit a Notre Dame safety in the hands and popped up right to a Florida State receiver).  And then we beat a very good team in a major bowl to finish the season. Then last week was the 1992 Penn State snow game. Next week is 2019 Virginia Tech. That’s a game that’s kind of similar to this one. But if I was making my list of games to show, this game and the Virginia Tech game would not have been too high on my list.  I assume they’ll keep doing this, but they haven’t announced anything beyond the Virginia Tech game. I’ll end this post with the games I would want to see that they haven’t shown yet.

8:15- UCLA just had their longest reception of the season for a wide receiver with a 54-yard catch and run for a touchdown.  The extra point is good and the game is tied early in the second quarter.

8:21- Brady Quinn just got sacked for a big loss and 2006 Heisman Trophy contender Geoff Price is on to punt.

8:27- Yeah, that one drive looked nice, but now we’re not moving the ball at all on offense.  Geoff Price is on to punt again.

8:28- And it’s a bad one.  UCLA will have good field position.

8:30- A guy who was a converted defensive lineman just scored on a long catch and run.  There was some bad tackling from Notre Dame on that play. The extra point is good and UCLA is up 14-7.

8:38- Brady Quinn sneaks for a first down on 4th and 1 near midfield.

8:40- We get a John Carlson montage and they compare Carlson in 2006 to Anthony Fasano in 2005 during a timeout.

8:42- Darius Walker comes up an inch or two short on 3rd and 2.

8:44- Brady Quinn sneaks for a first down.

8:46- Munir Prince is in the backfield.  If you’re a Notre Dame fan since the Charlie Weis days, I’ll let you make your own joke here.  The snap is fumbled, but we get it back.

8;48- We get a Brady Quinn montage.

8:49- Quinn takes the snap under center with an empty backfield on third down and tries to go straight up the middle, but he’s stopped.

8:50- We kick a short field goal on the last play of the half to make it 14-10.

8:52- I just realized that Kyle was on the team for this game.  I haven’t been paying attention to see if you can see him on the sideline at all.

8:53- Brady Quinn had 100 yards passing on 19 attempts in the first half.  It wasn’t a pretty half other than one drive.

9:01- Brady Quinn just pooch punted, but it went into the end zone.  I just looked up his stats and that was the second and final punt of his college career.  In 2005 he punted once for 48 yards.

9:02- UCLA fumbled the snap and Trevor Laws recovers it for Notre Dame.  I’ll always be grateful for Trevor Laws for being the one bright spot of the 2007 season.  We were terrible, but he was really good that year. I remember sitting at the Penn State game in 2007 with Wilhelm and the Penn State fans were commenting on how the PA guy kept calling his name.

9:06- We just missed a long field goal.  I need a beer. I’m drinking a Sam Adams Cold Snap.  When this all started, I figured out that I could ration my beer and make it last to the end of April.  I have several bottles of wine that I’ve gotten as gifts, but I don’t drink wine. I was hoping I could figure something out rather than starting to drink wine.  Of course, I could go out and buy beer, but I’ve been having all of the groceries delivered and I can’t get beer delivered from grocery stores. Local breweries do deliver, but I would have to order over the phone and they say they require age verification upon delivery.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t really check IDs these days, but I just wanted beer to show up at my house without interacting with another person. And then an ad showed up on Facebook for Beer Drop. They offer subscriptions where you pick styles that you like and then they send you a certain amount of beer of the styles that you like.  But you can also just browse the beers available and order whatever you want. It’s pretty expensive, but they do have some cheaper options. And it’s all craft beer so I’m assuming even the cheaper options are decent. So I ordered 12 beers. I got two expensive beers (they were 32 ounce cans, but still expensive) and the rest were cheap (the cheap ones were 12 ounce cans).  They’re supposed to be delivered this week. I really hope I can go out and buy some Summer Ale soon, but until then, I’ll rely on Beer Drop.

9:17- Jeff Samardzija just moved into 3rd place all time for receptions at Notre Dame.

9:19- Samardzija just had a nice catch and run that would have made it first and goal, but it is called back because of holding.

9:21- Because I didn’t remember what happened, I was ready to make fun of Charlie Weis for going for it on 4th and 6 when we were easily within field goal range, but Darius Walker catches a swing pass and gets a first down.

9:24- We settle for a field goal from 33 yards to make it 14-13.

9:37- Geoff Price punts again after Brady Quinn was sacked on third down.  Let’s just say that Notre Dame’s offensive linemen in the first decade of this century were not as good as their offensive linemen in the second decade of this century.

9:40- Tom Zbikowski got some good pressure on a blitz and forced an incomplete pass.  He was not returning punts in this game. Did he not do that in 2006? Because he was really good at it in 2005.

9:42- I just looked it up.  He returned 27 punts in 2005 and 16 in 2006.  He scored four defensive/special teams touchdowns in 2005 and two in 2006.

9:48- UCLA kicks a field goal to make it 17-13 with 7:19 left.

9:50- The clock was just running before the first play of the drive.  What up with that? I remember one year where there was a weird rule where the clock started as soon as the ball was kicked.  But the clock was always stopped before the first play of the drive, right?

9:51- Geoff Price punts again.  UCLA has a chance to put this game away with 6:05 left.

9:54- UCLA punts and Notre Dame takes over with 3:49 left.

9:55- Again, the clock started before the first snap with the drive.  What was going on here?

9:56- Brady Quinn picks up a first down on 3rd and 1 with a sneak.

9:58- Grimes makes a catch for nine yards on 3rd and 10 and then Brady Quinn is stopped on a sneak on 4th and 1.  UCLA takes over on downs with 2:20 to play.

10:00- We just took a timeout to keep the clock from starting.  Tom Hammond and Pat Haden just said something about a new rule starting the clock on a change of possession.  I don’t remember this at all.

10:01- UCLA gets nothing on a first down run.

10:03- It’s a gain of three on second down and we call our second timeout.

10:04- UCLA loses yards on third down.  Travis Thomas made the tackle. He was a running back who played linebacker in 2006.

10:05- I didn’t remember much about this game until this point.  I do remember UCLA taking a delay of game before punting and I remember saying to Greg in the student section that I thought it was dumb at the time (Pat Haden just said it was a good delay of game).  By taking a delay of game there, you’re saying that one second is more important than five yards. We needed a touchdown, you make us go as far as possible to get it.  Don’t give us five free yards.

10:07- We get called for holding on the punt and UCLA decides to punt again.

10:08- The second punt goes into the end zone and we take over on our own 20 with no timeouts left and 1:02 to play.  Quinn passes to Samardzija for 21 yards on the first play of the drive.

10:09- Grimes makes a catch for 14 on the next play.  We’re into UCLA territory.

10:10- On the third play of the drive, Quinn finds Samardzija around the 30 yard line and he takes it the rest of the way to give us the lead with 27 seconds left.  UCLA just gave up 80 yards in 35 seconds. That’s impressive.

10:12- This was the season where the clock started as soon as the ball was kicked.  I don’t remember it starting before the first play of the possession. UCLA runs one play, we get a sack, and the game is over.

Since they only have the rights to home games since the NBC contract started, here are the games I’d like to see that haven’t been shown yet.  I’ll put my top 10 choices in bold.

Lou Holtz Era

1992 Boston College- We were ranked 8th and they were ranked 9th and we won 54-7 (that’s exactly how things should be when we play Boston College).

1995 Texas- We were ranked 21st and they were ranked 13th and we won 55-27.

1995 USC- We were ranked 17th and they were ranked 5th and we spanked them 38-10.  There really aren’t that many interesting games from the Holtz/NBC era other than the two they’ve already shown.

Bob Davie Era

1998 Michigan- We were ranked 22nd.  And they were ranked 5th and we outscored them 30-7 in the second half and won 36-20.  Tom Brady was the quarterback and we sacked him thrice. Michigan fumbled four times and lost two, but the one box score I found didn’t indicate if any of those fumbles were by Brady.

Tyrone Willingham Era

2002 Michigan- We were ranked 20th and they were ranked 7th and we won 25-23.

2004 Michigan- We were unbanked and they were ranked 8th and we won 28-20.

Charlie Weis Era- the only reason that I have so many from the Weis Era is that it includes my years as a student.

2005 BYU- We won 49-23.  BYU wasn’t very good, but Brady Quinn and Maurice Stovall had huge games and this was my first home win as a student.

2005 Tennessee- We won 41-21.  Tennessee came into the season highly ranked, but they were unranked by the time of this game.  I just remember it being a fun game.

2006 Penn State- We were ranked 4th and Penn State was ranked 19th.   Won 41-17. We actually dominated more than that score makes it sound.  We thought we were on our way to a great season.

2006 Army- This was the legendary Kyle Charters game.  We won 41-9 in my last game as a student.

2008 Michigan- We were both unranked and we had a nice solid 35-17 win.  Let’s be honest, this wouldn’t be on the list if it wasn’t Michigan.

2009 Michigan State- We were both unranked and we won 33-30.  This game is famous for the Golden Tate Band Jump. Michigan State had been having way too much success against us and we beat them.

2009 Washington- We were both unranked (this was a theme after the first two years of the Weis Era) and we won 37-30 in overtime.  I was at this game and it was a fun one.

The Brian Kelly Era

2010 Utah- We were unranked and Utah was ranked 15th and we won 28-3.  Our season was not going well at all, but this turned it around and we had a nice finish to Kelly’s first year.

2010 Army- We were both unranked and we won 27-3.  Why is this game on here? It was Notre Dame and Army in Yankee Stadium.  I was there for the game and I just pretended that it was 1943, 1946, or 1947.  Also it was the last time that we didn’t wear ridiculous uniforms for the Shamrock Series.

2012 Michigan- We were ranked 11th and they were ranked 18th and we won 13-6.  It wasn’t the prettiest, but I was at this game and our defense was great and this is when I started dreaming in 2012. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2012/09/one-of-best-weekends-of-my-life.html

2012 Stanford- We were ranked 7th and they were ranked 17th and we won 20-13 in overtime after a goal line stand.  As far as I’m concerned, they can show the whole 2012 home schedule, but this one was a classic. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2012/10/another-great-saturday.html

2012 Pittsburgh- We were ranked 4th and they were unranked and we survived 29-26 in triple overtime.  I watched this game at a sports bar because I didn’t have cable after Hurricane Sandy. This one was not pretty at all and we probably should have lost, but I just had a feeling we’d find a way to win.

2012 Wake Forest- We were ranked 3rd and they were unranked and we beat them 38-0 on senior day.  This was a magical day. We won in the afternoon and then Kansas State and Oregon lost at night to vault us to number 1.  It was probably my favorite day as a Notre Dame football fan (I started rooting for Notre Dame when I went to college in 2002, but I didn’t become a serious fan until I transferred there so I wasn’t following in the Holtz glory days), but the fact that both Oregon and Kansas State lost meant that we had to play Alabama and not one of them for the National Championship. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2012/11/number-1.html

2013 Michigan State- We were ranked 22nd and they were unranked and we won 17-13.  We didn’t know it at the time, but that Michigan State team was really good.  They finished the season 13-1 and ranked number 3.

2014 Michigan- We were ranked 16th and they were unranked and we won 31-0 (but really 37-0).  This game was Brian VanGorder’s finest moment (and then he turned out to be a disaster.

2014 Stanford- We were ranked 9th and they were ranked 14th and we won 17-14 on a late Everett Golson to Ben Koyack touchdown pass on 4th and 11.  I was at this game and the weather was terrible, but it was awesome being there (that’s the last win I’ve been to at Notre Dame Stadium because I’ve only been to one football game on campus since then and that one definitely doesn’t make this list). https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-favorite-college-football-games.html

2015 USC- We were ranked 14th and they were unranked and we won 41-31.  The last USC game I went to was in 2013 and we won that one, but that was so ugly that it isn’t worth watching again.  This was a fun victory over USC.

2017 USC- We were ranked 13th and they were ranked 11th and we won 49-14.  I wish I was at that one.

2018 Michigan- We were ranked 14th and they were ranked 12th and we won 24-17 (but really it wasn’t that close).

2018 Stanford- We were ranked 8th and they were ranked 7th and we won 38-17.

2019 Navy- We were ranked 16th and they were ranked 23rd and we won 52-20.  I’ve been to more games against Navy than any other team (we’re supposed to play them in Ireland in August and that’s probably not going to happen but I was there when we played them in Dublin in 2012), but I wasn’t there for this one.  I figured I should have one Navy game on the list. This was the first time since 1963 that Navy came to Notre Dame stadium ranked (their last win over us before the winning streak that we never should have allowed to end in 2007).  They also finished ranked 20th. The only other time since 1963 that we hosted a Navy team that finished the season ranked was in 2017.

What if we could just rewatch any game regardless of what network it aired on?  I’m not going back before Ara Parseghian because you’re just not going to have good quality broadcasts available.  To simplify things, if it’s before I was born, I’m only considering National Championship seasons (with one exception).

The Ara Parseghian Era

1966 Purdue- We were ranked 8th and they were ranked 7th and we won 26-14.

1966 USC- We were ranked 1st and they were ranked 10th and we finished a National Championship season with a 51-0 win.

1973 USC- We were ranked 8th and they were ranked 6th and we won 23-14

December 31, 1973 Sugar Bowl vs. Alabama- We were ranked 3rd and they were ranked 1st and we won 24-23.  We both went into the game undefeated, we won, and Alabama still claims this as a National Championship.

The Dan Devine Era

1977 USC- We were ranked 11th and they were ranked 5th and we won 49-19 in the Green Jersey Game.

January 2, 1978 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas- We were ranked 5th and they were ranked 1st and we won 38-10 and vaulted ourselves to a National Championship.

January 1, 1979 Cotton Bowl vs. Houston- We were ranked 10th and they were ranked 9th and we won 35-34.  Joe Montana led us back from 22 points down in the fourth quarter in the Chicken Soup Game.

The Lou Holtz Era

1988 Michigan- We were ranked 13th and they were ranked 9th and we won 19-17.

1988 Miami- We were ranked 4th and they were ranked 1st and we won 31-30 on the greatest day of my life (I didn’t know it at the time).  Kirk Gibson hit his home run to win Game 1 of the World Series later that day.

1988 USC- We were ranked 1st and they were ranked 2nd (we were both undefeated) and we won 27-10 to finish the regular season.

January 2, 1989 Fiesta Bowl vs. West Virginia- We were ranked 1st and they were ranked 3rd (we were both undefeated) and we won 34-21 to wrap up the National Championship.

1989 Michigan- We were ranked 1st and they were ranked 2nd and we won 24-19 behind Rocket Ismail’s two kickoff returns for touchdowns.

January 1, 1990 Orange Bowl vs. Colorado- We were ranked 4th and they were ranked 4th and we won 21-6.  If Florida State won the National Championship in 1993, there’s a strong argument to be made that we deserved it in 1989.  Now we didn’t deserve it in 1989, but Florida State didn’t deserve it in 1993. The correct logic that prevented us winning it in 1989 was not used in 1993.

1990 Miami- We were ranked 6th and they were ranked 2nd and we won 29-20.

January 1, 1993 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas A&M- We were ranked 5th and they were ranked 4th and we won 28-3.

January 1, 1994 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas A&M- We were ranked 4th (absurd) and they were ranked 7th and we won 24-21.  Sadly, this is still our last major bowl win.

The Brian Kelly Era

2010 USC- We were both unranked and we won 20-16.  It was a good way to finish Brian Kelly’s first regular season and it was our first win against USC after losing eight straight against them.  Watching Robert Hughes run over USC defenders on the go ahead drive late in the fourth quarter is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I needed that win.

2012 Oklahoma- We were ranked 5th and they were ranked 8th and we won 30-13.  Manti Te’o was awesome. It was close until the fourth quarter. And it’s easily Brian Kelly’s best road win. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2012/10/some-probably-incoherent-thoughts-after.html

2012 USC- We were ranked number 1 and they were unranked and we won 22-13 to put us into the National Championship Game.  If it was like the old days when they just decided the National Champion after the regular season, we would have wrapped up a National Championship. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-great-weekend.html

January 1, 2018 Citrus Bowl vs. LSU- We were ranked 14th and they were ranked 16th and we won 21-17.  It was a solid bowl win against a good team, but it wasn’t a major bowl. Still, it’s our best bowl win in way too long.

2018 USC- We were ranked 3rd and they were unranked and we won 24-17 to make it to our first College Football Playoff.  It was an ugly first half, but it was a really good second half. Beating USC to finish an undefeated regular season is always good. https://yearofjim.blogspot.com/2018/12/playoffs-are-you-kidding-me.html

This has gotten very long.  Here’s a final ranking of the top 20 games I’d want to Notre Dame stream that they haven’t done already (1993 Florida State would have easily been in the top 5 on this list):

20. 1992 Boston College

19. 1995 USC

18. 2013 Michigan State

17. 2006 Penn State

16. 2014 Stanford

15. 1998 Michigan

14. January 1, 1994 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas A&M

13. 2017 USC

12. 2014 Michigan

11. 1988 Michigan

10. 2018 Michigan

9. January 2, 1978 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas

8. 2012 Oklahoma

7. 2012 USC

6. 1977 USC

5. 1966 USC

4. 2012 Stanford

3. 1988 USC

2. December 31, 1973 Sugar Bowl vs. Alabama

1. 1988 Miami

Hey, it’s Enrico Pallazzo!

I said I have an idea for a movie blog post.  Jon suggested a sports movie blog. That wasn’t my idea, but it was a pretty good one.  I don’t know how many movies I’m going to do. But if I was going to start, I had to start with my favorite movie of all time, which might be a baseball movie.  That’s right, I’m talking about The Naked Gun.  Is it a baseball movie?  I’ll give you my answer at the end of this post.

I took AP Literature as a senior in high school.  After the AP test, we had to do a movie project. When my brothers took the class, their friend’s project was him pretty much just fast forwarding to different scenes in a movie and showing them to the class (I think maybe it was Goodfellas, but I’m definitely not sure about that).  One of the other students in the class commented, “Why don’t you just show the whole movie?”  As you’ll see, this blog post is going to be a little like that.

The opening scene in Beirut is a solid start to the movie.  Arafat, Qaddafi, Gorbachev, Ayatollah Khomeini, Fidel Castro, are Idi Amin plotting against the United States.  But fortunately, Frank Drebin was a hero while on vacation. And they got this right. You had people who thought Gorbachev and Arafat were good guys.  Gorbachev obviously wasn’t as bad as Stalin, but he was trying to save communism. Fortunately he failed. And Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize. The guy was an actual terrorist and he won the Nobel Peace Prize. I am literally more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than he was and obviously I don't deserve one.

After the opening credits, we have Nordberg kind of dressed like he’s going to murder somebody, but no gloves.  When he goes to bust the guys on the I Love You, the one guy throws down his gun.  Nordberg gets shot and all sorts of other bad things happen to him.  I like the part where he leans against the wet paint. Why is there a wedding cake and a bear trap on the boat?  Nordberg had a 50/50 chance of living, but there’s only a 10% chance of that. He ended up at Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle.  And why was it called Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle? Because Ricardo Montalban was a devout Catholic and he objected to a much more crude joke name for the hospital.  Wikipedia says that St. John Paul the Great made him a Knight in the order of St. Gregory the Great, which is the highest honor that a Roman Catholic lay person can receive from the Church.

Frank succinctly summarized my feelings on the British monarchy with this line:  “For no matter how silly the idea of having a queen might be to us, as Americans we must be gracious and considerate hosts.”  There is absolutely no need for the monarchy anymore. Monarchies are stupid to begin with, but at least the king or queen once served a purpose.  Henry VIII and George III are two of my least favorite people in history, but at least they actually governed England.

I really enjoy the scene where Frank questions the guy on the dock.  He gives him $40 for information. The guy gives him the $40 back for information. Then he gives him another $20 and then borrows the $20 to give it to Frank.  So Frank made $20 and the guy owes him another $20. That’s some quality police work.

In the meeting between Ludwig and Drebin, we learn that Frank doesn’t smoke Cuban cigars.  I approve. Ludwig has a pen that is impervious to everything except for water? What good is that?  But it was a gift from the Emperor Hirohito and it’s value is “beyond estimation.” Also it serves the same function as a pen that I could get for 8 cents on Amazon.  I get why some things are valuable, but not others. A pen is a pen. I don’t get why people would spend a ton of money on a car. My Honda Civic is a nice car and it gets me from place to place just like cars that are twice as expensive (or much more than that).  If I was rich, I’d drive a Honda Civic and use pens that cost 8 cents. Cars are cars and pens are pens. But not all seats at a baseball game are the same. Not all beers are the same. Not all seats on an airplane are the same. I get spending more money when you’re getting something of value for the extra money you spend (like a better seat or a better beer).

How does Ludwig’s sensory-induced hypnosis work?  He presses a button and then somebody is determined to kill a particular person?  This is not explained. I don’t care. It’s still a great movie.

John Houseman plays a driving instructor in the car chase scene.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear him say the name Alec Berg. Apparently this was his last movie.  He died in October 1988 and the movie came out in December.

We get an 80s movie montage with “I’m Into Something Good.”  Yes! The 80s were the best. I wish I could remember the decade.  I do have some very vague 80s memories. My memories mostly involve baseball.  I remember the Dodgers winning the World Series in 1988 and I remember the earthquake in 1989.  Other than that, I think the only other 80s memory I have is going to Ohio in 1988. Ronald Reagan was president until I was five years and 11 days old, but George H.W. Bush is the first president that I can remember being president.  Notre Dame went undefeated and won the National Championship in 1988, but my first very vague college football memory is Notre Dame beating Penn State in the snow in 1992. But man, 1988 was a good year. The Cold War was coming to an end, Dodgers won the World Series, Notre Dame won the National Championship in football, and The Naked Gun came out (unfortunately the Lakers winning the NBA Championship knocks it down to like a 96 out of 100).

“When l see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in a park, l shoot the bastards.  That's my policy.” I mean, that is a pretty good policy.

The scene with the reception for the queen is excellent.  Frank searching the guy but actually going through Ed’s jacket pockets is awesome.  And to commemorate our friendship, the city of Los Angeles presents the royal family with a Revolutionary War musket.  Maybe the Brits could put that in a nice display case near the George Washington statue in London to remind them of who won the war.

The baseball scenes start with establishing shots outside the stadium and of the stands.  The DVD commentary says that the shot outside the stadium was Angel Stadium, which I didn’t recognize (it was pre-renovation and I was there long after the renovation).  The stands they use are Wrigley Field. But why do they have an Angels game in the movie? If the queen was visiting Los Angeles, she wouldn’t be going to Anaheim (which is not in Los Angeles) to see the Angels.  I was thinking maybe the Dodgers wouldn’t let them use the Dodgers, but they let them use the stadium so why wouldn’t they let them use the team? Maybe it’s because they wanted to use Reggie Jackson for the movie. Reggie Jackson’s last year was 1987 with Oakland.  But he was an angel from 1982-1986 so maybe it was more believable to have him on the Angels in 1988 than it would have been to have him on the Dodgers (he was mostly a DH the last few years of his career so he couldn’t do that for the Dodgers, but of course he plays right field in the movie).

The broadcast booth is Curt Gowdy, Jim Palmer, Tim McCarver, Dick Vitale, Mel Allen, my birthday buddy Dick Enberg, and Dr. Joyce Brothers.  Why no Vin Scully? The best broadcast booth that I’ve ever heard is just Vin Scully. Of course, for the comedy you should have all those other guys.  But how do they not get Vin Scully also?

I wrote the previous two paragraphs without doing any research other than watching the movie with and without commentary. This article has some answers to my questions. The Dodgers said they didn’t want to participate because of the brawl. That was a bad decision. It says that Vin Scully loved Airplane! and wanted to be in the movie, but the Dodgers didn’t let him (but the Dodgers didn’t recall not letting Vin participate).

I love the guys sitting in the queen’s box.  They paid just as much for those seats as the queen did.  So why does the queen get to sit there?

Enrico Pallazzo is clearly not the same size as Frank Drebin.  How does his tuxedo fit Frank perfectly? Was there another random tuxedo in the dressing room?

Frank singing the national anthem is a fantastic scene.  You have the terrible singing of the wrong words, the police shuffling out onto the field with their hands over their hearts, and Enrico Pallazzo tied up in his dressing room.

The bloopers are classic.  You have a guy getting hit by a car, a guy mauled by a tiger, and a guy losing his head trying to take away a home run in center field at Dodger Stadium.

The first pitch by the queen is from the stands.  That’s the way ceremonial first pitches used to be done.  William Howard Taft was the first president to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game in 1910.  But Ronald Reagan was the first president to throw out the first pitch from the mound. Of course, George W. Bush threw out the greatest first pitch of all time before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series.

When Frank gets hit with the bat and stumbles all the way back to the backstop.  He would have been stumbling for a long time before they took all that foul territory and filled it with seats at Dodger Stadium.

We get a second 80s movie montage with “I Love LA!”  It’s fantastic. And I love that song so much when I hear it at the end of a Dodger game and hate it so much at the end of a Laker game.  And every time I go to Los Angeles, I have to listen to it (of course, I’ve never gone there to see the Lakers).

How does Frank meet with Ed as an inning is going on?  Ed says there’s only one more out until the seventh inning stretch.  I suppose it could have been a pitching change.

When Frank calls the guy safe at home, the catcher goes nuts.  You could make a case that he’s not out. He might not have tagged him with the correct ball.  When the other umpires start arguing with Frank, how do they not realize that Frank is some random guy and not one of the umpires on their crew?  You can make your own Joe West joke here because he’s one of the umpires.

Reggie Jackson must kill the queen.  But the queen’s life is saved. The woman who fell on Reggie Jackson violated the laws of physics.  She fell at an angle that was not at all perpendicular to the ground.

It seems that the umpire saved the queen’s life.  But that’s not the umpire. And that leads to the greatest line in the history of movies:

When Ludwig takes Jane at gunpoint and goes to the top deck, that happens very quickly.  It would take a long time to get from the field level to the top deck at Dodger Stadium. When Ludwig falls, he probably wouldn’t have been killed by the fall.  Although it’s from the upper deck, Dodger Stadium is built into a hill so the fall isn’t that far. I was thinking about this and the woman who falls on Reggie Jackson the first time I took the Dodger Stadium tour (the link is from the last time I took the tour, the first time I took the tour was before the blog was around).  Of course, then he gets run over by a steamroller and the USC band. What happens to Frank’s chest protector? Why does it look like it was deflated or something? It looked normal, then we get the “Two can play at that game line,” and then it looked all weird.  The DVD commentary actually answers this question. There was a gag that they took out that would have explained it, but people didn’t think it was funny. So there it is. When Frank is talking to Jane, why can the whole stadium hear what they’re saying? I get that they have a camera up there, but are they wearing microphones?  But the good news is that Nordberg is going to be on his feet and as good as new in a week.

So is it a baseball movie? I used to listen to a baseball contest and the topic of what makes a movie a baseball movie came up.  One of the guys had a very low bar to clear for a movie to be a baseball movie. This would easily qualify. Here’s the case for this as a baseball movie.  The last 22 minutes of the movie take place at a baseball game in an actual Major League Baseball stadium. There are baseball jokes. You have real baseball teams and some real players.  Reggie Jackson plays an important role. My verdict would be that it’s not a baseball movie. The subject of the movie isn’t baseball. I think you could not be a baseball fan at all and still like this movie.  But if you’re not a baseball fan, you definitely won’t like Major League and you probably won’t like Field of Dreams (but there are probably a lot of non-baseball fans who like A League of Their Own and that’s definitely a baseball movie).  I would say it’s a police movie. While a decent portion of the movie has to do with baseball, the whole movie is about police officers.  Whatever it is, it’s an all time great movie (and it won zero Oscars, which just illustrates why I don’t care one bit about award shows which are incredibly stupid). You wouldn't expect my favorite movie to involve O.J. Simpson, the queen of England, and the USC marching band, but that's how good this movie is.

No Sports and No Beer Make Jim Something Something

The good news is I still have beer.  I can drink about two or three per week and that will get me through April (ordinarily I’d probably drink about 4-8 in a week).  Then I’ll have to start drinking all the wine that I’ve been given as gifts over the years and never drank because I don’t like wine.  That would last me through the middle of June. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Of course, I could go out and buy more beer, but I haven’t been going out at all other than to take walks.  I’ve been getting everything delivered, but I can’t get beer delivered from grocery stores. I might be able to get it delivered from local breweries.

Anyway, I’ve been around for over 36 years now and this has to be the weirdest time of my life.  It will end, but we have no idea when. The numbers in Italy have started to get better, but they’re far from being out of the woods and we’re a couple of weeks behind them.  Hopefully things will turn soon here and warmer weather will get rid of this thing and there won’t be a second wave. But there’s no way to know yet if any of that will happen.

So I haven’t blogged since November when I went to the Notre Dame-Duke game.  The world was so much simpler then. Anyway, we’re about three months into 2020 and I’ve been to one sporting event this year.  It was the NBA G-League for the Long Island Nets against the Maine Red Claws at Nassau Coliseum. Carsen Edwards scored 33 and Tacko Fall had 16 points and 14 rebounds.  The G-League has the silly rule where you only shoot one foul shot and it counts for however many foul shots you would have gotten. So a foul shot could be one, two, or three points.  It’s a terrible rule, but it’s the G-League so whatever (it’s not as bad as starting extra innings with a runner at second, but it’s bad). I think they use regular rules with foul shots in the last couple of minutes of the game.

I was supposed to go to the Big East Tournament this month.  I had tickets for the last three nights. There was a good chance of seeing Villanova against Seton Hall in the second semifinal game on Friday night, which would have been awesome.  The winner of that game would have most likely played Creighton or Providence in the championship game, which also would have been great. I had Kyle, Vinny, and my dad lined up to go to the games with me.  On the Sunday before the Big East Tournament, the CDC said that people over 60 should avoid large crowds. I told my dad that he shouldn’t go and as much as I wanted to go to the final, I decided that I was most likely just going to sell both tickets for that night.  By the end of the next day, I had decided that I wasn’t going at all. Of course, they started the Big East Tournament. They had Wednesday night and they started Thursday afternoon without fans. My tickets were Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. So as it turned out, none of the sessions that I had tickets for were played.

Losing the Big East Tournament was disappointing enough, but then the NCAA Tournament was cancelled.  They had announced that they were going to play without fans, but once the NBA shut down the season and all the conference tournaments got cancelled, I knew the NCAA Tournament wasn’t happening.  College basketball is definitely behind baseball and college football on the list of sports I pay attention to. It’s definitely ahead of the NFL now. Whether I care about it more or less than the NBA pretty much depends on how the Celtics and Notre Dame are doing.  If they’re both good, I probably care about the NBA a little more. Of course, this year the Celtics were good and Notre Dame looked like a decent NIT team. But even when college basketball is behind the NBA on the list of sports I care about, there are few things I enjoy in sports as much as college basketball in March.  I had a streak of 10 straight years of taking the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament as a personal day so that I can watch 12 hours of college basketball without any distractions (actually I attended the tournament on that Friday in 2013 and 2016). I was set to continue that streak this year. Instead I was working as a teacher from home.

Of course, all sports are shut down right now.  Bill Simmons said something about how he’s heard that the NBA has to get their season done by Labor Day.  If that’s the case, I’m hopeful that the NBA will have their playoffs this year. But I won’t be too broken-hearted if it doesn’t happen.  The Celtics are pretty good, but I don’t think they’re a legitimate championship contender yet. I think there’s a chance they could beat anybody, but I don’t have confidence in them to win four straight series against at least three good teams (they’d have Philadelphia in the first round who isn’t that good, but they’re a bad matchup for the Celtics).  I would say the Lakers would have a better chance of winning the championship than the Celtics and as we know, the Lakers winning the championship would be worse than not having a champion.

Last Thursday was supposed to be Opening Day in baseball.  I did the best I could to make it a good day. I’ve gotten into a routine where I take a walk late in the afternoon.  I moved that up to the early afternoon so that I could watch the Dodgers and Giants on Opening Day in 2013 on MLB Network.  My dad and I were at that game because it was during my Easter vacation and I had never been to an Opening Day so I wanted to go.  I’ve probably been to somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 baseball games in my life. That was my favorite game that I’ve been to.  Clayton Kershaw shut out the Giants. He was due to lead off the bottom of the eighth and it was scoreless. I figured they’d pinch hit for him.  But no, they let him hit. And he hit his first (and so far only) career home run. The Dodgers tacked on three more runs and Kershaw finished the shutout.  So on what was supposed to be Opening Day I watched the game, ate peanuts, drank a Sam Adams Chocolate Bock (not really a baseball beer, but it’s probably my favorite beer), and then made myself hot dogs.  They only allotted two hours for the game so they cut out the Dodgers hitting in the bottom of the second and the bottom of the sixth. It’s quite possible that I’ve never seen the bottom of the second of that game.  I definitely got a beer at that game. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss Kershaw pitching and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the first at bat for the Dodgers. So the bottom of the second seems like a probable time for me to have gone for a beer.

I was supposed to have my annual Easter vacation trip coming up.  I was going to go to minor league games in Louisville and Wichita (it was going to be the second home game ever for the Wichita Wind Surge) and then I was going to get to two games at the newly renovated Dodger Stadium.  Why Louisville and Wichita? Why not? I’ve pretty much only driven through Kentucky and Kansas so I would have added them to my lists of states where I’ve spent the night and where I’ve seen sports. The two Dodger games I was going to go to were Dollar Dodger Dog Night and Friday Night Fireworks.  I’ve done Friday Night Fireworks twice before (2017 and 2019) and you get to go on the outfield grass so that’s pretty awesome. But that’s not going to happen. I had also thought about going to see the Dodgers in May in Kansas City because I’ve only been to one game in Kansas City, that stadium is awesome, and the Dodgers so rarely play there.  The Dodgers are supposed to be playing in New York in late May. The Astros are supposed to play the Mets in early June and I wanted to go and boo them. We’ll see if baseball is happening by late May/early June. I was also hoping to get to the new Rangers stadium this year, but that’s very much up in the air. As for a non-sports trip, I was thinking about taking a trip to Rome/the Vatican (and Poland) this summer.  Hopefully Italy will open for business by then, but yeah, that trip isn’t happening this year. I haven’t given up on getting to a Dodger game or two in Los Angeles, but it’s probably a long shot at this point.

There are lots of questions about baseball.  When will the season start? How many games will be played?  What happens to the All Star Game? How late can the season go?  I have some thoughts. I have no idea when the season will start, but I hope they play at least 100 games.  I think they’re just going to have to remake the schedule. There’s been talk of doubleheaders on Sundays. I’m down with that.  Let’s say they can play a 108 game season. Here’s what I would want to see. You do away with interleague play, you play everybody in your division 12 times (48 games), and you play everybody in the other divisions six times (60 games).  There’s one big problem with that. You have 15 teams in each league, which means that you can’t get rid of interleague play without having at least one team off in each league each day. So let’s try this again. You redo the interleague opponents so that you just have the East playing the East, Central playing the Central, and West playing the West.  You play one team from the other league four times and the other four teams from the other league three times for a total of 16 interleague games. You play the teams in your division 10 times (two five-game series with a doubleheader in each series) and you still play the teams in the other divisions in your league six times. So that would be 116 games.  As for the All Star Game, I hope it happens. It’s supposed to be at Dodger Stadium and it hasn’t been played there in 40 years. Next year’s All Star Game is in Atlanta and 2026 is in Philadelphia, but I don’t think any other All Star Game hosts have been picked yet. So you could just put the 2022 All Star Game in Los Angeles. But I have another idea (which isn’t entirely serious, but I like it a lot).  The season might have to go deep into November. You can’t be playing night games in the Bronx or Cleveland or Minnesota in mid-late November. So we just award all seven games of the World Series to a neutral site like they do with the Super Bowl. And since the All Star Game was supposed to be played at Dodger Stadium and you can play night games there in mid-late November, we play all the World Series games at the hopefully not so neutral site of Dodger Stadium.

So yeah, I would be crushed if baseball didn’t happen.  It would really hurt if I was denied the chance to see Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts play in the same outfield (and Betts is a free agent after this year) and another opportunity for Clayton Kershaw to win a World Series.  And by the way, I haven’t blogged since the whole Astros cheating scandal came out. Clayton Kershaw has had his struggles in the postseason, but he was great in the 2017 postseason except for his one start in Houston. The Dodgers won his first four starts in that postseason.  He wasn’t great in the first start, but he was good enough. In his next three, he pitched 18 innings allowing four runs on 10 hits and four walks with 20 strikeouts. In the World Series, he pitched 11 innings at Dodger Stadium and allowed one run on five hits and two walks with 15 strikeouts.  The start in Houston when they were illegally stealing signs (it can be done legally, but that’s not what the Astros were doing) was a total disaster. Like I said, Kershaw has had bad playoff performances, but for the Astros to never swing and miss on a breaking ball in that game tells you everything you need to know about what was going on there.  Kershaw and the Dodgers were cheated out of that World Series. If not for the Astros cheating, the Dodgers win that series in five or six. It would be an absolute travesty if Kershaw ended his career without winning a World Series. Hopefully this year is the year. By the way, it’s interesting how the Astros cheating scandal cost three different managers their jobs, but the Patriots get caught cheating multiple times and everybody talks about how great Bill Belichick is.  And also by the way, I guess I’m glad Tom Brady went to Tampa Bay. I will still hate the Patriots. I already disliked the Buccaneers because of Jameis Winston, but now I might have to put more effort into disliking them because they might be better (but hopefully Tom Brady is just over the hill and they won’t be good).

We’re not going to have the Olympics this summer, which isn’t fun.  But if you gave me NBA playoffs this summer and the Olympics next summer, that would be a pretty good deal (NBA Summer League in Las Vegas was another thing I at least thought about going to, but I doubt that’s happening this summer and I’d rather have the playoffs than the Summer League anyway).  It would also shorten the gap between the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. I’m not going to talk about the future of football right now.  I’m not 100% convinced that the season will be played entirely as scheduled, but I’m hoping that we’ll be past all this in time for football. I am hoping to see Notre Dame at Lambeau Field in October so I hope everything is good with football.

So yeah, I’m two weeks into spending pretty much all of my time at home.  So my time has been spent working at home, some light weight lifting, going for walks, listening to podcasts, and watching the Office and Parks and Rec.  I’ve seen every episode of the Office multiple times (I’m not up to season 8 yet, usually I just skip season 8 entirely and most of season 9 because it’s pretty bad after Steve Carrell left until the last few episodes, but I’ll watch everything this time), but this is the first time I’m watching Parks and Rec.  It’s good, but it’s not the Office. I might have to start rewatching some movies and perhaps do a movie blog post at some point. I’ve had a movie blog post in mind for a long time that I’ve never gotten around to, but I don’t make any promises.

I hope everybody is doing okay.  I’m really looking forward to when life gets back to normal and I can just go back to being mad at the Astros for cheating.  They deserve the reaction they were going to get from fans on the road this year and I hope they don’t miss out on that.

Mike Brey Used to Coach at Duke

My second attempt to attend a Notre Dame football game this season went much better than the first.  In September, I didn’t make it to Notre Dame for the Virginia game.  For this trip, I had my first experience with the Newark airport.  It wasn’t too bad, but JFK is easily the best of the New York City airports.  My flight was delayed about an hour, but it only arrived a half hour late.  So that was much better than being canceled.

I had this game marked down as a game I wanted to go to.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a true road game.  I’ve seen a bunch of neutral site games.  I’ve seen Navy home games against us in Baltimore in 2008, the Meadowlands in 2010 (that was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had at a Notre Dame game), Dublin in 2012, and Landover in 2014.  I saw a Syracuse home game against us in the Meadowlands in 2014.  I’ve seen Notre Dame home games in the Shamrock Series in Yankee Stadium in 2010 and 2018, Landover in 2011, Jerryworld in 2013, and Fenway Park in 2015.  And I’ve been to bowl games in Miami after the 2012 season and Yankee Stadium in 2013.  But I’ve only been to a few games at another school’s regular home stadium.  My first college football game was at Pittsburgh in 2005 (which is an NFL stadium, not on campus).  We went to Georgia Tech in 2006.  We won both of those (the Pittsburgh game was a lot of fun, Georgia Tech was a win that was closer than it should have been).  The only one I’ve been to since I graduated was Penn State in 2007.  That season was a disaster.  I flew to Cleveland and got picked up by my friends who were on their way to the game from Notre Dame.  Here’s what I remember about that game.  It was Jimmy Clausen’s first start.  Darrin Walls returned an interception for a touchdown.  Trevor Laws was great (I remember Penn State fans sitting near Wilhelm and me commenting about how the PA guy kept calling his name because he was making so many tackles).  What I didn’t remember was that Walls’s touchdown gave us the lead (we lost 31-10, I didn’t remember being up 7-0).  Tom Zbikowski returned a punt for 47 yards.  We had 0 yards rushing as a team (-25 on 10 carries for Clausen and 25 on 16 carries for the rest of the team).  And we won the turnover battle 3-1.

So I’ve been wanting to go to an away game on another school’s campus for a while.  I considered going to Virginia in 2015 at the last minute.  Sean was still living in northern Virginia, but he was not around that weekend.  I think I briefly considered going to the Temple game that year, but that didn’t happen.  I wanted to go to Boston College in 2017, but John’s daughter was due to be born that week.  Last year I had a hotel room near Northwestern, but I canceled it because I didn’t win tickets in the lottery and I couldn’t rope any my friends into going.  This year I wanted to get to Duke.  Tom and Erin are living in the area again so I had a place to stay.  I had never been to Duke so that was something to do.  It was really easy to get tickets.  General admission seats were really cheap.  I’m talking like what I paid per game for student tickets back in 2005 and 2006 cheap.  I could have gotten good seats for like $75, but I just went the cheap route.

This was my view for the first three quarters.

On Saturday, I went out for lunch at Backyard BBQ Pit.  It was on Man vs. Food.  I got the pulled pork with baked beans and mac and cheese.  It was pretty good, but not as good as I was expecting.  I used to work with a guy who made pulled pork and his was at least as good as theirs.  After going back to Tom and Erin’s place for a bit, Tom and I went to campus.

It wasn't quite as good as I was expecting, but I would definitely have it again.

The game day experience is very different at Duke from what I’m used to at Notre Dame.  We got there a little before 3:00.  There weren’t that many people walking around campus.  Also you can easily find tons of information online about all the things to do and see on campus at Notre Dame for game day.  Duke didn’t have much information.  I did see that there was a Duke Basketball Museum that was free and right next to Cameron Indoor Stadium.  What were the hours?  Could you go inside Cameron?  That was all unclear.  Anyway, it’s a small museum and we checked it out quickly.  For some unknown reason, they didn’t have an exhibit on former Duke assistant coach Mike Brey (the only interesting thing about Duke basketball).  I was reminded of the 2014-2015 season.  Duke won the National Championship, but we beat them two out of three times.  We came so close to beating Kentucky and if we had, we were legitimately good enough to win it all.  I asked a guy working there if we could go into Cameron and he said there was practice that was scheduled until 5:00 and they would have tours after that, but practice might go late.  So I had thought about going to Mass near campus (there were 5:00 and 5:30 options at two Catholic churches).  But I had to take advantage of an opportunity to see Cameron (don’t worry, I was back on Long Island in time for a 10:30 Mass at Holy Family on Sunday).  After leaving the museum, we went to see if we could go inside Cameron.  The doors weren’t locked so we walked in.  They were doing tours so we got on line.  But indeed, there was a practice so we didn’t see much.  They just told us about the history or the building and Duke athletics, but we didn’t get to go into the seating area.  And the tour ended at the museum, which we had already seen.  So we went to a hotel on campus.  There was a bar and TVs.  I had a Red Oak Amber from Whitsett, North Carolina, which was pretty good.  We went back to Cameron and got in line for a tour a little after 4:30.  The line was longer so we had to wait a bit.  I think we were the first tour that went in after 5:00.  Volleyball practice was still going on.  We got to the end of the tour and our tour guide held us up for a bit and waited for practice to be over.  So we did get to see inside.  If we didn’t, I was ready to get back on line and do the tour for a third time.  There was a free volleyball game the next day, but I had an early morning flight.  It would be cool to see Notre Dame play Duke in basketball there, but our February game is sold out and the cheapest tickets on Stubhub are almost 20 times more expensive than what I paid for football tickets.  I guess women’s basketball might have been a more realistic option (by the way, Duke has had some success in women’s basketball, but they haven’t won any ACC women’s tournaments since we joined the conference).  Anyway, it’s a really old-looking gym.  Google says that it holds 9,314 people, which is 165 more people than Purcell Pavilion.  But it’s much more tightly packed because Purcell held over 11,000 before renovations.  After that we went back to the hotel bar because it was cold.  Between our two stops at the bar, I saw a decent amount of the LSU-Alabama game.  When it was about 6:45, I headed to the stadium and Tom headed home.

Mike Brey used to work in this building.

Notre Dame beat Duke in volleyball on this court in October.

The lighting isn't great, but that's the best we could do.

Wallace Wade Stadium opened in 1929.  It holds 40,004, which is slightly more than half of Notre Dame Stadium’s capacity.  It had kind of a minor league baseball feel to it.  It was small and all the concourse and all the concessions were located above the seating area.  It was cool to see a game there, but there was no atmosphere.  It wasn’t loud at all.  Duke fans didn’t seem too excited.  In the general admission seats were I was, there were definitely more Notre Dame fans than Duke fans.  One interesting thing about Wallace Wade Stadium is that the 1942 Rose Bowl was played there.  It was just weeks after Japan’s attack on Oahu and they were worried about an attack on the west coast.  The Rose Bowl was supposed to be Duke against Oregon State so Duke offered to host it.  Duke was undefeated and ranked 2nd, but they were upset by Oregon State (Oregon State’s only Rose Bowl victory).  This game was not particularly exciting.  We won 38-7.  Ian Book ran very well, and threw four touchdown passes, but he only had 181 yards passing on 32 attempts and he threw two interceptions (one was a fourth down where he threw deep and Duke would have been better off just letting fall to the ground because it hurt their field position so whatever).  Brian Kelly continues to take the ball when we win the coin toss which makes no sense whatsoever.  We outgained Duke 469-197 so that was good.  Chris Finke played his best game of the season so that was nice.  We threw the ball downfield a decent amount, but our receivers just don’t get separation on deep routes.  Our hope is Chase Claypool making great catches or getting pass interference calls.  I mean, both of those things did happen in this game (Claypool had five catches for 97 yards and Duke was called for pass interference three times), but it would be nice to just get some guys open down the field.  We could have been in much better position going into halftime.  We were up 21-0, but we couldn’t score again.  A bad punt led to Duke’s touchdown.  After Ian Book's first interception, Duke had the ball at the end of the half with a chance to make it a one-possession game, but they missed a field goal.  If they had scored a touchdown there, they would have had all the momentum, but I felt fine after they missed the field goal.  And then we dominated the second half.  So that was cool.  The stadium really emptied out and I moved to the 50 yard line for the fourth quarter.

This was my view for the fourth quarter.

It was maybe 10% full by the end of the game.

It was quite cold.  The box score lists the temperature at 35°.  The coldest game I’ve ever been to was Syracuse in 2008, when it was 27°.  That game was miserable (more because of our performance than the weather), but Manti Te’o visited from Hawaii and somehow still decided to come to Notre Dame.  The coldest game I had been to since then was Stanford in 2014.  It was October 4, but it was only 41°.  In 2014, Kyle and I saw Notre Dame play hockey at Fenway Park when it was around 25°.  The good news for this game was that there was no wind.  I was pretty good in the first half of this one, but the second half was really cold.  This was the first win that I’ve seen in person without Notre Dame wearing really silly uniforms since Navy in 2014 (my other wins since then are Boston College in 2015 and Syracuse last year).  Notre Dame is now 31-12 with me in attendance and 10-1 since I was at the loss against Oklahoma in 2013.  Who was the loss against?  Duke in 2016.  That season was so stupid.

I finished my day by going to Timeout in Chapel Hill.  It was also on Man vs. Food.  I had the chicken and cheddar biscuit, which was featured on the show.  It was quite good.

This was much bigger than the Chick-fil-A biscuits.

I don’t know when I’ll get to another true away game.  Next year we only play two (Pittsburgh and USC) because we have a bunch of neutral site games.  The USC game is a possibility, but that’s Thanksgiving weekend so traveling across the country is not ideal, but I wouldn’t rule it out.  I would like to see us play USC out there, but it probably depends on what Sean and Catherine are doing for Thanksgiving.  In 2021, we play at Virginia.  That would be a cool place to see a game.  Boston College and North Carolina would be on my list of places to get to (I’m thinking of how easy places are to get to, if I have a place to stay, and how difficult tickets will be to get).

We have three more regular season games.  If we win them all, we have a chance to make the Cotton Bowl or the Orange Bowl, but we’re going to need some teams ahead of us to lose.  My guess is that we won’t move up enough to make one of those (we’d probably have to be in the top ten because two of the twelve spots in the New Years Six are likely to be taken by teams way outside in the top ten with an ACC team other than Clemson in the Orange Bowl as long as Clemson makes the playoff and the Group of Five team taking one Cotton Bowl spot).  Our next options are the Citrus Bowl (we can go there only if a Big Ten team makes the Orange Bowl) or the Camping World Bowl (which should really be our worst case scenario, but might be our most likely scenario right now).  Go Irish!