Week 2 (2012): Curb Your Enthusiasm. And Expectations.

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It's an area which we call the 'A' Lot... " 

Conventional wisdom says that team's make their greatest jump in improvement between Games #1 and #2. So what are we to conclude, then, about the Irish (and their leadership) after Saturday?

*  "They rock!" (Periodically.)
*  "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
*  "This a marathon, not a sprint..."

I do know, factually speaking:

1. Senior captain Kapron-Lewis Moore didn't play a down after the 1st series.
2. Senior leader of the secondary Jamoris Slaughter didn't play the entire 2nd Half.
3. Senior captain Tyler Eifert didn't play after 11:20 left in the 4th Quarter.
4. Kyle Brindza was Kickoff Guy, not Mr. Field Goal, until shortly before the game (also due to injury.)
5. Everett Golson was playing his 2nd game involving live action since 2010.

But so what?  From the post-game chatter it would seem the masses wanted... expected... something more. A lot more.  Like "return to Holtzian Era glory right-freaking-now" more.

And always, it seems Brian... and Tommy... are at the center of the discussion.

What’s The Frequency, Brian?  

Personally, I thought I saw a lot of good Saturday.  But it's fair to wonder, this being Year 3 of the Kelly Reign of Terror... with play call communication difficulties still on-going, an offense that behaved nothing like what was seen in Dublin, questionable 4th quarter play calling and potential indecision regarding who, exactly, is the The Man at quarterback...

What's The Plan here, coach?!  A few possible clues:

               Strategist                                                  Cunning Plan

Sun Tzu	Mr. “The Art of War” himself advocated ‘pretend inferiority and encourage your opponents’ arrogance…’ Notre Dame's plan, apparently, for the past 20 years.  Flawlessly executed, I'll give them that.
King Lear	“We will do such things… what they are yet, we know not. But they shall be the Terrors of the Earth…” Loosely translated:  "I’ve got a plan... kinda ‘loosey goosey’and  It. Is. BAD ASS!   Sadly,  I’ll be buggered if I'm gonna tell you.  You're just going to have to... trust me.  :)
Our Man In Havana	Graham Green’s protagonist is recruited by British Intelligence to be their Cuban ‘eyes on the ground’. Flying by the seat of his pants, he totally fabricates all his spying, almost getting himself killed in the process.  But everything turns out a-ok in the end, including scoring the girl. Implication:  Making it up as you go along Just. Might. Work!
The Joker	In The Dark Knight, our villain asks the question (not rhetorically), “Do I really look like a guy with a plan?” No, he does not.  Chaos is his plan. It worked for him. (Well, largely.)  As for ND...

I'm a Shakespeare fan but Christopher Nolan's vision continues to have unfortunate relevance.

Song of the Week
Justified or not, with the disappointment palpable after the Purdue game, with frustration seemingly mounting, it begs the question, "What would you give... what would you do... to see ND 'return to glory'?"  .

"I would swallow my pride, I would choke on the rinds, 

But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside, 

Swallow my doubt.  

Turn it inside out .

Find nothing but faith in nothing. 

Want to put my tender heart in a blender, 

Watch it spin 'round to a beautiful oblivion. 

Rendezvous, then I'm through with you 

Can Oblivion be beautiful?  (Thanks, Ryan, for the song!)

Word of the Week

TRUCULENT 

• tru·cu·lent adj \ˈtrə-kyə-lənt also ˈtrü-\

1.   feeling or displaying ferocity : cruel, savage

2.   deadly, destructive

3.   scathingly harsh : vitriolic <truculent criticism>

4.   aggressively self-assertive : belligerent

— tru·cu·lent·ly adverb

Origin

Latin truculentus, from truc-, trux savage; perhaps akin to Middle Irish trú doomed person

• First Known Use: circa 1540

• Synonyms: aggressive, agonistic, argumentative, bellicose, chippy, combative, confrontational, contentious, discordant, feisty, militant, pugnacious, quarrelsome, belligerent
• Antonyms: nonaggressive, nonbelligerent, pacific, peaceable, peaceful, unbelligerent, uncombative, uncontentious

Used in a sentence... The increasingly truculent reaction of the Notre Dame fans to the offense's slow pace of play-calling surprised even hardened cynics like Terry and Tim.

Observations Of The Game

Pre-Game

• My annual pilgrimage to the bookstore reveals that the school has yet to stock any of 2012 Kovacs Book award winner Dr. Timothy Corrigan's writings as part of this year's film program syllabus. Disappointed.  Particularly egregious was not seeing The Film Experience: An Introduction on shelf.  (Available at Amazon.com, I can tell you from personal experience it makes a wonderful Christmas present, with lots of pictures for the business and engineering majors on your list.) 
• Inaugural tailgater report:  excellent, if still something of a work-in-progress.  The Management breaks in the next generation of early morning logistic planners. The Bloody Mary bar has yet to be established (crushing the spirit of at least two in attendance) and there was only a threadbare cast of luminaries. That said, all the food groups were represented including every salted snack in the entire Frito-Lay portfolio.
• An Alex Flanagan siting - pretty in pink!  I wonder if she missed me.

1st Quarter - Where'd Last Week's ND Team Go?

• In the stands w. Messrs. Sullivan and Castellini - woo hoo!
• A Purdue zealot immediately makes his presence known. He is L³... loud, large and limited in vocabulary.  I shall call him 'Leon' because it starts with the letter 'L' and it's short enough for him to conceivably spell.
• Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass.  Good to see us playing to our strength.
• After a false start (foreshadowing) #93 goes past Cave and Golic like their turn-styles.  Eek.
• Beware the wheel route against ND.  I never fails to succeed. Our LB's are terrible in coverage.
• 2nd and 6 in the Red Zone. And our center apparently doesn't know the snap count. Not good. 

2nd Quarter - A Glimpse Of The Future?

• Another Braxton Cave penalty. Ah, senior leadership.
• Sack by Louis Nix. Irish Chocolate!  As opposed to Tuitt who actually looks slim carrying 300 lbs., Louis definitely looks venti-size.
• ND is running a ton of guys in, at both DL and DB.
• Bad decision by Neal, fielding a put on the 4 yd. line.  On the bright side, the 9 yd. gain doubled all of last year's cumulative return yards.
• Golson eludes rush, throws on the run, for a 30 yd. gain to Niklas. And that's why he's the starter.
• 3rd and 3, rifle throw to Daniels for 41 yds.  I could get used to this. 
• Purdue tackles really well.  We do not.
• Purdue finds a running game. Antavian Edison scores easily for Purdue to tie the game. Mt. Leon erupts! Somewhere Antavian's brothers, Antebellum and Antediluvian, are beaming with pride. 

Halftime

• Judy C. arrives at our seats and there is much rejoicing!
• Leon rests.  And there is much rejoicing!

3rd Quarter - All The Young Dudes

• Golson's got a really strong arm but he clearly has yet to learn to look off the safety. The operative word being 'yet'.
• Incredibly poor tackling. Understandable from the young secondary. What's your excuse, Carlo? Dan?
• These two teams might be the two worst clock managers in the country. 
• Tuitt's facemask looks like the deer-protective grill on SUV's. Which would give me pause if I were an opposing QB or RB.



"You really think I need a trim?"

• Where's GAIII?

4th Quarter - "How Ya Like Me Now?"

• Eifert on the sidelines with no explanation.  I know exactly what's going on - he cut his hair!
• We've burned every one of our time outs due to play call communication problems.  Hmmm.
• 2:12 left and it's Tommy Time.  More importantly, I've just lost my side bet to Sullivan / Brunett (that Rees would not see the field in Sept.) in world record time.  Perhaps gambling isn't my calling.
• A short prayer:  Please God, just don't send this game into OT.
• 3rd and 7... karmic payback!  John Goodman hauls in a prayer of a throw after Tommy almost pulls a Chris Weber, calling a TO we don't have, as the play clock goes to zero. (In fact, it did expire.)
• Troy Niklas is going to be really good once he learns how to actually play the TE position.
• Kyle B. bi-sects the goal posts. 20-17.
• 100 yds. outside the stadium and it's Davenport, IA on the phone, extolling the "ye of little Tommy faith" line. Can't you just let me enjoy the win for a minute, mom?

Summary Thoughts

• "There is no QB controversy.  Golson is the starter."  I want to believe you, Brian. Especially since I think Everett played awfully well, two bad plays at the end notwithstanding.  But I also didn't really see any hand injury so your embrace of the truth remains shaky, at best.  Ironically, with the benefit of hindsight, I was impressed with the decision to use Rees. Golson showed no ability to manage a 2 minute drive. It took cajones - you would've been eviscerated if it hadn't worked out.  So, time will tell.
• How good is Purdue?  Pretty sure we'll find out their interior D-line is really good and overall, a better team than any of us anticipated.  That said, our vaunted, experienced O-line got embarrassed and by the end, utterly intimidated.  That does not bode well for an MSU game in Lansing.
• One can only hope that tackling practice has been elevated on this week's practice agenda.
• Ditto play calling communication.  Using all of your timeout's - as necessary as it was in virtually every case - wouldn't appear to be a sustainable long-term strategy.

• Tommy. Bravo! But. Past experience would suggest that being good for 2 minutes absolutely doesn't extrapolate to being good for 60 minutes.
• Without having specific numbers to quote, there were a TON of youth in play on Saturday.  Especially on defense. Especially in the 2nd Half.  And with the exception of some shoddy tackling for stretches of time, they didn't acquit themselves too badly.
• My sole disappointment of Everett (beyond the 'learn from your mistakes, young man'):  I thought he'd be more elusive than he actually seemed.  Probably a little early too roll out the "Poor Man's Denard" label...

Continuum Of Elusiveness

        I------------------I---------------------I------------------I-------------------------------------I

     Tommy           So. Bend         Co-Eds in       Everett                                        Denard

                            Police Dept.    High Heels

           

If This Week's Game Were A Movie Poster, It'd Be...

"They Have A Plan... But Not A Clue"

The Coen Brothers' 2000 skewed interpretation of Homer's Odyssey, set in the 1930's deep south offers two possible relevant analogies to ND's performance (and season) Saturday:

- It's a journey and not necessarily a linear one.
- You can end up where you want. Even if the guys in charge appear to be complete idiots
- When the music improves - and Saturday's use of The Dropkick Murphy's and only one Ozzie usage suggests a quantum leap in that area - everything becomes more enjoyable.

Buddy's buddy

As is typically the case, there's a few guys who really flashed and could be comfortably bestowed this week's Buddy:  Everett (only his 2nd game of competitive action in two years, threw for almost 300 yds. and did things no other QB on that roster could possibly do), Tyler (several big, timely catches), Tommy (of course)... but I'm looking at a pretty impressive (and deep) D-line with one guy in particular standing out, Louis Nix.   Consistently applying pressure, batting balls down and being generally disruptive.  They say strength up the middle of your defense is critical, let's hope 'Irish Chocolate' can keep it up.

Tool Time

"We're not monsters. We're just ahead of the curve."

Michigan State.  Ah, the joys of social media.  Team Sparty couldn't contain their glee over Bama's rout of the maize 'n blue.  Understandable. So they had to tweet about it during the game, mocking Denard... as if a) The Tide wouldn't have hung 60 on their asses and b) they had a QB that could carry his shoelaces.

 If he had any.  Which he doesn't.  But that's besides the point.  I didn't really care about their in-state rivalry before but now I hope UM just tears MSU a new one when they play.

Art Modell.  Yeah, I know.  RIP. You were a Titan of the NFL... with George Halas, Art Rooney, the Maras et al. Blah blah blah.  But you totally bailed on Cleveland, a blue collar town not wholly unlike my Packers. I know what it would've done to Green Bay if such a thing had had happened there... unforgiveable.

ND Fans.  Booing Tommy during the final 2 minute drive.  Really?

Answers to last next week's 'Career Path' challenge:
        School                           Job                                    Why?

USC	Disneyland character	Trojans are all about the show! Plus the perks are great...
Miami	Night Club Bouncer	Two words:  South Beach.
Northwestern	Thespian	Ann-Margret, Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston, Ed Wood (!) and of course, the incomparable David Schwimmer. Say no more.
Oregon	Nike Employee	They're already Team Nike. Consider this the firm offer of employment after the internship.
LSU	McDonald’s	Dog the Bounty Hunter was too aspirational for this team.
FSU	Footlocker sales	Free Shoe University.
Michigan	Sports announcer	Bill Fleming, Rich Eisen, Adam Schefter.
Stanford	Hedge Fund Mgr.	The most arrogant, self-absorbed group of condescending punks I've ever interviewed. And all of 'em surely now have net worths I can only fantasize about.
So. Carolina	Gas station attendant	Lane Kiffin once told a recruit that if he went to So. Carolina, he'd be pumping gas for the rest of his life, just like all the other kids who go there. Classy.  But not necessarily incorrect.
Florida	Gun runner	30 arrests during the Urban Meyer Era in the 'shoot 1st, ask questions later' State. Can you say 'growth industry'? Sure. I knew ya could.
Ohio St.	Tattoo parlor mgr.	A wise man once said, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life..."

Schadenfreude Winner.
Week 2 in college football is typically the time when most colleges undergo serious buyers remorse for scheduling even a halfway difficult game in Week 1... so they take it out on the patsies they've scheduled the following week.  Thus, not a lot from the past weekend to Get Happy over.

1. Wisconsin.  Respect Barry Alvarez. Impressed by the athletic programs'consistency across several major sports. Think Bret Bielema is a classless weasel.  Ergo, love it when you lose.
2. Nebraska.   They live in Nebraska for godssakes, haven't they suffered enough already?   No.
3. Arkansas.  Any time the SEC loses, it's a good day. But take heart, Hogs, the Fighting Louisiana-Monrovians are a classic trap team.
4. Oklahoma State.  You had no moral conflicts ringing up 84 points on Savannah State last week.  How'd it feel getting lit up for 59 by one of the country's elite party schools?
5. Andy Roddick.  For probably the only time ever, the 'winner' (loser) here is happier than I am. Why?  Because he gets to come home to Brooklyn on a full-time basis. It's a wonder he made it to age 30 before retiring.

Wager 2012.
We're 2-0, albeit not in the most impressive manner.  One would assume that probably everyone involved in the wager had these first two games in their win column as part of their prediction. So consider it like holding serve.  With 10 games to go, the pre-season's over....

Wins		ND-Scorsese connection	Contestant’s prediction	Pay-out
12		Hugo Sweet, compelling mystery that shows the virtues of faith and resilience. Everyone walks away happy and pleasantly surprised.
11
10			JP, Lini, Dave	$267
9		Goodfellas Awesome film about fulfilling one’s potential and realizing your dreams… even if it is becoming a gangster.  (Q.  Does ending in Witness Protection qualify as a happy ending?)	Bryan, Ted, Ray, Tim S, Bob S	$160
8			Jay, John, Peter, Raz, Kevin M, Tim C, Mark	$115
7			Jerry C, Matt, Jerry W, Jim B, Tom, Mike C, Jim T, Mike G Garrett R	$90
6		The Departed A terrific story about two Boston Irishmen’s different destinies set from childhood. So very close to a happy ending. And yet, so far.	Terry, Jim S, Jerry P, Brian, Blair R	$160
5			Kevin C, Alvin, Randy	$267
4
3		Taxi Driver Mentally unstable Viet Nam vet w. wildly unrealistic delusions of heroism.  He’s a total loser, albeit an incredibly   dangerous one. Sadly everybody knows it (incl. Rick Reilly) but him.
2
1
0

Final Thought
Why The Packers Are Totally Awesome (Part I)

 I'm pretty sure their GM was formerly the front man for Talking Heads...

"With their 1st pick in the draft,

Green Bay select Brian Eno."

Laugh From The Past
For the 801'ers who were (and remain) easily amused... I've got one thing to say about the following video clip:  egg-a-muffin.  Enjoy.

Thank you, Dr. Tim for showing me this awhile back...

Week 1 (2012): Erin Go Bragh!

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It's an area which we call the 'A' Lot... " 

As many of you may have seen, scientists in Geneva announced this summer that they had found a new subatomic particle that they were 99.999999 percent sure was the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the God particle. 

Although I have no earthly idea what that means (even though it was foretold by both the Mayan and Dan Brown in his wonderfully convoluted "Angels & Demons" novel / film), I am over-the-top excited. It gave me much to ponder:   how existence began, the structure of the universe, the difference between bosons and fermions...

But I digress.  About the Higgs boson: apparently it's the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic goo that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Raising many questions:

• Does it provide evidence of the existence of parallel worlds? 
• Do any of those worlds have ND back on top?
• Do any of those worlds not include Les Miles / Urban Meyer / Lane Kiffin / Lee Corso?  

Song of the Week
Not so much football thematically correct as country aligned, call this week's choice represents both a link to last week's "Wind That Shakes The Barley" reference as well as a (tangential) homage to this week's opponent's sacrifice, who when they're not driving us mad with cut blocks and 8 minute drives, are putting their lives on the line in the name of our freedom.  Probably very few of you will recognize the name of Mary Black - I discovered her on our first tour of duty in London in the mid 90's - an Irish folk singer, who was (is) something of a national icon. Sadly her recognition never quite made it much beyond the North Sea.

"Above the narrow Belfast streets

An Irish sky looks down and weeps

At children's blood in gutters spilled

In dreams of freedom unfulfilled

As part of freedom's price to pay

My youngest son came home today..."

Beautiful sad song.  There's a gross misconception about the Irish, that we're a preternaturally happy, besotted, jocular lot.

We're not.

But this week's game demonstrates we're totally willing to make exceptions.

Word of the Week
Truth be told, my relationship with the concept of Maturity has been a historically promiscuous one.  Both consistently disappointed due to a shared lack of commitment to the other. For this reason, I love the word 'fecund'.  In equal parts, its use could get one labelled 'art house pretentious' or have your mouth washed out with soap by your mother.  It's also the perfect word when describing anything to do with Ireland, a country visually stunning - green fertility everywhere! - and intellectually, creatively powerful, the historical land of Beckett, Yeats, Joyce, Shaw, Synge, Wilde, et al.

Plus, the Irish love to throw around the f-bombs with such stunning frequency that one never knows whether they're being articulate or profane. So they've got that going for them as well.

fe·cund adj \ˈfe-kənd, ˈfē-\

1.  fruitful in offspring or vegetation : prolific
2.  intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree <a fecund imagination> 

— fe·cun·di·ty  noun

 See fecund defined for English-language learners »

See fecund defined for kids »

Origin of FECUND

•  Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin fecundus — more at feminine
• First Known Use: 15th century

Synonyms: cornucopian, fat, fertile, fructuous, fruitful, lush, luxuriant, productive, prolific, rich

Antonyms: barren, dead, infertile, sterile, unfertile, unfruitful, unproductive

Used in a sentence...  The fecund versatility of Chuck Martin's offense continually kept the Navy defense off balance.


Observations Of The Game

Not so much, you, Gary...

Pre-Game

• David Feherty! Sideline reporter! 
• Gary Danielson describes Golson as a true freshman. Hmmm. Out of deference to my daughter, must resist making Purdue joke. Nonetheless, this doesn't bode well for reporting accuracy today.

1st Quarter

Breakfast. The most important meal of the day.

• 1st play of the Golson era:  hand off to GA III for 11 yds.  Everett's a god!
• 1st drive (and yes, I understand it's Navy) and I already have feelings for Golson I never had for Rees.
• Missed PAT.  Geez.  I still have eligibility.
• Called mom, The Ultimate Tommy Supporter.  One more drive and she'll be a part of Team Everett.
• Texting w. Mike, Ryan and her boyfriend in a San Diego bar.  6am local time. The few, the proud, the mentally challenged.
• Navy, 4th and 1.  Manti!
• The crawl on the TV just showed that Temple crushed Villanova, 41-10. I'm already worried about next year's opener.
• 3:49 and the first River Liffey reference! 

2nd Quarter

• ND is 3-for-3 in the red zone.  Versus last year, that's a percentage improvement of... infinity.
• INT.  Bad decision by Golson. Too confident?  Let's hope this is a 'teachable moment'.
• Drive-extending face mask by Shembo. Just like the FSU game. Good to see he's learned discipline.
• Bizarre, fluke fumble returned for Notre Dame!  TD!  Could this be a cosmic karmic signal?
• Johnny Lujack and Davenport, IA mention!  And yet, disappointingly, no reference to those young lads who tirelessly mowed his lawn - for a pittance, I might add - enabling his future success...

Halftime

• Calling all lawyers, aspiring lawyers and fans of Judge Judy!  Halftime talking heads announce that Michigan's starting RB pleads his DUI down to "operating a vehicle while visibly impaired".  Huh? Can someone - anyone! - explain the distinction...

3rd Quarter

• Navy LB celebrated for his 3.89 GPA in Systems Engineering.  I'm pretty sure the Grace / Flanner Hall engineers on this distribution list didn't have a 3.9 collectively.
• Who is are Special Teams coach?  Which is to say, who was... 
• Davonte Neal's 12 yd. punt return just eclipsed the cumulative total of 2011 return yards.
• Everett's gonna have to grasp the concept of  'touch'.
• Manti - INT!  Can he play CB?

4th Quarter

• Pretty good pass rush but they're going to have to be better at closing the deal.
• From his own end zone, Ben Turk displays perfect form! And drives the punt 31 yards.  Ugh.
• Ishaq - 2nd big hit today leading to a turnover.  Boy, it would be nice if he started living up to the hype.
• Cam McDaniel's pretty good.  Not that anyone is ever going to know it.

Summary Thoughts

1. One cannot be disappointed with Golson. 
2. Hard to feel very confident about the secondary. They will (should) get better but one can only hope the pass rush continues to improve.
3. If today is any indication, special teams will cost us at least one game.
4. The running game was really impressive. Fast, tough, with really nice vision.
5. It may be only one game but one should feel good about the game Kelly called. Smart. Played to obvious strengths. Best of all, didn't try to be unnecessarily clever.

If This Week's Game Were A Movie Poster, It'd Be...

"Between Land and Sea, There Is A Place 

Where Myths Are Real"

Maintaining this week's Irish theme, this charming John Sayles film demonstrates that in Ireland, the line between Reality and Mythical is indeed a blurry one.

What the movie doesn't tell us is what happens to The Magic outside of Eire... guess we'll find out this month.

Buddy of the Week
It's been two years since Buddy shuffled off this mortal coil... and since shuffling was Buddy's primary gear of motion, he would've been impressed with the overall speed of the team we saw on Saturday.

That characteristic unites a short-list of candidates for the Week 1 'Buddy' that includes Stephon Tuitt, Everett Golson and Manti Teo. All could be credibly argued for.  But this week's recognition gets shared by Theo Riddick and George Atkinson III.  "Cierre who?", you cry!  Over 200 yds. rushing between the two... showing speed, power and vision. And no turnovers. The help they provided Golson alone was huge but in reality they also took pressure off all the inexperienced WR's and gave the O-line a little relief in not having to sustain their blocks for quite as long.  Well done, gentlemen!



Cinema dell'Inferno
In prior exchanges of correspondence, it was suggested that should 2012 the football prospects go south in a hurry, alternative forms of entertainment (with which to have excuses to maintain the tailgaters) should be explored.  A film program was proposed.

Despite yesterday's success, that scenario is not out of the realm of possibility so I've taken the liberty of suggesting the seminar schedule:

       Film                                              Opponent                          Theme

1.   Deliverance                                   PURDUE                    Could be worse. Could be canoeing in the South.

2.   Seventh Seal                                MICHIGAN               Playing chess with Death. Who's got next game?

3.  The Last Wave                              MIAMI                      It's the End of the World.  Let's surf!

3.   Grand Illusion                               STANFORD              "Always look on the bright side of life..."

4.   Iron Sky                                         BYU                            Nazi's in Space!

5.   Wings of Desire                          PITTSBURGH           Angels walk among us!  And they're even nice to Dillon guys.

6.   A Clockwork Orange                  WAKE FOREST        Everything is better with a little Ludwig van...

"Cierre... Justin.  You're from California...
how could you NOT have one of these?"

In advance of this series, I'll be holding a Purdue halftime town hall debate on the following statement:

"DUI's have been responsible for deaths. The only things weed has killed are large pizzas..."

Compare and contrast. Cite examples.


Tool Time

"We're not monsters. We're just ahead of the curve."

Denard Robinson.  For the record, I'm a big Denard fan, he of the tragic shoelace tieing disability and the dirigible passing style. But calling out Usain Bolt and saying you'd beat him in a 40 yd. dash... child, please.

NCAA. Not only did you completely whiff on properly closing the UNC academic scandal ('no rules were broken') but with the hint of a new USC payment scandal, does anyone have confidence you'll 'bring the pain' that Mark Emmert has been promising?  In a word, no.

• Floyd Mayweather.  Betting $3 million on the Wolverines, getting only 14 points?  Gives new meaning to the term 'brain dead'.
• Lance Armstrong.  Everyone in our family wore a yellow Livestrong bracelet at one point - we've had cancer touch a lot of the family, sometimes better than others.  So in a sport where, literally, if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'... color me unsurprised but still disappointed

• Skip Bayless.  Musing about the possibility of Derek Jeter being a PED user because he happens to be having a great year at the age of 38 smacks of pathetic no-one's-paying-attention-to-me desperation.  (There's a reason for that - you're a hack.)  Oh and where was this insight when Jeter's batting average dropped 100 points in May and June?

"When danger reared its ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled..."

• Allen Pinkett.   It's not so much that what you said was so unbelievable or heinous - behind close doors, there's more than a few people that certainly agree with your sentiment (if not the precise words chosen) - it's that you had multiple chances to rephrase, redact, run away (!)... but you didn't.

On top of Pat Forde's thoughtful defense this week of Notre Dame's standards, as well of his reference to "future medium-security detainees" at other schools, it does prompt the question, 'what exactly does the future suggest at some of these programs?' and an idea for a neat new game!  One I call "Predict The Career Track..."

Now I've scrambled them up so don't be fooled... mix 'n match - any number of possibilities certainly exist. (Answers will be published in next week's issue!)

1.		A.
2.		B.
3.		C.
4.		D.
5.		E.
6.		F.
7.		G.
8.		H.
9.		I.
10.		J.
11.		K.

Schadenfreude Winner.
Inasmuch as Week 1 in college football is typically 'bring on the cupcakes', there isn't a lot to work with.  Be that as it may...

1. Michigan.  I love my younger daughter dearly but her school's fan base might wish to re-calibrate their expectations. Kudos for scheduling a really tough game early - welcome to our world, Big Blue. You can be sure that'll never happen again - next year's non-conference foes revert back to Central Michigan, Akron and UConn.  On the bright side, think of all the unnecessary 'Denard for Heisman' advertising money you're going to now save the state.
2. Boise St.  I was cheering for you, Fighting Spuds, but having you out of the 'BCS buster' conversation before September is kinda nice too.
3. Boston College.  For a college with a lovely academic reputation, BC might have the most cretinous fan base in the country, north of the Mason-Dixon line.  For that reason, it's always a good day when they lose. Even when its to Miami.

Wager 2012.
The collective prognostications would suggest a 2012 theme along the lines of "Mediocrity, Thy Name Is du Lac".   Of course, that label doesn't really do justice to a) the difficulty of the schedule (widely accepted as the toughest in the nation) and b) the relative youth of the team.  But this exercise is not about lame rationalization, it's about 'show me the money!'  Or a sliver of the $800 pot.

Wins		ND-Scorsese connection	Contestant’s prediction	Pay-out
12		Hugo Sweet, compelling mystery that shows the virtues of faith and resilience. Everyone walks away happy and pleasantly surprised.
11
10			JP, Lini, Dave	$267
9		Goodfellas Awesome film about fulfilling one’s potential and realizing your dreams… even if it is becoming a gangster.  (Q.  Does ending in Witness Protection qualify as a happy ending?)	Bryan, Ted, Ray, Tim S, Bob S	$160
8			Jay, John, Peter, Raz, Kevin M, Tim C, Mark	$115
7			Jerry C, Matt, Jerry W, Jim B, Tom, Mike C, Jim T, Mike G Garrett R	$90
6		The Departed A terrific story about two Boston Irishmen’s different destinies set from childhood. So very close to a happy ending. And yet, so far.	Terry, Jim S, Jerry P, Brian, Blair R	$160
5			Kevin C, Alvin, Randy	$267
4
3		Taxi Driver Mentally unstable Viet Nam vet w. wildly unrealistic delusions of heroism.  He’s a total loser, albeit an incredibly   dangerous one. Sadly everybody knows it (incl. Rick Reilly) but him.
2
1
0

Final Thought
Coach Kelly, as you return to U.S. soil with one game and an impressive victory under your belt, now is not the time to play it safe.  Channel your inner Batman!  The Christopher Nolan / Christian Bale one, not the George Clooney / Val Kilmer version.