Welcome to the Irish Blogger Gathering on Subway Domer. Friends, we are getting damn close to the National Championship Game against Alabama. With that, the IBG is back a=in session this weekend, and will return one more time next week.
For this week's installment, I had the honor to ask Josh Flynt with Strong & True a few questions. This is all very important and serious stuff. It's ok if you grab a drink mostly made from embalming fluid.
Be sure to check out Inside the Irish and Her Loyal Sons for more installments of this weeks IBG. Now, LET'S DO THIS THING…
There has been some talk recently about statues. There are some who believe Te'o is deserving of a statue, which would be the first "player" statue erected on ND's campus. Are they right? Should Te'o get a statue? Why or why not?
No, unless it’s part of a bigger sculpture. As integral as Te’o has been in this 12-0 season, the “resurrection” of Notre Dame football has been about so much more than one player, and I’m sure Manti would say the same. If (read: when) the Irish win next week, I’m sure there will be a Brian Kelly sculpture outside Gate E (personally, I hope it’s some time down the road, after he retires).
The Holtz and Parseghian sculptures feature the legendary Irish coaches alongside a couple players, but I’m not sure if they are identified specifically, or if they’re just generic Notre Dame football players. In a perfect world, the next sculpture will feature the four captains showering Kelly with Gatorade following a 20-17 win over the Crimson Tide. Though that would be an awful lot of work for Jerry McKenna.
Pretty much anyone that has discussed this game, whether it be on TV, radio, or in some form of print or digital media has described this game as a game of unit "matchups" more so than individual performances. However, one name has come up more than any other…Everett Golson. Why?
A couple reasons. First, I think people saw what Johnny Manziel did to Alabama earlier this season, and given Golson’s ability to make plays with both his arm and his legs, many suspect he could be an X-factor for the Irish offense. He didn’t put up the video game numbers of Johnny Football (no one did), but in his first season, Golson has shown great promise as a dual-threat quarterback. His athleticism forces defenses to be honest, and he seems to be improving with each and every game.
Secondly, I think Golson has had an aura about him ever since people saw his high school highlight video on YouTube. People have expected big things from Golson since he stepped foot on campus. When you’re the starting quarterback at Notre Dame, the spotlight is always on you. But it’s even brighter when you are a young, athletic and highly-touted quarterback who has yet to lose a game in college.
After a perfect season, describe your perfect ending for Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship Game versus Alabama. Go ahead and get utterly disgusting with your optimism and sentiments. It's OK. We all know each other here.
Maybe I’m blindly confident. Maybe I don’t know enough about Alabama. Or maybe I’m just going out on a limb, but I truly think Notre Dame is going to win this ball game, despite being nearly a double-digit underdog.
I’ll admit, when I was a student, I wasn’t always confident in the Fighting Irish. But this season has been much different. Cierre Wood’s touchdown against Oklahoma stands out to me, and ever since then, I’ve sort of felt like this was a team destined for greatness (Ok…maybe not during that Pittsburgh game).
The perfect ending would feature the Fighting Irish totally dismantling the Crimson Tide (a la what they did to Texas in the 1978 Cotton Bowl). More realistically, I hope Notre Dame beats Alabama in a close game, thanks to a key fourth quarter play by its defense, a crucial third down catch by Robby Toma and perhaps a big touchdown run from Theo Riddick.
But really, all I want to see is the Fighting Irish hoisting the crystal football – even if the game is as ugly as this Russell Athletics Bowl I was just watching.
