Notre Dame is one of the most storied and polarizing names in all of sport. Hyperbole is their stock in trade, and there isn’t much room in the discussion for the subtlety and nuance of fine writing. I don’t really have an angle or an original take on Notre Dame football—I’m about 70 years too late to add anything fresh to the mythology.
COURTESY OF kfoxtv.com
Throwback: The University of Notre Dame is enjoying a renaissance this season.
Fortunately, I have no interest in nuance or originality today. I don’t even really have a point. I’m just a lifelong Fighting Irish fan, and after handling the University of Southern California 22-13 on Saturday night, my team is going to the BCS National Championship game for the first time. So you and I are just going to savor that together for a few hundred words. You’re gonna love it.
Or absolutely hate it. I know that’s how it goes with the Irish (the team, not the people). If you spend almost two decades coasting on the fumes of your faded glory, you’re bound to make some enemies, and Notre Dame fans have responded to the fallow years in much the same way that Notre Dame’s athletic department has: by living in the past. I’m especially guilty on this point; I will talk your ear off about the 1993 team that whipped Florida State, finished with the same record as the Seminoles and still managed to finish below them in the final rankings. I’ve been talking about that team for 19 years because A) I’m still bitter and B) I’ve had nothing more positive to say.
This season wasn’t supposed to buck the trend of nationally televised futility, either. Last year’s team was a turnover-plagued mess that essentially returned intact, except for the loss of dynamic defensive end Aaron Lynch, who slapped the program in the face with his defection to the lowly University of South Florida. Add that to the nation’s toughest schedule, one that included ranked opponents in the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Oklahoma, Stanford University and preseason number-one USC, and expectations were finally (and appropriately) low for the Irish.
Unranked in the preseason, the inevitability of their impending 7-5 record seemed a mere formality. People were finally beginning to treat Notre Dame with the lack of respect that their immediate history demanded. The schadenfreude was palpable.
Flash-forward to Saturday’s victory, a grinding, dominant performance against the hated Trojans and a fitting cap to the unlikeliest of undefeated seasons in recent memory. It would be easy, satisfying and typical of a lifelong Notre Damer like myself to smugly assert the return to glory, to forget the lessons of humility taught by nearly 20 years of irrelevance. But I’m not that kind of fan anymore, and Notre Dame football is not that kind of program. They’ve come a long way, and now their place at the top is their rightful place, not because it’s preordained by tradition, but because they’ve earned it.
And I’ve earned one column in which to enjoy it. Now I’m going to call my dad, so we can be smug in private. Go Irish!