As I sat in misery watching Notre Dame slowly but inevitably lose for the second time in three years to Navy (ahhhh) my mind flashed back to a Saturday three years ago. The date was November 4th, 2006. My wife and I were in Nashville for a wedding. To kill time during the day we went to Sam’s Sports Bar & Grill just outside the Vanderbilt campus. Turned out Sam’s was the Nashville bar for all Alabama football fans.
A Quiet Lunch – The lasting memory from the lunch was hundreds of Bama fans in silence as a road dog (Mississippi State) slowly dismantled them. That day was the first time I realized just how big Alabama football actually was. Bama had been out of the national spotlight for the last five years, were unranked and losing to a bad football team, yet the bar was wall to wall with fans hanging on every play. I wondered how big Bama could be if they could find a good replacement for Mike Shula.
Fate – Everything happens for a reason and I believe Notre Dame losing to Navy (2009 edition) will ultimately benefit Notre Dame football. Were Notre Dame to finish 10-2, Weis would be back for another year of underachieving with a loaded football team. The loss to Navy seals Weis’s fate.
2010 – Back in 2004, no qualified coach wanted to touch the ND job. The program was rotting from the inside out. Thanks to Ty Willingham. ND was competing against MAC and bottom tier Big Ten teams for recruits. Give Weis credit for turning the tide. In stark contrast to 2004, coaches should fight to be the next ND head coach because Weis’s recruiting and an easy `10 schedule will make somebody look smart.
Roll Irish – As downtrodden as Sam’s was on November 4th, 2006, I can only imagine the scene this season. I could easily foresee Bama winning their eighth national title in January. If they do, no program will have as many national titles….except for one. Needless to say, its time for ND to take back its place atop the College Football world. Anchors away.
2 Comments
November 8, 2009 at 5:35 am
It wasn’t until Gerry Faust lost to Air Force for the third time in five years that he announced he’d resign after the season. Holtz took over the next season.
November 8, 2009 at 7:05 pm
The Faust comparison is accurate in that both were alums who embraced the traditions and recruited well but had underachieving teams. The difference is that Faust took over a team that was playing for the national title the year he arrived.
And prior to 1985 the NCAA still had its anti-trust exemption thus allowing them to limit the numbers of games aired by ABC and CBS so that there were only two national broadcasts per week. College football is a completely different animal today.