"This is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever seen"

-Rudy's Dad


Week 8 October 21, 2006

It’s not often that a memorable day starts off the way mine did on Saturday morning. Friday Johnny G. and I flew up to Chicago to begin our football extravaganza weekend that would take us to South Bend for the Notre Dame – UCLA game and then to Indianapolis for Colts – Redskins game on Sunday afternoon.

Going to Notre Dame for a football game is always one of the highlights of my fall. Last year Kimberly and I were able to get our picture taken with Rudy during the ND – Tennessee game so I knew going in that something pretty cool would have to happen to top that moment

Saturday started early as G and I were hoping to leave Chicago before 8am (9am South Bend time) so we could be in SB by 11am to start the day. That schedule took an immediate hit as I spent 10 minutes in the bathroom praying to the porcelain gods. I can’t even recall the last time that had happened to me, it had been at least 5 or 6 years….if not longer. According to G the sounds that came from the bathroom were some of the strangest he had ever heard. The thing is I really didn’t drink that much Friday night…..I mean normally a half a bottle of Saki and 4 or 5 Vodka tonics isn’t going to make me hate myself in the morning. Clearly, I must have had some bad Sushi.

We finally got on the road and to my dismay I was not feeling any better. I chose to drive because I didn’t think my stomach could handle being a passenger. (Big mistake) After stopping for some breakfast (A plain ½ of a bagel, some water and Coke) we finally got on the highway towards Indiana. The highway was packed due to construction and I thought to myself can this day get any worse? All of a sudden as we crept along, and G devoured a Sausage egg and cheese sandwich from Dunkin Donuts that I couldn’t even look at, a terrible wave of nausea hit me. My window was already half way down as I hoped that the fresh air would somehow make my stomach and head feel normal again. (Does fresh air ever really work? Do you ever hear someone say….Wow I was sick as a dog but I got some fresh air all of a sudden I feel great again??) I was certain that I could fight through the nausea and eventually would start feeling better, all I needed was time. (I think actually told me this……thanks G) I really only had about another minute before all hell broke loose. In an instant my worst nightmare came true and I lost the battle with my stomach. So here I was driving a white Chevy Monte Carlo rental car 5 miles an hour in the middle of thousands of cars on highway 90 just outside Chicago and there was nothing I could do to stop the upheaval inside me. Without even having time to think I threw my head out the window and began projectile vomiting towards the cement barrier to my left. There was no where to pull over and at this moment the only thing I was truly concerned with was keeping my head far enough out the window so I would avoid vomiting on myself or in the car. (I was already in game day gear and didn’t want to ruin my green shirt) As I puked I somehow managed to slow the car down almost to a complete stop and in between heaves I told G to grab the wheel. This went on for another 20 or 30 seconds until I finally felt it was safe to pull my head back inside the car and regain control of the wheel. I glanced at G who was not sure whether to laugh or ask if I was ok. I probably helped him out by laughing out loud first. G then says “I can only imagine what the car behind us must be thinking right now.” The good news was that whatever toxins were inside me were definitely gone now. Time could now start to work its magic and hopefully the rest of the day would get better.

Luckily I had stopped on the way to South Bend to clean up the side of the car and the window because our parking pass was in the main lot next to the stadium and as we pulled in we probably passed 5000 tailgaters. I am sure I would have been a big hit if I had pulled in with chunks of puke all over the side of my car.

Notre Dame Day

The first stop was the hospitality tent and on the way out we saw Notre Dame radio play by play commentator Don Criqui. If you don’t remember who Don Criqui is, think back to the 1984 Orange Bowl or any big AFC game in the early to mid 80’s. As a football fan his voice is one of the most recognizable of the 80’s. He may sound the same but man he looks old. (A little known fact about Criqui is that Irish grad was the announcer in the 1970 NFL game when club footed kicker Tom Dempsey made his record shattering 63 year field goal.)

We headed to “The Gug” building which is home to the ND football program 6 days a week. The tour included close to 100 people and was being led by former ND and NHL player Dave Poulin. As we sat in the theater style meeting room where the football team meets each Monday to watch film, Poulin told us about the building and the donors responsible for this beautiful $24 million dollar facility. One interesting tidbit is that all of the clocks in “The Gug” are connected to the clock in Weiss’ office by a satellite on the roof. Clearly there are no excuses for being late in this building. The other wacky thing he told us was about the timing of our tour. Anyone not affiliated with the football program or the ND staff are forbidden to be in the building while recruits are visiting. This is another one of those crazy NCAA rules that tries to protect athletes from getting in trouble. The highlight of the tour was walking through the ND locker room. This huge room had the players spread out by positions and people stopped by Quinn, Zbikowski and Samardzija’s lockers to take pictures and see what kind of stuff they had in their lockers. Sometimes it’s easy to forget these are college kids we are talking about. We finished the tour by going through the enormous weight room and walking onto a small indoor field with new fake grass on it. The field was about 40 yards long and 20 yards wide it would have been perfect for a bunch of guys in their 30’s and up to play flag football on. The best part of this area was the wall pictured above. God, Country, Notre Dame….You think they have the same message at the University of Miami? Or is it “Mom, Jesus and The U.”

It was getting close to game time and I actually felt somewhat normal. I was able to eat and wanted more. After leaving “The Gug” we walked through “The House That Paddock Built” better known as the Joyce Center where our host once played and the current ND hoops team still plays. As nice as the football facilities are the basketball facilities have a long way to go. The Joyce Center is badly in need of a facelift, which is apparently on its’ way. It is now time to head to the House the Rockne built, Notre Dame Stadium. We time our arrival perfectly as we show up at the same time as the ND band, oh by the way we have field passes so we can walk right in without waiting in line or even having our tickets checked. I could have taken a ½ gallon of bourbon in with me and no one would have had a clue. When the band finishes we walk through the old part of the stadium and right in front of us is the tunnel the players come out right underneath one of the goal posts. Of course all I can think about is Rudy running through that tunnel on to the field for the one and only time he did so. This is the same tunnel that Rockne, Leahy, Horning, Bertelli, Lujack, Theismann, Parseghian, Holtz, Montana and Tim Brown have all walked through. Now Chris Beaudin and Johnny G. are making their walk…..albeit to much less fan fare than Rudy or any of the others. Once on the field everything is just a blur. Weiss and the whole team are anywhere from 3 to 20 yards away from us. After the team finishes stretching the offensive lineman come over to go through their drills about 5 feet in front of us….I mean these guys, actually kids are huge. 6’4” to 6’8” and big. One funny thing about them is that every single lineman has these awkward looking braces on each of their knees. It actually makes them look like robots, big ass robots. The braces make noises every time the lineman move or go through a drill. It wasn’t quite like the reeky, reeky, reek my college buddy’s rusty knee brace would make during intramural soccer in college, but it was a funny noise nonetheless. Some jackass with the same field pass as us started yelling at the lineman…..”This is where the game is won boys, this is where you win it” He then hits one of the lineman on the shoulder pads and keeps repeating this over and over along with some other crap they could care less about from some glorified fan on the field.

As the players leave the field to head back to the locker room we start to make our way around the field to our 50 yard line seats on the UCLA side of the field. As we are walking I told G that all these people looking at us from the stands are probably wondering who the hell we are to be on the field. Little did they know that I was the jackass puking out of the car in front of them on the highway just a few hours ago!

As the game starts it becomes abundantly clear the lineman we just saw up close are not going to make this an easy game for ND. The Irish struggle running for positive yardage (Quinn sneaks are their best running plays) and the pass protection isn’t much better. UCLA sacks Quinn 5 times and registers 9 hurries. Something that was news to me is that UCLA’s defense was ranked in the top 10 in the nation and was first in the Pac Ten coming into this game. I know it is the Pac Ten, but still. The Irish led 7-0 on a short Quinn to Samardzija pass but UCLA connected on 2 long passes for touchdowns to make it 14 - 7. Considering the Bruins only had 4 passing plays of more than 20 yards all season that was concerning. Also, the second TD is to a tight end that had never caught a pass before, that didn’t stop him from running through 3 ND defenders. The half ends with Quinn calling his own number on a QB draw from the 6 yard line. Since he has already done this several times from the same empty backfield formation UCLA stuffs him and ND settles for a field goal to make the score UCLA 14 ND 10.


I don’t think too many people gave UCLA much of a chance to win this game…..I would say after 30 minutes that opinion had changed. An interesting thing I noticed on the fan in front of me is that the UCLA B is exactly the same as B of the Boston Red Sox. Was this always the case or did they change it to try and capitalize on the Red Sox popularity? Ponder that for awhile.

The 2nd half doesn’t produce much excitement or any touchdowns for 29 minutes. The teams trade field goals, UCLA’s coming after a terrible call on a pass interference penalty on 3rd and 18. With the Irish down 17-13 the crowd is silent…..time is ticking away and ND is running out of chances. On their 2nd to last position ND drives into UCLA territory and fails on 3rd down. (4 for 19 on the day) On 4th and a long one they try another sneak…..I mean everybody in the whole stadium knew it was coming again and UCLA stops Quinn again. (They were 4 for 5 on 4th down) Because ND saved all 3 time-outs they may get the ball back one last time but there won’t be much more than a minute left. This is where 2 things come into play. The first is the new rule about the clock beginning right away after the change of possession. ND is forced to call a timeout as soon as the measurement is short on 4th down. Some people in the stands understood this but many yelled in disgust at Weiss like he was just calling the time-out to talk to his defense. After using 2 more TO’s UCLA runs again on 3rd down knowing ND can’t stop the clock, at this point I question one of Karl Dorrell’s decisions. Rather than punt with 2 or 3 seconds left on the play clock he took a delay of game penalty. (They didn’t have any time-outs left) First of all, this was a mistake because it backs the punter up 5 more yards and gives your opponent a chance for better field position. ND actually returns the punt to their own 38 yard line with just over a minute remaining. However, there was a flag at the line of scrimmage and somehow they called holding on the ND nose guard, I was pretty sure this was going to give UCLA a 1st down and end the game…...oh god the 5 yard delay penalty had moved them back to 4th and 13 so the penalty left UCLA with 4th and 3. Now that was the luck of the Irish. The punt found the endzone and ND started from the 20. What happened next was totally unexpected after everything we had seen for 59 minutes. People say UCLA went to a prevent defense, the truth is they had only rushed 3 or 4 guys the whole second half and pressure had not been a problem. With a minute left and no timeouts you have to play some kind of conservative defense that is just being smart. One tackle in bounds and ND is basically done. Two quick passes that stop the clock and now I think we at least have a prayer. It was First Down on the UCLA 45 and Quinn rolled right, faked once and found an open Samardzija coming across the field…..oh god he breaks one tackle….inside the 20…..another Bruin misses…..he barely keeps his balance…..TOUCHDOWN IRISH! In all honesty I really didn’t celebrate much…..mostly because I was in complete shock. After a day of very few big plays I just didn’t see this coming.

FINAL SCORE: ND 20 UCLA 17

You can see the UCLA kids are stunned. They don’t know whether to stay on the field or drag themselves back to the locker room. A minute ago they were going to be ranked and flying to Southern Cali with a win over a top ten team on the road using a QB who just made his second career start. Maybe they can call John L. Smith for some advice on how to recover. Wow what a Saturday…….I can’t wait to do it all again….well maybe not all of it!

Teams of the Week:

Clempson (Georgia fans say it like this) – Bad schedule or not this team proved it is for real by hammering GA Tech and holding Calvin Johnson without a single catch. (I still don’t understand that) Now the Tigers need some help to get to the ACC Championship. Assuming Clempson wins out they need BC to lose one ACC game.

Rutgers – 7-0 after beating Pitt at Heinz Field. Seriously Rutgers is 7-0. That is like Temple being 7-0 in 4 years.

San Diego St. – Chuck Long finally got his first win as a head coach by beating Air Force 19-12. At least it only took 6 games.


Big Games This Weekend:

The world’s biggest drunk fest: Florida -14 vs. Georgia Can you say drunk fest? I know you can’t say cocktail anymore…..what else will they come up with? Georgia is given me no reason to believe they can win this game, I’m sure that means they will.

Clempson -4.5 at Va Tech (Thursday) This is the Tigers biggest test left in the ACC. On the road in Blacksburg at night used to mean you have no chance. Oh how times have changed.

Notre Dame -14 at Navy – Is this the year? I’ll say 44 and counting.

Oklahoma at Missouri – The Tigers must win this game. Are they for real? Ask me on Sunday.

Miami at GA Tech – This game is the one Tech needs. Can they forget last week and go back to what they do best?…..Calvin, Calvin, Calvin. Miami gets most of their suspended players back for this big game.

USC at Oregon St. – The Trojans have not been blowing teams out lately. If they lose all hell breaks loose in the BCS.

Tennessee at South Carolina – The Cocks found new life after inserting Seville Newton at QB. Can the Old Ball Coach beat Fat Phil again? They will need to force Ainge into some turnovers if they want to have a chance.

Observation of the week:

On Sunday G and I went to the Colts vs. Redskins game in Indy. The Indy fans are awesome, I have never seen more fans wearing their teams’ jerseys then I did at the Colts game. (Lots of #18’s but also many other numbers like tons of Brandon Stokley jerseys? I’m not quite sure why) Anyway, Peyton was just awesome in the 2nd half. He truly is a god in Indy and probably the biggest reason why they will have a brand new state of the art stadium in 2 years. Coming from the city where Michael Vick plays I can truly say that it just felt different….and it’s not like Peyton has played in any more Super Bowls than Michael. Vick threw 4 Td’s last week as well and played great, but if they lose this week fans will continue to criticize him and bring up the name Matt Schaub. I don’t think Jim Sorgi’s name will come up anytime soon in Indy. (Peyton’s back-up)