YOUR STATEMENTS ABOUT NOTRE DAME ARE HORSESHIT BUT THAT IS CONSISTENT. Like most mythologies, Notre Dame's is built on a foundation of firm, deep and well-compacted bullshit, something we were reminded of when listening to Only a Game this weekend driving up to Knoxville. Former SI mainstay Jack Cavanaugh was on plugging his new book about George Gipp, who in actuality was a cynical pool-shooting badass who received no grades his sophomore and junior years at Notre Dame because seriously, it was college football in the '20s, a scene whose halfassedness and complete lack of controls make the 1980s look like a monastery in comparison. Class was for kids with consumption and virgins, and Gipp was neither.
The choicest quotes all centered on Rockne as a sort of proto-Houston Nutt:
In one of his most notorious locker room pep talks, "The Rock" begged his players to win for little Billy Rockne, allegedly seriously ill in the hospital back in South Bend. Notre Dame won the game. Rockne’s teams almost always won. When the train carrying the team home arrived at the station, Billy was excitedly jumping up and down on the platform, healthy as any six-year-old in Indiana.
There's bullshit, and then there's BUUUUUUUUUULLSHIT, which is audacious, offensive, and when you let it linger on the palate for a bit almost admirable. This serves as segue for another compacted layer of bullshit to lay on the pile, and it is fresh and reeking:
Quiet down with the applause, Alabama fans. We know that's a masterful invocation of an angry and extremely partisan deity, but we're not finished here. We never liked the prospect of a God with loyalty to one team, since that starts the spiral of "Hey, um, God, why did we just go 4-8?", and then you're all just reading the book of Job again and wondering why you were stricken with the Boils of Weis, the Scrofula of Davie, the Guillain–Barré syndrome of the Willingham.
That's why this blog continues to posit that the only ruling deity of college football is Crazy Old Testament God, whose only loyalties are malice, petty anger, random tricks inflicted on mortals, strange challenges and demands issued with fire and lightning, and towards keeping the Jews happy, which he does by not giving them a college football team of worth to be periodically miserable over. The sign that the end times are near is Brandeis winning a national title, and do not forget this.
(Unless we're talking about Crom. It's pretty clear that Crom is a Syracuse fan, because he always says no.)
ABOUT THAT THING: Dr. Lloyd Carr says Dantonio will be fine, which reflects the opinions of other medical professionals. In contrast, Rich Rodriguez has started lifting weights with Mike Barwis in order to handle the rigors of coaching. You might throw up watching him rip the head off a referee later this year, but you'lll have to also admire the new explosiveness and burst he does it with thanks to endless hang cleans is impressive.
NO PLEASE THE RANDOM FORMATIONS ARE FANTASTIC KEEP DOING THEM. As title holders of the "Most Truculent 3-0 Fanbase In The Nation," please allow us to continue to complain about the Florida offense, its random carries allotted to random backs at random randomly by the staff, and to recognize that the head coach knows it sucks, but is being patient because there's really no option but to be patient. <----ADMITTING THIS IS THE HARDEST THING WE DO EVERY DAY AND YESTERDAY WE CHANGED A DIAPER WHILE DRIVING AND IT WASN'T EVEN OUR OWN. *
THE AUTOCORRECT DEFENSE WILL NOW REPLACE THE CHEWBACCA DEFENSE FOR THE 2010s. Chris Rainey's attorney--Huntley Johnson, natch--says he expects charges to be dropped, and is disappointed in journalists who demanded he be kicked off the team. WELL WE'RE DISAPPOINTED IN YOUR FACE.
THE GREATEST PART ABOUT THIS: That the racist tweets sent to Jacory Harris were pointed out by CanesPundit, who then immediately insinuated that he was gay. That's been removed from the original post--you can see the comments for the reaction and back-and-forth--but yes, we have the manual to the world, and it says right here that a Miami fan's first rhetorical volley is and always will be calling you a homosexual.
TODD MARINOVICH, ARTIST. A pretty decent one, actually.
RIP, KENNY MCKINLEY. The former Gamecock and current Broncos wide receiver was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot at his home last night. There's nothing to say about this save its senselessness and the loss that those who knew him will feel, because suicide has a lingering effect even random tragedy lacks. Garnet and Black Attack has a whole thread on him and a video stream today.
*Of course we didn't do this. It was our diaper. Now stop calling us to yell about how we took the kid out of the car seat, Ma Swindle.