Johnny Irish

Home At Last

Sun, 11/18/07

VICTORY!!!

Yes, I know that under normal circumstances, celebrating a victory over sorry, sloppy, silly Duke is nothing to be proud of. Well, not in football, at least. Beat the Blue Devils on the gridiron (as just about everybody does), and you’re merely doing what you’re supposed to do. Especially if you are a program with the pedigree of Notre Dame.

But as we all are painfully aware of by now, this season has been anything but normal – for college football in general and the Irish in particular. In fact, this wild and wacky 2008 season has been about as normal as a hopped-up Gary Busey at a Little People’s Convention. Scratch that. It’s been even weirder. Far weirder.

So, let’s not pretend that this is like any other year. Let’s take the wins – all two of them – and cherish and value and, yes, celebrate them for the rare, glorious, beautiful packages of unbridled joy that they are. Consider them early Christmas presents, if you will.

At least that’s what your friend Johnny Irish will be doing. Naysayers, critics and haters be damned.

Notre Dame 28, Duke 7.

WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A WIN IS A WIN:

Yeah, the Irish are just 2-9. Their two wins have come over teams that are likely to see their head coaches fired for poor job performance in the next few months. But they earned a win Saturday, and they did it in impressive, at-times dominating fashion. And, best of all, they did it at Notre Dame Stadium, in front of a sold-out, shivering and salivating crowd that had to wait until the very last of this season’s seven home games to taste victory.

(As bad as this season has been, can you imagine if the Irish had finished 0-7 at home? With losses to Navy, Air Force and Duke on that sacred, storied ground? Good, because neither can I!)

After an ugly start, the Irish exploded for two touchdowns over the last 1:17 of the first half, and added an additional TD in each of the final two quarters. And if not for a costly fourth-quarter fumble by fifth-year senior running back Travis Thomas (we’ll resist further temptation here and leave it at that), Notre Dame likely would have secured its first shutout since the 2002 season.

The win snapped a school-record six-game home losing streak and a four-game overall losing streak. It sent the handful of seniors that played this season out in grand style. (It also sent 1-10 Duke to its eight straight loss, but who’s keeping count?)

But, more importantly, it contained moments of awesome ecstasy for the upperclassmen and underclassmen alike. And during a season marred by ugly losses and uglier rumors of serious division between those two groups of players, how cool was that to see?