Advertisement
football Edit

Ask Lou, Part I: Questions On Notre Dame’s Present & Past

PANDalun: It appears the last scheduled USC game is 2025 and Stanford 2024. Any conjecture as to whether there is any thought to changing the annual status of both/either?

Through the years, one learns to avoid the words “always” and “never” in conversations pertaining to most topics … but I am just about 100 percent certain that neither the Notre Dame or USC sides want to put a halt to that annual rivalry where “the blood is in the bricks.”

Notre Dame versus USC
The Notre Dame rivalry with USC is expected to continue in perpetuity. (Bill Panzica)
Advertisement

Conference realignments this past decade ended some great annual rivalries such as Oklahoma-Nebraska, Penn State-Pitt, Missouri-Kansas, etc. And now, maybe this pandemic gives cause for pause about travel and schedules down the road among a lot of administrators.

However, the intersectional rivalry between the Fighting Irish and Trojans goes beyond the provincial. It is as national as it comes and is college football. If I had to bet, I see that one continuing in perpetuity.

Stanford, to me, maybe could be more negotiable. Notre Dame does want to maintain its West Coast presence and play annually in the state with a regular-season finale (USC in even-numbered years, Stanford in odd ones), and the second-to-none Cardinal academics align with Notre Dame’s own aspirations of what college football should be.

Be that as it may, unlike with USC and Navy, that series does not date back to the 1920s, though the two schools have met annually since 1997. Attendance when the game is at Stanford also has been a disappointment (37,391 this past year "officially", although it seems a lot were disguised as empty seats).

I believe Stanford will remain a regular on the slate, but I’d rather see it more like four-to-six years out of 10 with a UCLA rotated in, or maybe even an Oregon or Washington for a home and home. Notre Dame will host Cal on Sept. 17, 2022 — but no return game in Berkeley is slated.

Finding alternative is easier said than done. Many conference schools do not want the league schedule interrupted or involve having to fly across the country. Thus, the arrangements with USC and Stanford have become both valued and convenient.


SJB75: Do you believe as of today that Notre Dame will travel across the country in late November and play USC?

If the college football season has not been cancelled or dramatically reconfigured by then, yes. But at this point anybody’s guess is as good as the next person’s on how this pandemic will shake out in the coming months. It’s impossible to say what the world will look like in two months, never mind five, so pretty much anything is on the table.

What would be unique is the Nov. 21 Senior Day versus Louisville. Because the fall semester now begins on Aug. 10, final exams are scheduled from Nov. 16-20, the five days before the game versus the Cardinals.

Those always have been intense study days (the winter sports like basketball were off that week with no games scheduled), so preparation that week would be a whole new course(s) to navigate.

So the next week, the USC game would be almost like a bowl preparation in that the semester is over, there are no classes to worry about, and the team can be isolated on campus.


Irishjohn68: Do you think that Notre Dame will try and reschedule a game to be played at Lambeau Field?

There hasn’t been anything officially announced that the Oct. 3 game versus Wisconsin in Lambeau will be shifted to Notre Dame Stadium, which then might result in the 2021 outing in Chicago’s Soldier Field getting played instead in Madison, Wis.

Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez and the Badgers administration have publicly reiterated that there have been no discussions of an alternate site this year. That’s as of late June. Maybe in a week or month or so, plans change. As stated, everything regarding sports right now is in an extremely fluid state.

Head coach Brian Kelly speculated earlier this month that with all that is going on and with the social distancing mandates, it seems counterproductive to have a game to an NFL venue — and the same goes for the Sept. 26 game in Charlotte versus Wake Forest and the Nov. 14 outing versus Georgia Tech in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — for a larger gate when the attendance will be much more sparse anyway, or certainly not played in front of a full house.

If the game with Wisconsin is indeed moved, if played at all, yes, I do believe Notre Dame would still love to someday play at Lambeau Field if the opportunity and all other components jibe.


Arrowfan624: Do you think Clemson will be a mostly full stadium?

Definitely not as of late June. The goal at that point is to just have a complete season and perhaps even have a quarter of the edifice filled. This pandemic is not just going to magically disappear because we want it to and just get back to normalcy.

There is still much conversation about a spike or second wave returning later in the year. Notre Dame, along with, I imagine, the rest of college football and world of athletics, is going to err on the side of caution.


Touchdown Jebus: Who are Notre Dame players who you thought were destined for NFL greatness who never panned out in the league?

The most recent one to me was Michael Floyd — even though he did have a pretty darn productive first four years of a seven-year run in which he had 266 catches and 25 touchdowns.

But I would not have guessed he would end up catching more passes in college than in the pros. I thought his numbers would be more Golden Tate-like (660 career catches, 111 starts).

I believed both Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen could last longer in the league than they did, basically four years apiece in primarily reserve roles.

There were several first-round tight ends in the previous century who I thought could be Pro Bowl players: Ken MacAfee (1978), Tony Hunter (1982) and Derek Brown (1992).

MacAfee was as good as tight end ever to play the college game (Walter Camp Award recipient for the 1977 national champs and third in the Heisman), but he lasted only two years at San Francisco before Joe Montana prospered, and they wanted to move MacAfee to guard. He opted for dental school instead and became a prominent oral surgeon. Talk about falling back on your education! I remember when he decided to retire he made a comment something to the effect of “it’s not like I’m going to shovel coals the rest of my life.”

Hunter had a good third season with the Rams with 50 catches but injuries his fourth year forced him to hang up the cleats. Brown did play eight years in the NFL, but when the nation’s No. 1 recruit arrived at Notre Dame as a freshman in 1988, he was already tabbed as a future All-Pro. He ended up catching only 43 passes in the NFL. I’d still love to have his pension.

Walt Patulski was the No. 1 overall pick as a defensive end in the 1972 draft, and he did start 49 of his first 56 games at Buffalo from 1972-75 but admitted he never quite had the fire and meanness to thrive in the league while pursuing other interests. This was considered common among some Notre Dame graduates, and NFL scouts at times became more wary because the perception was that “ND guys” weren’t hungry enough due to having other options in life besides football.

The late Brian Boulac, a player, coach and administrator at the school for 50 years, contended that Steve Niehaus, the No. 2 overall pick in 1976, was the greatest defensive tackle ever to suit up at Notre Dame. Unfortunately, a horrible shoulder injury limited him to playing with basically one arm in the NFL in his four-year career where he started only six times his last three seasons.

----

Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable

Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.

• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @PatrickEngel_, @ToddBurlage and @AndrewMentock.

• Like us on Facebook.

Advertisement