Godfather has done his usual top notch job assessing the upcoming slate with his slightly rose colored glasses. At least he didn't project us into the National Championship playoff this year!
One bright spot, only illuminated by my ignorance. I guess I didn't study the schedule that well over the summer and I thought we had to play Sparty this season, and we don't! One less loss for us.
That being said, I think I've been stuck on 8-4 for the last few seasons, kinda like the Dallas Cowboys going 8-8 every year!
And while I'd say projecting us in the mid-to-high teens pre-season is probably about right, I've noticed that it's a quiet Top 20 rankings. I've read and heard several times over the last few weeks various prognosticators overlooking the Irish when assessing other teams' (FSU, USC, ASU) toughest games. No one seems to think ND is in anyone's top 3 or 4 challenges over the next 3 months. That's fine by me, of course. I love under promising and over delivering when it comes to our Boys in Blue and Gold.
And the fact we don’t play a tough road game until FSU in game 7 could be a big benefit to us. Syracuse might challenge us as Godfather states, but that will be a home crowd in my old backyard so I think we’ll prevail. So will we be 6-0 for the trip to Tallahassee? I doubt it. Stanford is still going to be very tough, although I think we’ll play them close.
But, alas, here’s where I’ll differ with the Godfather. I still think we’ll lose one game this year that we “shouldn’t”, a la Pittsburgh last year. No good reason to lose that one, but we just played flat the whole game and the Panthers were hungrier than we were that night. Which game is that this year? I’m betting it will be North Carolina. Nestled between a close loss to Stanford and looking forward to Florida State, that’s our “gotcha” game this year.
I think Southern Cal is still a bit overrated, so I’m not too worried about that game. And we’ll spank Louisville, who will be a little star struck coming in to play at ND Stadium.
So Mr Broken Record does it again. Losses to Stanford, North Carolina, FSU and also ASU in the desert. Another 8-4 season.
And I’d like to conclude by thanking Southern Cal captain Josh Shaw for making up some kind of whackadoo story about saving his nephew from drowning, and some neophyte in the Southern Cal Public Affairs office for running with the story—the Trojans just ripped the scandal/embarrassment baton right out of our hands going in to weekend one. Fight on, indeed.
GO IRISH!!! BEAT OWLS!!!
The Colonel
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I would be disappointed if you were more optimistic than me. Definitely some games that can go either way once we see what we have in September. Love the story about the USC player, bumps our ND news down in the headlines as you point out.
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