'Same as it ever was, same as it ever
was…'
Six turnovers, virtually all of
them unforced… including three INT's.
So what, exactly, is
different this year?
As we all cycle through the offseason, doing this and planning that… whether it be children's weddings, trips to Dublin, getting a Mormon in the White House… I hope this update finds you all happy, healthy and working on fitting into your summer speedo's.
Me, given all on my free time,
I've taken a different direction - working hard on a couple screenplays… I mean
if Nicholas Sparks can do it, how hard can it be? Still in rough, outline
form so indulge me… but I wanted to share:
Story #1 - The
Snickers™ Game
They say 'write about what you
know'…
In a dystopian future
world state, where the words 'Notre Dame' and 'elite' are found in the same
sentence only in the context of women's basketball, soccer and lacrosse - okay
it's set in 2013 - the NCAA outlaws football for its increasingly egregious violence
but lead by a radical splinter group of Girl Scouts w. influential ties to Tel
Aviv, The Vatican and Bentonville, the masses cannot be sated. President Caesar
Christy introduces The Snickers™ Games - a series of sadistic games,
underwritten by private sector money, which pit unwitting youth against each
other for national sport, sustainable TV ratings and critical governmental cash
flow.
The primary cast of characters
look like this:
·
Rees's Pieces. Nicknamed thus because of his superficially attractive
characteristics but ultimate lack of substance. While well intentioned, when he
dies early in The Games, there is national guilt over how relieved the populace
is that he didn't end up being The Chosen One.
·
Catnip. Rival to Rees's Pieces, his moniker is the result
of his, ahem, popularity with the ladies. He is the story's protagonist
and dark horse to ever win anything. Habitually a poor practice gamer,
his popularity skyrockets when he leads his downtrodden NW Indiana district in
a humiliating victory vs. District Wolverine.
·
Pita. An ally to Catnip, in love with all things
hummus. An important sub-plot is his and Catnip's spiritual, agape-level
bond, grounded in a shared obsession of "The Shawshank Redemption"
and James Whitmore's sensitive portrayal of the aged prison librarian.
They're not gay but that doesn't stop people from speculating.
·
Hayseed. A successful survivor of prior games, Hayseed
acts as the primary mentor to Team Catnip. Hailing from the mountains of
Tennessee, he is not the sharpest tool in the shed but is an incredible athlete
with a winning life strategy modeled off of watching Beverly Hillbillies
repeats.
 |
| "Don't let hunger happen to you!" |
Suffice to say, I have a few story line gaps to fill in…
Story #2 - "The Lads With The Gerbil Tattoos"
 |
| "You've got to attend - Sean Astin will be there!" |
Set in the preternaturally
dismal lake district of St. Joseph, an odd, socially inept youth with mad
computer hacking skills - we'll call him Üwe - is hired to investigate The
Dillons, an off-putting, affluent family that guards their privacy with a zealousness
bordering on pathological. Üwe quickly discovers that when it comes to
the Dillons, incestuous dysfunction runs rampant... with hints of neo-fascist role
playing, secret 'bunga bunga' parties and homo erotic competitions involving
large blocks of ice.
Spoiler Alert! The Dillon
family's dark secret involves an obsession with the movie "Rudy",
unnatural uses of red body paints and a perverse habit of calling each other
"Big".
My legal counsel (a couple of local kids who watch a lot of TV shows involving lawyers) tell me
I should have no problems, intellectual property-wise. Plus, early
feedback (the NW Indiana Philippine maid community) suggests this storyline will 'kill'
in the lucrative Laotian and Myanmar markets. So I'm hopeful. Stay
tuned. It may be the career path I was always destined
for.
But I digress.
Song of the Week
Digging deep into my Boston years - a treasure trove of music at times so obscure that Shazam doesn't
recognize it and the mere Googling of its lyrics gets you placed on a
government watch list... But this is not the case here: I give you The Cars, the breakout '80s Boston
band and their prescient
homage to Aaron Lynch.
She tricks me into thinkin'
I can't believe my eyes.
I wait for her forever
But she never does arrive
It's all mixed up...
It's all mixed up,
It's all mixed up
 |
| In case you were wondering... |
Okay, so that gets the Aaron
Lynch reference out of the way - as well as my point of view on the matter.
Let's move on.
Observations from The Game
I didn't go to the game, just
watched it on the NBC Sports channel feed… here are some fast thoughts:
·
Addition through
subtraction. No Tom Hammond.
Excellent start.
·
Mike Mayock tells us
he's from West Philadelphia. That explains while I've always looked upon
him with both affection and fear.
 |
| "You Dropped the (F) Bomb on Me..." |
·
Pretty In Pink. Alex Flanagan's rockin' an über-pink outfit
today. Clearly a Molly Ringwold homage. Mr. Hughes, I'm ready for my
close up.
·
Coach Kelly
is miked for the game! Outstanding! Let's hope there's no seven
second delay.
·
All punts will be
fair caught, that is if they're not shanked to begin with. At least one aspect
of the team will be in mid-season form.
·
The RB's are scary
good. And at least 4-deep. Even before Amir Carlisle sees the
field, one wonders how we're going to keep everyone happy, engaged.
o Riddick finally living up to the lofty expectations of
the legacy that comes with being a Theo.
·
TE's - clearly the
other positional strength on offense. Another position that legitimately
goes 4-deep. If Eifert figures out how to run the outside patterns like a
WR, he may be unstoppable.
·
QB's - who really
knows if Kelly believes what he publicly says. But for all the rhetoric about
Golson still having trouble getting the team into formation etc., Mr. "I'm
A Coach's Son" Tommy Rees copped yet another delay of game penalty because
he couldn't get his unit into place. And frankly, he's no better
whatsoever than what we saw in the bowl game.
 |
| "Yes, it's true. I am a pre-med major." |
o Gunner Kiel is not this year's savior. Not necessarily a
bad thing - we can all cool it on the wünderkind expectations.
o Golson looked, by far, the most natural, athletic (and
dare I say, accurate) of the QB's.
o Hendrix looks like Robo-QB. Much better on the run
than any of 'em ('cept Everett) but really, really mechanical looking.
·
If the snapping
difficulties are anything to judge by, Braxton Cave may end up being the 2nd
most important guy on the offense.
·
Defense was really
hard to judge - there seemed to be a lot of key guys who played very, very
little. The front 7 is gonna have to come up BIG - cornerbacks still scare the
bejesus out of me.
·
Was hoping to see
Ishaq Williams be more… impactful. Sure, he had an interception
and a fumble recovery but for all of his 5-star hype, it would've been nice to
see him be more… disruptive.
·
Really happy we're
opening with Navy and Purdue. This team is going to need a couple games to find
it's personality.
If The Blue-Gold game was
a movie poster, it’d be… “Alien Vs. Predator”
"Whoever Wins… We Lose"
The problem with intra-squad
scrimmages, is that they're always zero sum games. If someone does well
(e.g. George Atkinson III and his 30 yd. dashes) is it because they're awesomely
awesome? Or because the other side is distressingly lame?
I suspect it's some combination of the two. Sadly, lasting conclusions
are hard to draw…
Word of the Week
CHIAROSCURO chiar·oscu·ro noun \-ˈskyu̇r-(ˌ)ō,
-ˈsku̇r-\ plural -ros
1
pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color
2
the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of art
the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character)
3
16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print
different tones of the same color; also : a print made by this technique
4
the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface
5
the quality of being veiled or partly in shadow
Origin of CHIAROSCURO
Italian, from chiaro clear,
light + oscuro obscure, dark
First Known Use: 1686
Used in a sentence:
"Notre Dame's Spring scrimmage represented a chiaroscuro of good
and bad that makes absolute judgments impossible."
The
Spring BUDDY Award.
Truth be told, Spring was never Buddy's favorite time of
year. In fact, for an animal that lived his life with a perpetual joie
de vivre - it was a period typically met with significant trepidation and
angst. No doubt because Spring represented the annual Battle Royale
between Terry and Lisa over getting a summer haircut for him. I never won those
debates. Never. And my attempts at well intentioned compromise
resulted in only a more freakish look for the Budster. I'm pretty sure
there's not a shred of factual evidence that shaves for the long haired dog
represent a tangible improvement in enhanced body temperature comfort when the
hot weather comes. But even the Village Idiot will tell you that with The
Holocaust Survivor Cut he inevitably received, came disappointment, a massive
sense of betrayal and a precipitous loss of self-esteem. (I'd hide in a
drainage culvert too, Buddy, if I were you.) But basically, the perfect
metaphor for Notre Dame Spring football in this century!
Anyway…
I haven't seen any of the 14 prior practices - and just the game - but my vote
for the Spring Buddy goes to Everett Golson. Playing the most important
position on the field, he made plays. A lot of 'em. Cannon for an
arm, far more athletic than any of the guys… personally I'll take a couple
modest negative yardage plays against some big time gains... he engendered a
strange feeling of optimism.
And I
fail to understand why you wouldn't now play this guy a lot and simply get the
kinks out. (Two words for ya, coach Kelly, Tony Rice.)
Honorable
mention to George Atkinson III and Theo Riddick. They
rocked - and are clearly going to be integral to that offense's success.
Schadenfreude of the
Spring
Tough to find a representative
candidate this time of year but I'll throw out one seasonal candidate.
·
7 games behind the
Texans and April isn't even over.
·
One $240MM free
agent is hitting .246 with zippidity-doo-dah in HR's.
·
Their ≈$80MM free
agent pitcher has 2 wins.
·
Your dysfunctional
baseball competition in the city, the Dodgers, has the best record in the
National League.
I suppose it could be worse,
Angel fans. You could have Bobby Valentine as your manager.
Terry’s Tool Time.
Neil Young famously sand 'Rust
never sleeps' and neither, apparently, do tools.
·
Ozzie Guillen - Admiring Castro, really? In Cuban-heavy
Miami? Your self-absorption is only matched by your apparent sense of
invincibility. The whole 'Ozzie being Ozzie' excuse was so 2009.
What's Cuban for 'asshole'?
·
Bobby Petrino - The country thought your amorality was confined
to ethical blind spots involving contracts and your team. Now we know it
includes infidelity and sexual favor-based hiring practices. Good to know.
·
Les Miles - Couldn't let go the Gunner Kiel reference even after
you cheap shotted him on Signing Day. Shakespeare would say "me
thinks you doth protest too much". My wife would say "who's the
parent here?!" Either way, you proved just how strong of a fit you
are to coach in the SEC.
·
John Calipari - Representing all that is loathsome in college coaching
(and how screwed up the NCAA rules are), you've turned the UK program into a
one team minor league system. At least you're not pretending to have your kids
long term interests at heart (see Calhoun, Don).
·
Bo Ryan - Wisconsin's coach has a high potential freshman decide
to transfer. Not unusual in college basketball - there was only 341 kids
who came to the same decision last year. But very out of the norm at UW
and coach Bo wasn't happy… so perfectly within his NCAA rights, he restricted
the kid's transfer option… by 26 schools!
Happily, national outrage ensues and he ends up confining the 'off
limits' schools to just the Big Ten. What a guy.
And Now For Something
Completely Different…
Building on Mr. Rasmus's thought
of abandoning actual attendance of the game, should Tommy still be the QB
choice… allow me a 'build' on the concept…
 |
| "Is it me or does it seem like Tommy still can't get the play snapped in time?" |
Introducing "Teatro
dell'Inferno" or Hell's Theater. In development is a full
autumn schedule of obscure-but-culturally-enriching films to be shown out of
the back of Raz's car. Soliciting the sharpest cinematic minds around
(e.g. classicist Jerry Perez, subversive Brian Ward and Class of '16 enrollee
Matt Castellini for edgier material), should in fact Tommy still be The Man,
Purdue weekend will kick off with the 1967 Peter Brook film, 'Marat
Sade'. Or as it's known in its more exhaustive title, "The
Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of
the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade".
The movie is exactly what the
name suggests - a play performed by loons in an 18th century French
asylum. Absurd? You bet! Confused?
Absolutely! Mildly threatening? Just wait. But what
could be more apropos starter material if indeed Tommy is once again manning
the helm?
 |
| "I say, Peter, while you're up... would you mind topping up my Bloody?" |
Plus I have it on good authority
that if you turn off the sound and sync the film to the game's radio broadcast,
the mystery of Brian Kelly's strategy - in all its genius - will be
revealed.
And there will be a quiz.
Recruiting - 'This I
Believe'.
With L'Affaire Lynch
still twisting in the wind, many strong opinions have been bandied about the
risk-reward of recruiting Sunbelt kids and maybe it's the 5-star athletes in
general… At any rate, it's provoked me to consider much of what I strongly
believe. It is, after all, an election year. Allow me to offer some
of my work-in-progress credo, including but not limited to these
beliefs:
 |
| "The McRib here is to die for..." |
·
The McDonalds at the
corner of Chicago & State Streets is THE Epicenter of Weird in the
universe.
 |
| "Jack, you get a pass on this one..." |
·
Grown men should not
wear cowboy hats unless they're actively engaged in a range war.
·
The slaying of Flo
from the Progressive Insurance commercials should be considered a victimless
crime.
·
Recruiting anyone
from the states of Florida and California is always going to be 50-50
proposition, at best.
Regarding that final point, I
don't think one should draw any great conclusion to Aaron's flaking out. He was
a head case before he arrived and he'll likely be one afterwards. Some
people mature at different speeds. Or not all - hell, look at this
distribution list.
And oh by the way, Recruiting
2013 has started off really well for all those uninformed. Full class of highly
regarded o-linemen to begin with…
Of course we've heard this tune
before. Before we actually play the real games.
Final observations
There's going to be a lot of
pressure on Chuck Martin and Kelly to maximize the talents he's got on
offense. There's some seriously talented kids, starting with an offensive
line that could be really, really good. The problem is the talent seems
to be overloaded at a couple positions. It's the kind of problem that
Holtz used to excel at.
Defensively, it's all going to
come down to successfully bringing pressure. If they do, they'll probably
survive an inexperienced secondary (w the notable exception of the USC and
Oklahoma games).
Finally, tough year,
schedule-wise… can the coaches get these kids to rise to the occasion or fold
like a card table? Pretty critical year for the program and the coaching
staff.
tc
 |
| "Wait til I tell you what this year's Feifar wager involves..." |
It's
Never Too Early… the 2012 Schedule!
· There's only one key
date on this schedule - Friday night, October 5th at Villa Lini, for the 3rd annual Linipalooza. Be there!
·
Hey wait a minute,
that's my wedding anniversary. Lisa will be thrilled. Out.
Of. Her. Mind.
September
|
October
|
November
|
1 Navy
(Dublin)
8 Purdue
15 @Michigan
State
22 Michigan
29 OPEN
|
6 Miami
(Chicago) LINIPALOOZA III
13 Stanford
20 BYU
27
@Oklahoma
|
3 Pittsburgh
10 @Boston
College
17 Wake Forest
24 @USC
|
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