With Childlike Wonder

Every Saturday during the College Football season is like Christmas morning for me! I can't wait to get up, turn on ESPN GameDay, watch the run-down of all the day's games, and then finally cheer cheer my Irish on to victory! (Photo Courtesy of Joe Coppola ... THANKS JOE!)

Lately though, there has not been much cheer cheering on to victory. It has been a tough year for myself and my fellow Irish fans. And as I wrote in a previous post, I predicted that ND will finish this Brian Kelly inaugural season 6-6.

That being said, I had two tickets for this past weekend's game against Utah. And though I am always absolutely giddy about heading back to campus, my feelings about the weekend were torn. On one hand, I was actually kind of dreading going back to campus, because I was envisioning sitting through a slaughter like my parents sat through earlier in the season against Stanford ... only this weekend it was going to be cold and rainy ... and not blue skies and sunny like they had versus Stanford.

And then there is that childlike wonder of mine. That inner voice that says ... What if?

What if this is the weekend they finally get it together?? What if this is the weekend they pull off the big upset. What if this is the game that we'll be talking about years from now?? But, I decided not to share any of these "what if" thoughts with anyone ... thinking that if I DID ... I might jinx myself!

So we made our trek up to Notre Dame, just like any other past year. Pulled into campus just in time to attend the Pep Rally. And stood through all of the necessary cheerleader dances and marching band songs, to get to what we REALLY wanted to hear ... ROCKET.

So Rocket takes the stage and starts .... There's a thief in the house! And he's been hanging out in our house far too long!

Listen! Listen! Listen!

His name is "Unbelief."

His speech centered around "Unbelief.” That guy that cheers for the Irish but when something goes wrong jumps off the bandwagon. He challenged the Irish fans to shut those voices up, and he challenged the Irish players to do the same.

“Unbelief is gonna be at the party. Unbelief's gonna be at the restaurants. Unbelief might even try to sneak up into your hotel. Unbelief might even try to sneak up in your dreams. You tell that son of a savage, 'Get the hell out of my room.'”

And the crowd went WILD!!

((View the whole speech here!))

All night and all the next day we kept joking around about "unbelief." It became the focal point of our weekend. And then ... the unbelievable thing happened! A passionate, determined Notre Dame squad came out, took advantage of their competitor's mistakes, took control of their destiny, and upset the highly ranked Utah Utes.

I'm not sure how much of an impact Rocket's speech had on the players, but it sure did have a huge impact on us.

And yes ... the KoolAid ... errr, my childlike wonder ... was really great this weekend!

Bring on Army!

Go Irish! Beat the Black Knights!

Cheers!