Friday, October 28, 2011

Four Letter Words

I’m not a big fan of four letter words. That’s not to say that I don’t occasionally use them, because, alas, I do. But I’m still not a big fan of them.

One four letter word as of late is especially offensive to me … QUIT.

So this is a story about a young man who got his feelings hurt. You see, he made a recruiting trip to Notre Dame with his fellow High School comrade Jimmy Clausen, and felt virtually ignored by then-head coach Charlie Weis & company, and can’t seem to let it go. So this past Saturday, after USC beat Notre Dame … after being GIFTED 14 points on two Notre Dame turnovers in the red zone … several of their players decide to tell the media that Notre Dame quit.

“At the end there, when they didn’t call those timeouts, they just quit,” USC linebacker Chris Galippo said. “And that’s what Notre Dame football’s about. They’re not anything like USC.’

Wow.

I may not be overly happy with the performance of the Notre Dame football team this year, but QUIT is not the word that I would use.

So let me get this straight, because we did not call any timeouts in the last 6:43 minutes of the game, suddenly we’re quitters, and THAT is why we lost? Oh no (dripping with sarcasm), how could we not use our timeouts?! That HAS to be why we lost.

Never mind the fact that, hello, we GIFTED USC 14 points. Or that USC came out running up the middle all over us. Or that we just plain seem to be unconditioned compared to the likes of Michigan and USC. But we’re quitters because we did not use our timeouts.

Come on boys … open up the dictionary and find a bigger word than that.

I personally think that this Notre Dame team is WAY more talented than their record shows. They just need to learn to stop beating themselves, and learn to rotate players better (this is for you coaching staff) so that our guys don’t seem so gassed in the 4th quarter. Just think … if Kelly would have given Gary Gray a break in the 4th Quarter of the Michigan game and put in Lo Wood’s fresh legs … maybe we would not have missed that pivotal tackle and would have BEAT Michigan.

Okay, I digress, back to the word quit. So after all of this quitting nonsense is sputtered out by Mr. Galippo, Mr. Mark Tyler, and Mr. Curtis McNeal … Lane Kiffin has to come in and do some back peddling.

“Apologies were flying across social networks and the phone lines Monday as USC linebacker Chris Galippo and Coach Lane Kiffin tried to ease any hurt feelings over comments made after the Trojans’ 31-17 victory over Notre Dame on Saturday.” (Los Angeles Times)

“If I offended anyone with my post game comments Saturday, I do apologize,” Galippo tweeted. “I have great respect for their players and their program. It was a great game by both sides. Time to focus on Stanford.”

“On behalf of our football program, I apologize for Chris Galippo’s statements after the game. I’ve addressed this with Chris and he is remorseful,” Kiffen said in a statement. “I also called Coach (Brian) Kelly to personally apologize. As I said to the media immediately after the game, I thought Notre Dame played extremely hard throughout the game. It was another classic rivalry game and we feel fortunate to have won.”

Okay, now that I’ve gotten THAT off my chest, let’s look ahead to Navy.

Last year we played Navy on the road and got our behind handed to us. After a 35-17 route over the Irish last year, Navy heads to South Bend and Notre Dame is ready to show the world that we will not be beaten again in our house this season. In order to do that, though, our defense is going to have to make a bigger showing this weekend than our offense. With the loss of Kapron Lewis-Moore last weekend, the trio of freshman: Stephon Tuitt, Chase Hounshell and Aaron Lynch will need to step up and handle the Navy run game. We will see on Saturday whether or not the Irish have the mental fortitude to shake off a loss like the one last weekend against USC, and focus on the task at hand.

Okay boys ... LET'S GO IRISH!

Cheers!

2 comments:

  1. Well, i opened the dictionary and found a better 4 letter word: FAIL

    This NDFB Management said, the objective for this season is to play in a BCS bowl game.
    Clearly this is a failure to meet or reach the objective and should not be sugar-coated. Quite frankly if you do not meet the objective of your job you get laid-off. So nobody should tell me "We are on track".

    Saying 8-4 (if we are lucky to get to 8-4) is an improvement over last season is only numerically correct.
    You don't say to your child: Good Job, last year you had a "C-" this year you got a "C". What a great improvement, if you strive for the best.
    I am not saying we have to go 12-0, but with this so-la-la schedule the objective was clear to go to a BCS game. Don't tell me what a "strong" schedule NDFB has. It has not. Compare it to LSU's schedule. We would be lucky to get out of that with a 4-8 finish.

    Apparently the coaches of our rivals: Hoke and Kiffin are all doing better, so woulda coulda shoulda. doesn't count. You can not build success on woulda coulda shoulda. It is an excuse for failure and see the obvious.

    Coming back to the Headline and taking our own medicine:
    As Manti T'eo said in the Pep Rally: "History is written by the victors".
    And the Victors decided ND quit. So don't complain.

    And guess what? I quit too. The game started at 2am in the morning (my local time). And i was up there. But all i needed to know, i saw during 1 quarter. I quit right before half-time. It was 3 am in the morning and it was not worth it to spoil the holy mass 5h later and the complete sunday.

    And by the way: USC had a very good game plan and they ran it down our throat. So kudos to Kiffin. And we looked like pre-schoolers.

    Well, lets keep the Jumbotron and field turf rant for another comment... :-)

    Go Irish! Beat Navy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why couldn't they have played USC with the tempo & intensity that they played Maryland this weekend?! Gah!

    ReplyDelete