It was an ugly freakin' win, our offense absolutely stinks. But our defense knocked out the UCLA qb and all they had was a walkon...we've been there before... and against him they played lights out, sacked him, hurried him, tipped his passes, got lucky a couple of times, and made some very big plays. I couldn't believe Maurice Crum sailing for the endzone at the end tripped over his own feet!! But no matter the streak is finally over!!
I wasn't pretty was it? But we'll take it any way we can get. Way to go Irish. PJ in Jersey GO IRISH.
ummm <t>I keep hearing people complaining about the offense, but that defense we just faced was literally returning all but one starter...<br/> <br/> That same defense stuck the football right up our tailpipe last year and we DID have a great offense last season.<br/> <br/> I know if we had a chance, it would have to come from Kaptain Karl. He didn't let me down. He is preserving a redshirt on a scholarship QB and he has now had both of his starting QBs go down with serious injuries. He's known this day was coming after Cowan went down.<br/> <br/> I dont care. We win. Trojans Lose.<br/> <br/> GO IRISH</t>
Rev Jones says: "Put down the coolaid my children." 8) Congrats on getting the monkey off your back. this has to be a great day for Notre Dame fans.
:lol: Good Morning My FRIENDS... WOW what a night.... the only things missing where you all ...... I dont have much of a voice..left we had a great time ... Good seats ..great parking... I was with Mr Perfect and we WON... YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed the MBC and dinner the tailgate w/ the master chief Mike and of course dinner after the game at Between the Buns with "J" ..... oh.. and of the course the prayer that we will make our flight home ... but maybe next year I almost forgot our yearly love note from the man himself Mr Jiff posted on the door from the MBC (jiff I miss you) ... I'd did miss you all but it was a great game I love ND football and the fans when UCLA gave up the 2 touchdowns that placed cleared so fast,,,, good o' LA fans but the IRISH Stayed to the end and then some... I think they where the last to leave the parking lot ... I am sure Mr JOCO will be on soon you give you his highlights.... We are a very happy family this am//// Oh by the way this was our grandson Brendan's first game.. THANKS FOR LUCK BREN .......HEY GONZO WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR TEAM >>>>>>>>> GO IRISH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well some honest evaluation is due. 1. Corey is right while the UCLA offense was hurt by losing their QB, that was still the same UCLA defense that we played last year and struggled to score on with Brady and company. So I don't feel too bad that our baby offense did struggle mightily. 2. Also UCLA returned most of their offense, that UCLA OL was not a green inexperienced bunch and those WR's weren't freshmen. So kudos to our defene for stepping it up and playing with passion and determination. 3. I am still concerned with our offense never the less. I'm glad the OL seems to have improved and are not mere matadors waiving the DL through. Clausen actually had some time to throw last night on occassion. But we still throw too many quick outs and screen passes and can't really sustain a running game. 4. Clausen was lucky that he didn't have those deep throws picked. 5. Neal and Smith make me feel good about the defense. 6. I thought our DB's would be a strength but they really haven't had a good game yet. Ambrose Wooden is the new Clifford Jefferson. Walls is young but I thought he'd be better in coverage. Bruton though makes me smile. 7. Glad to see Geoff Price get back on track, we really needed that. Glad to see our PK make his kicks, we need to have confidence in him and he needs to have confidence in himself. 8. Even though UCLA is the first team we've held without a 100yd rusher this year, our run defense is still suspect. I think if UCLA had buckeled down and just stayed with the run they'd have been better off than doing what they did. 9. Special Teams Coverage finally had a good game. Maybe saved Pollians job. 10. I long to ruin BC's undefeated season. :twisted:
Ok.....guess anyone nowadays can pull off a win Sort of half-hearted congrats.....1-5 blows my prediction
Terry... <t>Did you PPV the game? Figures the first game I cannot see we gat a W and end the streak so I cannot comment on anything that happened. As for the secondary imagine what the Ryan will do to it this Saturday but I bet a burger my man Ambrose #22 Wooden is a part of the torching.<br/> Anyway glad to get the win no matter the circumstances.</t>
Should this happen again in the future, as it did to me (My daughter in South Bend got it on local TV, which makes sense), and if you can't get the game on your local radio, which I could not, there is a solution. There is a Catholic radio station in Fort Wayne which streams the audio of the Notre Dame games for free. The website is www.wlyv.com. That's how I listened to the game on radio last night.
Sid I was at my daughter's in Carmel. They had the game on the local ABC all local news station. Thanks for the link to the audio stream.
Mike, Carmel, IN? If so, where in Carmel? Our Fishers house (next door to the east of Carmel) is just east and south of the White River bridge on 116th Street. We were not down there last weekend, but we get down there as often as possible to be close the the kids and grandkids.
Actually Sid, she lives in Westfield in Richter's Corner of the Countryside sub. She's just north of 161st st. a mile or so west of 31.
It was a calm tailgate on the Rose Bowl golf course for Mrs. JO'Co and I. We just set up our own little picnic, (OK, she set it up.) as we took in the activities. I graded my final papers and projects under an Easy-up and I spilled nary a drop of me Killian's on any of them, so the kiddies will never suspect a thing when I pass them back, except for a faint odor of beer. The Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles held a huge, pre-game bash near the mosquito pond, which included Aaron Taylor and an Irish band playing modern Irish music from Van Morrison to Dexy's Midnight Runners. The only downer was the club's decision to rent a dozen port-a-pots; then refuse to allow non-club members to use them, despite being located in the middle of a hard-drinking Irish crowd. Come on Eileen! What bastards! I chose our seats up by the press box on the west side to be in the shade and they were pretty good seats for viewing everything, as I was soon to discover. The Irish come out to warm up in small groups, one group at a time. The most interesting group were the linebackers. Kerry Neal and Brian Smith looked like men among boys. They were taller, faster and more athletic than anyone else in that group and they're both built like Superman. I had no idea they were that big. What you saw in the game from those two will only get better... We were surrounded up there by some interesting people. An old lady sitting next to Mrs. JO'Co told us that her father-in-law actually played for Knute Rockne and so did his brother. A guy behind us and his family were typical Bruin fans: they were really from Nebraska and root for the Bruins as their second team, kind of the way that I root for the Bruins as my second team. (Real Bruin fans, like real Angels fans, are scarce.) We swapped stories of growing up as foreigners here in So Cal. He admitted that he used to watch the Notre Dame replays on Sunday mornings and I confessed that I used to listen to the Huskers games on radio provided by Californians for Nebraska, which he is a life-member of... The most interesting fellow in the area (the UCLA Alumni section) was some clown that everyone called "Tiki." He looked so much like Tiki Barber, that it made you look twice. He led the crowd in all kinds of traditional cheers and made everyone stand up and yell on every Irish third down play. He also led the exodus out of the stadium and back to the golf course tailgate when they were losing in the 4th quarter... Bruin fans seemed frustrated and shocked through most of the game. The Irish and their fans were a novel experience for most of them. I've seen many rowdy crowds come into the Rose Bowl over the decades: Texas, Tennessee, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio State etc., but this was different. The Irish fans took over BOTH ends of the Rose Bowl and as many as a third of the seats on the west side. They did their own cheers (WE ARE ND!) and carried on even when the Bruin band was playing. Nearly half the folks in the UCLA Alumni section were wearing Notre Dame gear and cheering for the Irish, including me. Poor UCLA was outplayed on the field and shouted down in the stands of their own home field... One really sad moment came at halftime. A pee-wee football game was played, between two teams of little kids (6-7 years old?) dressed in the uniforms of UCLA and USC. The crowd booed the USC kiddies mercilessly and cheered like they'd won a bowl game when a UCLA dressed kid broke away for a long TD run. I cried out, "What is this? Philadelphia?" But the guy in front of me says, "You have to understand...they look like Trojans." The five minute mark of the 3rd quarter brought the strangest moment that I have ever experienced at any football game. There had been several, unexpected outbursts of cheering by the crowd since the second half had begun, but suddenly all hell broke loose. The entire Rose Bowl was rocking in an uncontrolled mayhem that had nothing to do with the action on the field. The electric news spread through the crowd...the Trojans were in trouble... Now... you have to understand that particular crowd to really appreciate this. If you took all of the people in America who hated...I mean really hated...USC the most, they were probably sitting in that stadium rooting for either Notre Dame or UCLA. Nearly all of the Bruin fans brought cell phones, radios, Blackberries or other devices to keep tabs on their hated rivals who were playing against Stanford just 15 miles away in the Coliseum... This was the part of the game where the people up in the booth were supposed to be reviewing a fumble by the Bruins QB that was recovered by Maurice Crum. They were doing no such thing. Did it seem like that review took forever? Did they cut to a commercial? I'll bet they did, because NOBODY in the booth was reviewing that play! They were all laughing and screaming and gesturing out the windows of the press box as they pointed to the TV monitors, which they had turned around to face us, so that we could all enjoy the Trojans suffering. Our section began chanting "Post the score!" "Post the score." Remember, these locals were raised on Vin Scully. They always bring radios or cell phones to keep tabs on everything and when local kid Mark Bradford, who grew up near the Coliseum, caught the winning TD pass for Stanford, the whole place went berzerk! It was like New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. Bruin fans and Irish fans were hugging each other, dancing in their seats, throwing their hats in the air in a mid-game celebration such as I have never seen. The game on the field was completely forgotten as pandemonium reigned...only for all hell to break loose again as the formal announcement of USC's defeat was made. The look on the faces of those UCLA people was positively frightening. I've never seen such joy at someone else's misfortune. It actually took a lot of the sting out of their own upset, that was taking place on the field... That Bruin defense was good. Their four Dbacks are all seniors and all four will play in the NFL. One of them, Trey Brown will be a 1st rounder and Dennis Keys might go that high too. Bruce Davis from Houston, Texas, is a three-time All-American and the best DE we will see all year. Every defensive starter was a senior, but I thought the Irish did pretty well against them. For the first time all year, our QB had time to throw. So much time, that the Bruin fans in my area were complaining about it. Charlie's offensive scheme was too simple to beat a defense like this. He kept trying to throw over those four super Dbacks, but our receivers couldn't even get behind them. They (UCLA) might have been vulnerable to slants or crossing routes and I was looking for that adjustment to be made at halftime, but Charlie didn't do it. I suspect that after the Bruin QB, Ben Olsen, went down, CW decided to just keep it simple and see if the Bruin's backup QB could beat us and he couldn't... We finally got some senior leadership in this game as Maurice Crum had one of the greatest days in Notre Dame history. All he did was force two fumbles, recover two fumbles, intercept two passes, score a TD, sack the QB and smack running backs so loud that I could hear the impact up in row 65. Wowza. David Bruton makes quite an impact too. The Bruins avoided him when they could and the combination of Bruton and Zbikowski helped to keep UCLA's combo of Markey and Bell under 100 yards rushing, after they had been averaging nearly 200 ypg... On one side of our defense, John Ryan was still getting beat. If we had any depth, he would spend his soph year on the bench, learning his trade, but he's forced in there now. He's not adequately defending either the run or the pass. Our two beastie boys, Kerry Neal and Brian Smith are a sight to behold...especially Neal. He's fast, fast, fast and his bull-rush is a wowza. You know the QB has to be thinking about him on every play. He's hostile, mobile and probably already as good as Abiamiri or Justin Tuck. If he doesn't get hurt, he'll be better than either of them... Don't worry about Patrick Kuntz being able to hold down that noseguard job either. He walks out there with his Mohawk haircut and never slows down. During the TV timeouts, he does jumping jacks or stomps around talking to himself. He's a real nose guard alright... The curtain came down with hardly a Bruin in sight. They were ranked 25th and had been talking about winning a national title just last month, and now its all gone. The Irish team ran to BOTH ends of the Rose Bowl to celebrate with their fans and throw their gloves and wristbands into the stands. Jimmy Clausen met his family and his old coach, Bill Redell, on our end and the entire team "pranced around" the field, in the words of the LA Times, before finally retiring to the lockerroom, long after the game was over. The golf course too was devoid of Bruin fans who had deserted the ship long before we got there. It was a cool, clear night in SoCal...perfect in so many ways... ..............JO'Co
about coverage <t>every single ABC game this year that got out of hand, or was well decided, cut away to another game. In fact, I was whining earlier this year because they cut from the 'feature' game to another game rather than the Oregon/Cal game.... Its happened every week.<br/> <br/> My laptop has been dying, but our local ABC affiliate assured me earlier in the week that they'd be showing the ND game. (there is an actual ND presence in Huntsville that gets loud when the Irish aren't shown).. Sure enough, they showed Ohio State and Purdue. No big. Surely they will cut away if Ohio State takes control of Purdue (as they did).. I couldn't even get a score for the ND game. I was having to call my mom and dad who were at the game. The CBS and ABC tickers were just terrible with updates.<br/> <br/> But then a miracle happened.. my laptop recognized my charger. I was able to boot it up. I was then able to contact one of my 'pals' and get the URL for the live ABC/ESPN feed woohoo....Im in business. I round up the boy to watch the Irish..<br/> <br/> I came in with the game 6-3 UCLA. I saw all of the ND scoring. The laptop stopped recognizing my charger with about 10 min to go in the 4th.. I figured I had about 15 min of battery time.. Surely, by then they will cut away from a game in which Ohio State is just diving into the line with the game well in hand... Nope, no dice... My laptop died, the network cut straight to local news coverage.. I sat and crossed my fingers watching ESPN for an update..<br/> <br/> Oh well, at least I can rely on NBC's day long ND coverage being there for most of the rest of the season. (Im not sure that's a good thing).<br/> <br/> Onto the next one..<br/> <br/> Go Irish<br/> Beat Eagles.</t>