BCS Championship: Frame by frame of Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix’s fantastic interception

Alabama had no problem with Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game. Down 28-0 out of halftime, Notre Dame needed to a miracle. Unfortunately for the Irish, their most promising drive of the game to that point ended with a spectacular interveption by Alabama’s Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix.

Clinton-Dix showed great determination in flying in to come up with an interception off a tipped pass by teammate Dee Milliner, who was defending Notre Dame’s DaVaris Daniels along the right sideline. Somehow he managed to take possession, get a toe down and maintain possession to the ground.

It was that kind of night for the Fighting Irish.

Check out rhe frame-by-frame images, as captured by Getty Images photographer Kevin C. Cox. … Continue Reading

This BCS Championship Game is for the purists

Alabama and Notre Dame meet for the first time since 1987. The Crimson Tide are 0-2 in bowl games, including the 1973 Sugar Bowl.

Since the dawn of the BCS era, this is the game many of us have been waiting for. “We” being the purists of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, USC and Texas was great and deserves a spot among the top games in the history of the sport. Ohio State and Miami also etched a classic between college football powers. But Monday night something different will be in the air in Miami. The aura of college football history filling Sun Life Stadium may go uncontested for years, or decades before anything close to this match-up develops again as we transition in to the era of a four-team playoff.

Notre Dame. Alabama. This is college football history at its finest. Storied college football programs go toe-to-toe for the ultimate prize, and if that does not get you excited about the sport, then what possibly could?

We’re talking about two programs with a combined total of 25 claimed national championships and 1,691 total wins.

The Four Horsemen. Win one for the Gipper. The Golden Domers and Touchdown Jesus.

The Bear. Goal Line Stand. The Kick. The most bowl victories in college football history.

These are two programs who were among college football’s elite on a routine basis in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They started to fall back to the pack a little bit in the 1990s, leaving fan bases either starving for a return to glory or stuck in their old ways believing their favorite programs could still do no wrong and it would only be a matter of when, not if their school would get back to the top.

Alabama has been back on top of the college football world for a few years now after a long-awaited return to such national prominence. The hiring of Nick Saban resurrected the program and brought Alabama back to a point where winning SEC titles is not a goal, but an expectation that is penciled in at the beginning of the season.

Notre Dame is hoping that this season marks the beginning of a similar level of success. Despite running the table with a 12-0 record, holding the top spot in the polls and BCS standings, road victories at Oklahoma and USC along with home wins against Michigan, Stanford and BYU, the Fighting Irish are a decided underdog against the Crimson Tide, the defending BCS champions.

But Monday night will not be Joe Montana vs. Joe Namath. It is not Knute Rockne vs. Bear Bryant. It is not even Rudy vs. Forest Gump (Forest Gump an easy 13 point favorite in a neutral theater by the way).

When the game kicks off history will be just another backstory with no impact on the game itself. … Continue Reading

Notre Dame BCS t-shirt, Catholics vs. Cousins

This Notre Dame vs. Alabama hype is going to be fun. Or annoying. Notre Dame, of all schools, will be the one looked to snap the SEC’s stranglehold on BCS championships, as well as blocking Alabama’s path to a dynasty.

From the school that brought you Catholics vs. Convicts comes yet another t-shirt to spark some heat between Notre Dame and their next big-time opponent. Notre Dame’s BCS championship game appearance will certainly bring a variety of trash talk between now and January, but this t-shirt poking fun of Alabama fans will surely get it started…

Via Reddit

… Continue Reading

Notre Dame will play for a BCS championship, and somehow we will all survive

The nightmare scenario for many college football fans around the nation has come true. Notre Dame will play for a BCS national championship in January.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o put together a Heisman Trophy worthy season on defense. Getty Images.

It may have taken a while but Notre Dame finally feels as though their approach to college football has been justified. Running an independent football program years after other big name programs decided the time was right to align with a conference has seen more than a fair share of criticism saying the life of an independent is not the way to go and by doing so actually leaves Notre Dame in the dust in terms of national relevance. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this will be proven to be true, but this season Notre Dame made it work.

Returning to college football’s pedestal was a long and rough road at times for the Irish. Since last capturing national glory in South Bend in the 1988 season Notre Dame has made four coaching changes and even suffered through a 12-year drought without a single bowl victory, a stretch perhaps unimaginable since the Ara Parseghian era.

Through it all Notre Dame watched from South Bend as conference alignment seized control of the game, driven by massive television contracts and exposure for conferences in new, larger markets. Even Notre Dame felt compelled to make some sort of move to protect their entire brand, but independence in football was still a priority. Fortunately for Notre Dame they found a conference willing to work with that philosophy in the ACC.

I hold a certain level of respect for the way Notre Dame chooses to operate their football program. I may find flaws in the logic at times in a world where more money is good and even more money is better, but the traditionalist in me appreciates Notre Dame’s desire to work as an independent in football despite what some may say about their schedule.

At the beginning of this season, before the first kickoff of the year, many of us went down Notre Dame’s schedule and suggested the Irish would be lucky to reach eight or nine wins. I admit I was one of them at the start. Games against Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Oklahoma and USC were seen by many to be likely losses in August. As it turned out, some of them were still tough match-ups, but Notre Dame showed something they have improving on under head coach Brian Kelly that put this year’s Notre Dame team over the edge.

Defense. … Continue Reading