FanHouse

USC Forced to Evacuate Campus In Wake of Crotch-Eating Fungus Outbreak

Brian Stouffer — 2008-08-14T16:57:00 00:00

Filed under: USC, Pac 10, Campus, NCAA FB Gossip, Injuries

Now I'm not a religious person, but it's difficult to overlook the symbolism of the Southern Cal football team, who have over the last few years been the very embodiment of decadence, excess, and godless hedonism, being savagely struck down by a biblical plague of crotch-gnawing jock itch.

That's right, folks, you read that correctly. Fully 25% of the Trojan football team has contracted a particularly ornery strain of jock itch, whose virulent epidemiology has left even Pete Carroll speechless, and I'm sure he's seen damned near every groin-related malady in his long tenure as a football coach.

The preliminary suspect for this outbreak is the new stretch pants the team is breaking in this year, although there's plenty of room for alternative theories. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for the groins of the lads of Southern Cal. Nah, just kidding, I hope they burn for years.

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Notre Dame Revolving Door: Athletic Department Edition

Brian Stouffer — 2008-07-15T09:10:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame, Campus, Coaching, Media Watch

The waters in South Bend have been anything but placid in the last few weeks, as a veritable revolving cast of characters have either just arrived, returned home, or packed up and headed off to their next career. In this first post of a two-part series, we'll look at the shakeups in the Athletic Department over the offseason. Later this week, we'll look at the roster turnover, which has been fairly extensive, especially recently.

Athletic Department:

Out: Kevin White, Steve Orsini

While the radical fringe of Notre Dame fans (like over at NDNation.com) have been burning Athletic Director Kevin White's image in effigy for many years now thanks to his inept scheduling, his shameless whoring of the Notre Dame Brand, his spineless negotiation skills with Adidas and the BCS that literally left millions of dollars sitting on the table, his sidelong protesting of the Tyrone Willingham fire, and of course his invention of the phrase "Sunday through Friday" (to just name a few reasons), it looks like his poor performance finally caught the attention of the top brass. As these things often work out within the polite society of upper-crust academia, an arrangement was made to have White leave on his own terms and accept the job as AD at Duke (a team whose football program he will be literally unable to devalue, try as he may), and everyone walked away with minimum of feather ruffling.

As the replacement search quietly hummed along, the crosshairs seemed to be focusing on SMU's Athletic Director Steve Orsini, but he just recently pulled out of consideration for the job.

In: Jack Swarbick, Chris Zorich

Right on the heels of the Orsini announcement, Notre Dame officially hired an Indianapolis attorney named Jack Swarbrick to take over as Athletic Director. Although he has never been an athletic director at the collegiate level, he does have quite a few impressive bonafides in the sports world, such as spearheading the (successful) campaign to bring the 2012 Super Bowl to Indianapolis (he obviously is a hell of salesman... Indianapolis?), heading the committee that moved the NCAA's offices to Indy, and generally being the driving force in why some (no offense to Indianapolins out there) not-so-glamorous town in central Indiana is now the very center of the amateur athletics world. Curiously, he has finished second place for many high-profile athletic jobs, notably for Miles Brand's NCAA Commissioner job, and the AD jobs at Ohio State and Arizona State. We'll have to wait and see if this is a good hire, but at this rate just about anybody is an upgrade.

Joining him in the athletic office is former Irish legend Chris Zorich, who is coming back to campus as an administrator for student-athletes. It's always great to get an all-American in the front office, and it's clear that it has been a big goal for Charlie Weis since day one.

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NBC Renews Notre Dame Contract For 8 More Years, Cancels 'Bionic Woman'

Brian Stouffer — 2008-06-19T14:57:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Fans, NCAA FB Media Watch

Despite sagging ratings, the departure of many beloved characters, and a marked downward trend in its plotlines over the last few seasons, NBC announced today that they are renewing the Notre Dame Show through 2015. I'm not going to sit here and defend the worthiness of last year's 3-9 Notre Dame team over television behemoths like "My Dad is Better than Your Dad", "Clash of the Choirs", and "Quarterlife" that didn't make it off the NBC chopping block, but hey, that's business for you.

A disturbing sidenote for Irish fans is that the contract stipulates that between 2011 and 2015, NBC will carry eight Irish home games a year. As a result, the Irish will have to play 7 games in Notre Dame stadium plus one more quote-unquote "neutral site game" a year against a body bag team willing to take a payout to play what financially works out to be a Notre Dame home game. Any hope that this cheeseball scheduling would disappear with the launching of Athletic Director Kevin White has been dashed, as it is now a contractual necessity.

At the end of the deal, Notre Dame will have been on NBC for 25 years, longer than "Seinfeld" and "Cheers" combined.

Bionic Woman'

LONDON - MAY 18: (UK TABLOID NEWSPAPERS OUT) Actresses Mischa Barton (L) and Michelle Ryan arrive at the Britain's Best 2008 awards at London Television Studios on May 18, 2008 in London, England. The award ceremony honours outstanding Britons in categories including business, art, television, music, film, sport and fashion. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

Getty Images

LONDON - MAY 18: (UK TABLOID NEWSPAPERS OUT) Actress Michelle Ryan arrives at the Britain's Best 2008 awards at London Television Studios on May 18, 2008 in London, England. The award ceremony honours outstanding Britons in categories including business, art, television, music, film, sport and fashion. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

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LONDON - MAY 12: Actress Michelle Ryan attends the World Premiere of 'Sex And The City' held at the Odeon Leicester Square on May 12, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

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MILAN, ITALY - MAY 11: Actress Michelle Ryan attends the press conference for "Bionic Woman" during the 2008 Telefilm Festival at Cinema Apollo May 11, 2008 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

Getty Images

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Charlie Weis Wants You to Make His Day, Punk

Brian Stouffer — 2008-05-23T13:40:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Media Watch

The internet is a strange and magical place, especially when random pictures like this show up. Taken out of context, they're tremendously disturbing and infinitely hilarious, and really press the creative limits of your overworked headline writer. Have a gander, ladies and gentlemen, at ass-kicking robot soldier of fortune Charlie Weis:

No, folks, that's not a Photoshop, that's the real deal. As a part of the Armed Forces Entertainment, Charlie Weis traveled to Germany with fellow coaches Mark Richt, Tommy Tubberville, and Randy Shannon to support our troops overseas. There's a full gallery at Weis' autism awareness charity website Hannah and Friends (Weis in a gas mask is particularly hilarious), and some more context on the trip over here.

I kind of like the look.

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Charlie Weis Takes the Words Straight Out of Our Mouths and Tells Michigan Where to Go

Brian Stouffer — 2008-05-08T11:03:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Michigan Football, Notre Dame Football, Big 10, NCAA FB Gossip, NCAA FB Coaching

The Detroit Free-Press gets points for due diligence on this article, which is about a shoddy homemade video on YouTube. The home movie shows a surly Charlie Weis delivering a speech at the pre-game luncheon before the spring game. In front of a handful of fans and donors, Charlie cracked candidly about his feelings for that lovely academic institution in Ann Arbor:

"And then we'll listen to Michigan have all their excuses as they come running in and saying how they have a new coaching staff and there's changes. To hell with Michigan!" (exclamation mark is [sic] -Ed.)

The exclamation mark, in my opinion, comes from the overactive imagination of the article's author. A viewing of the video (the quote in question is at the 1:10 mark... be warned, though, it's a really obnoxious video) will convince every rational person with a cursory understanding of what counts as an "exclamation" that the more commonplace period is a more appropriate punctuation mark for the transcription.

Weis' remarks come from a long tradition of Notre Dame and Michigan trading damnations upon one another. Most famously, Bo Schembechler was known to quip "To Hell With Notre Dame" to anyone who asked him about scheduling the Irish, the Big 10's relationship to Notre Dame, or if he wanted syrup with his pancakes.

In related news, Hell has politely refused to accept Michigan, as doing so would drastically drop property values throughout the area.

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Holy Freaking Crap! Jon Tenuta to Join Irish Defensive Coaching Staff!

Brian Stouffer — 2008-01-31T16:23:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Georgia Tech Football, Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Coaching, The Word

Irish fans, I'm guessing most of you have a fancy bottle of scotch laying around somewhere, undoubtedly a gift from a client a few years back that you just haven't gotten around to opening because there's never really been an occasion to do so (plus straight scotch tastes icky and burns your throat, you big girl). Well, son, dive into that cabinet with pots and pans in it, crack open the blue label, and take a big hearty slug from it, because it's a damn good day for the Fighting Irish.

Completely out of nowhere, the Irish have hired Jon Tenuta, the moody genius behind Georgia Tech's perennially awesome defenses, to replace the retiring Bill Lewis as defensive backs coach.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

The same Jon Tenuta that held the vaunted 2006 Irish offense to its season-low 14 points, the same Jon Tenuta that somehow managed to turn the Yellow Jackets into a consistent bowl team despite having Reggie Ball at quarterback and a completely nonexistent offensive scheme. One of the prized defensive coordinators on the market picked the Irish as his next project.

Details are still hazy, but I think it's safe to assume his hiring comes with an assistant head coach title, oversight for the woeful Irish special teams, and a truckload of money. At any rate, go out and get drunk tonight, Irish fans, and spend your hazy blackout sleep dreaming about exotic blitz formations, two-star Yellow Jacket players making it to the NFL under Tenuta's tenure, and a brilliant defensive mind on the Irish coaching staff that can foist against Charlie Weis to improve the offensive scheme. Prost!

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Injury and Academics Claim the Career of Irish DTs Derrell Hand and Pat Kuntz (Respectively)

Brian Stouffer — 2008-01-24T02:09:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Injuries

Bad news out of South Bend today, as an already-thin Irish defensive line appears to have lost another body. This time it's (I think we can now officially use the adjective "much-maligned") Derrell Hand, who was diagnosed with a "hereditary disease in his spinal cord" that would effectively make playing football far too dangerous for the possibility of aggravation and long-term injury. Hand, you'll probably remember, made some headlines last offseason, albeit for completely different reasons. Hand is getting a second opinion, but it looks like there will be a sad ending to an altogether hard-knock football career for what I've heard is a pretty good kid.

Meanwhile, the woes on the DL continue as returning starter Pat Kuntz was ruled ineligible for this semester due to academics (same article). Kuntz has this semester and the summertime to get his grades in order, but it's still anyone's guess if he'll be back on the Irish come football season. Here's hoping he can hit the books and pull through.

In the meantime, Irish fans can relieve their pain by checking and rechecking the measurables of the top-ranked incoming recruiting class.

Oh, right, and forgive me for not making the obvious joke about "Kuntz" and "Hand" sharing the spotlight. You sophomoric types can probably write your own.

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US Army All-American Bowl Liveblog (Second Half)

Brian Stouffer — 2008-01-05T14:47:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Georgia Football, LSU Football, Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Recruiting, NCAA FB Media Watch, Arizona Football

In case you missed the first half, I'll quickly recap it for you: "Notre Dame Notre Dame, Brady Quinn Commercial, Notre Dame Notre Dame".

Quickly recapping the commitments, Ryan Williams (RB) picked Virginia Tech, Covaughn Deboskie (RB) picked Cal, Brandon Smith (DB) picked Michigan, Marquis Gray (QB) picked Minnesota, and Gerrell Robinson, traitor of traitors, spurned the Irish to stay in-state at Arizona State.

East leads 20-10 and has looked like the better team out there. Tyrelle Pryor and Marquis Gray look like they have huge potential running that spread option kind of offense. Also, we have had 7 Army commercials and counting.

Once again, the commitments (actually, the NBC announcers are calling them "declarations", in maybe a sidelong way of highlighting how meaningless they can be before signing day) will be in bold, so you can skim for them.

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US Army All-American Bowl Liveblogging! (First Half)

Brian Stouffer — 2008-01-05T13:08:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: California Football, Michigan Football, Minnesota Football, Notre Dame Football, Pittsburgh Football, Virginia Tech Football, NCAA FB Recruiting, NCAA FB Media Watch, Arizona State Football

Picture the scene... you're sitting around your house on a Saturday morning and your girlfriend calls you and asks if you want to have brunch with her family. Normally, you'd be fairly amenable to free silver dollar pancakes, even if it means enduring some awkward conversation, but today is not a normal day. It's the high-school all-star game. Sorry, tootsie, but home boy has a date with Tom Lemming today, and no amount of waffles or eggs Benedict can interrupt.

If any of this made sense to you, congratulations, you're a junkie.

Just to remind you all, this game is sponsored by the U.S. army, so the over/under on lame Army commercials is like a million.

A lot of these blue-chippers will be announcing their college choices. When that happens, I'll put the contents in bold face, so you can skip over my pithy commentary and get right to the commitments, if that's your thing.

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Black is White, Up is Down, West Virginia Gags Away BCS Title Berth

Brian Stouffer — 2007-12-01T23:11:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Pittsburgh Football, West Virginia Football, Big East, BCS

I just don't know what to say at this point. Every time you think you've seen it all this season, something else absolutely unbelievable happens. Tonight, the scene of the crime is Morgantown. With nothing but an anemic 4-7 Pitt team as 28 point underdogs standing between West Virginia and a berth in the title game, the Mountaineers gagged away the game in front of their home crowd.

For those of you who watched the final ten minutes of the game, it was a complete comedy of errors. Sloppy play, unbelievably terrible officiating, and a plague of locusts couldn't stop the Panthers, who hung on for dear life to a one-score lead. Certainly, a choke job for the ages.

There's a lot of subtext to the improbable conclusion of this game. Sure, Pat White was out of commission for long stretches of this game due to injury, but that hardly explains away the 28 point spread. And maybe it's just me, but it seemed pretty evident that the officials were doing everything in their power to keep Pitt from winning the game, all the way up to an eyebrow-raising excessive celebration penalty after Pitt had more or less sealed the game with the 4th down stop.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Missouri just fell behind Oklahoma by 18 points, meaning we're heading into the second week in a row where both of the top two teams lose. I'm going to take a Dramamine and lay down. Nothing makes sense anymore.

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SEC Championship Game Liveblog: Second Half

Brian Stouffer — 2007-12-01T18:08:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: LSU Football, Tennessee Football, SEC

A shot of tequila down the hatch thanks to the noodle-armed Dr. Pepper challenge contestant, and it's time to start round two of this championship game. The Irish Outsider is on hand providing color commentary, Tennessee is wearing monochrome Orange uniforms which are making me seasick, and Les Miles will try to throw a football through a Dr. Pepper can after the third quarter to decide if he's going to go to coach at Michigan... or something.

LSU has the rock and jumps right out with a long bomb, and now they're knocking on the door.

But wait, Tennessee shows some life on defense! A huge loss on a reverse play, topped off by the Tennessee defender doing "the worm" to celebrate. I think we've hit a new low.

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SEC Championship Liveblog: First Half

Brian Stouffer — 2007-12-01T16:41:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: LSU Football, Tennessee Football, SEC

Greetings, SEC Fans! It's Brian Stouffer, your loyal Notre Dame blogger on the Fanhouse. I'm snowed in here in Chicago (and the local CBS affiliate is cutting into the game every five minutes to remind me, yes, it's snowing outside), so I figured I'd do some liveblogging. The Irish Outsider from Das Fanhaus is having some beers with me, so he might jump in now and then to throw in some punchy commentary as well.

I decided to put a picture of Phil Fulmer up, since God knows we've seen more than enough of Les Miles' ugly mug on The Fanhouse today. It's 7-6 Tennessee right now and the Vols have just busted a long kickoff return past midfield.

Former fanhouser Orson Swindle is in the press box of this game, and has a very exciting picture of him with Verne Lundquist. I sent him an instant message asking him to describe in ten words what Verne feels like. His response: "exactly what you would imagine". I assume that means "naturally pliant and warm".

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Charlie Weis Likes to 'Go Commando.' I Apologize for Ruining Your Lunch.

Brian Stouffer — 2007-11-29T12:15:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Gossip, NCAA FB Coaching, NCAA FB Media Watch

There was a very uncomfortable moment in the ND-Stanford game that didn't involve the disastrous refereeing, but instead was the result of sideline reporter Jack Arute giving us just a little bit too much information. Now, I know the sideline reporter is a thankless job which involves delving up any trivial detail you can to provide filler between plays, but Jackaroo missed the mark quite widely on this one.

During a standard lull in play, they flipped down to him to talk about whatever tidbit of information he could glean from a meeting with Charlie Weis and his wife, Maura. Arute yammered on about Weis scripting out the plays for his offense, but deviates from the script into more game-specific calls at about the eight minute mark of the first quarter. Arute then went on to say that Maura's affectionate term for this switch is "Charlie Going Commando".

What followed was an uncomfortable pause, then the commentators, obviously much more familiar with this definition of "go commando", sheepishly replying, "Uhhhh, thanks for the information, Jack".

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Pac 10 Changes Standard for Replay Reversal to "Having a Good Feeling"

Brian Stouffer — 2007-11-29T11:58:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Scandal, Stanford Football

In an interesting move, Pac 10 Head of Officiating Dave Cutaia has eschewed the easy road of admonishing the terrible replay reversal made in the Notre Dame-Stanford game and instead has elected to rewrite the rules of replay. Cutaia sent out an e-mail that explained the justification for the Pac 10 replay crew's unbelievable ruling:

The replay official felt he had a shot that showed the point of the ball hit the ground... This is basically a judgment call on his part, as an on-field official might judge defensive pass interference.

And with one fell swoop of the... well, keyboard, I guess... the Pac 10 has completely changed its benchmark for overturning plays with instant replay. I guess it's time for them to update their website, which still has the outdated standards for video reversal... you know, "indisputable video evidence" and whatnot. The site needs to be updated to reflect the new, completely opposite standard: "having a good feeling" and "making a judgment call irrespective of video evidence".

All sarcasm aside, Cutaia, in what appears to be an attempt to defend the video official's ruling, has essentially publicly admitted that they made a mistake. Maybe he should have a chat with Verle Sorgen, the Head of Replay Officiating in the Pac 10. Sorgen, I'm sure you'll remember, was fired from Cutaia's job after the Oregon-Oklahoma replay fiasco last year and was admonished by Pac 10 commish Tom Hansen for his comments after the Oregon State-Washington replay disaster of two weeks ago.

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Notre Dame WR David Grimes Apparently Has a Hole in the Middle of His Palm

Brian Stouffer — 2007-11-26T14:55:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Media Watch, NCAA FB Scandal, NCAA FB Video, Stanford Football

At least, according to the Pac 10 replay officials. I've watched this play a hundred times and still for the life of me cannot figure out what the replay official was thinking. For those of you who didn't see Notre Dame's "thrilling" 21-14 victory over Stanford, this play came in the third quarter. Jimmy Clausen sailed a deep pass way over the head of David Grimes, who improbably accelerated into the end zone and made an absolutely incredible diving catch in the end zone. The refs on the field (Big East refs, for what it's worth) signaled for a touchdown, but for good measure decided to let the folks upstairs have a look. Here's what they saw (remember, replay officials can only look at the camera angles provided to the TV station, so there was no secret reverse angle):

The decision? Indisputable video evidence showed that this was not a catch. Actually, that wasn't the call. The replay officials reversed the call and later explained that because the ball moved after Grimes' hand hit the ground, the only logical inference to be drawn is that the ball hit the ground. Now, I'm no engineer, but I'm fairly sure that the energy from a hand hitting the ground can transfer through the hand and make the ball move, even if the ball doesn't impact the ground. Regardless, though, the standard for overturning the call on the field is "indisputable video evidence", not "a logical argument can conceivably be constructed explaining a set of circumstances where the call on the field was incorrect."

Keep in mind, too, that this isn't the first documented disaster by Pac 10 replay reviews. Two weeks ago, this unspeakably bad call in the UW-OSU game earned the replay officials a one-game suspension, and the Oregon-Oklahoma onside kick call remains eternally puzzling. Okay, bad calls are a part of the game, but when year in and year out, one set of replay officials consistently sets the benchmark for incompetence, it might be time to have a look at what's going on.

High-def screencaps after the jump:

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High Fives! Notre Dame Narrowly Avoids Worst Offensive Season in NCAA History

Brian Stouffer — 2007-11-20T20:21:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB History

While it was touch-and-go for a while, it looks like Notre Dame is out of the woods for achieving the worst statistical offense in the last nine years thanks to the porous defenses of Duke and the service academies. Saurian Sagacity announces that the Irish have improved to 235.8 yards per game, a healthy margin north of 2002 Rutgers record-setting futility 214 yards per game. By his calculations, the Irish will have to put up negative-27 yards against a Stanford that statistically rates as one of the worst in the country, giving up 455.3 yards per game.

Granted, nothing is impossible with this 07 Irish squad, but I think it's safe for the Rutgers lads to pop their champagne a la the '72 Dolphins and celebrate yet another year of their incredible record staying intact.

That being said, it will still take some luck for the Irish to finish out of last place in total offense. FIU has 79 fewer yards than the Irish, but they play one more game. Duke is the next closest team, but the Irish will have to outgain them by 299 yards this weekend. It's possible, since Duke's opponent, North Carolina, has a fairly respectable defense, ranked #35 and giving up 100 less yards per game than Stanford, Notre Dame's opponent.

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Dink & Dunk: A Gentlemen's Wager

Brian Stouffer — 2007-10-26T03:03:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, USC Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Fans, NCAA FB Gambling, The Word

I'm sure all of you, at one point or another, have made a friendly wager with a rival fan about the outcome of a game. Even in a game as hopeless as last week's Notre Dame-USC game, it's hard to resist the urge to put it on the line and show some faith in your squad. Unfortunately, come Sunday morning, you have to pay the piper. For some, it's a few bucks or a round of beers, but for Dink this week, the price is much, much higher.

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Wise-Ass Recovers Bag of Notre Dame Memorabilia After it Falls From Airplane

Brian Stouffer — 2007-10-25T14:09:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, USC Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Fans, NCAA FB Media Watch

I'm still not sure if this is a real story or just a goofy joke with a long buildup. Since it was originally published by the Chicago Tribune and not, you know, The Onion, I have to assume that it isn't completely made-up, but you can color me skeptical.

Anyway, this week's story is about a Notre Dame fan from Florida who took a trip to South Bend this weekend to watch the Irish get trounced by Southern Cal. To console himself, he swung by the bookstore and dropped a hefty amount of money on Notre Dame memorabilia: some ND sweaters, a stuffed leprechaun, a vintage jacket and some monogrammed cups and trinkets. He packed up his treasures in a bag and headed to Chicago to fly home from Midway Airport.

That's when things get sticky. Apparently, a malfunction in the baggage compartment caused the bag to tumble out of the in-flight airplane and drop several hundred feet into a neighborhood just south of the airport. Luckily enough, somebody found the bag and returned it to its owner more or less unscathed.

The punchline? The Tribune asked the owner if he was concerned that somebody might have been hurt from the falling luggage. His reply? Wait for it...

"It's Notre Dame," he declared. "It can't hurt anybody because it can't hit anybody."

Rimshot!

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Notre Dame Newspaper Pleads for Students to Not Storm Field

Brian Stouffer — 2007-10-12T13:45:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Boston College Football, Notre Dame Football, ACC, NCAA FB Campus, NCAA FB Fans

It's articles like this that kind of make you want to bury your head in the sand with shame for your football team. An enterprising youth from ND has taken the time to write a letter to the editor of the student newspaper and plead with his fellow students not to storm the field after this weekend's inevitable victory over #4 Boston College.

[B]ull-rushing the field against our weaker, inferior little brother would be embarrassing. We would be showing them a sense of respect that they don't deserve. Storming the court against BC in basketball was bad enough when we ended their 20-game winning streak in the 2005-06 season. Let's not surrender to the same temptation and make the same mistake in football.

Ugh. You've absolutely got to be kidding me. First of all, discussing whether or not to storm the field the week before a football game is ridiculous, especially when your team is 1-5. And pontificating about another team not being worthy of respect... and referring to them as "our little brother"? Give me a break. Hopefully, you Fanhouse readers are reasonable enough to recognize that this dingbat's opinions do not represent the entire Notre Dame fanbase, and, moreover, do not represent in any way the opinions of this blogger.

And, yes, there's more...

[A]fter we win, let's keep our excitement in the stands. Storming the field is about being an underdog, and Notre Dame is never an underdog against Boston College - regardless of our record. We should never expect to lose to Boston College. And when we beat them this weekend, let's act like we've done it before.

Because we have.

Orson Swindle takes it the obligatory hilarious one step further, and pretty much sums up the appropriate reaction to this screwball. Have fun this weekend, and stay the hell off of the field!

HT: Photo courtesy of Fire Mark May

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Charlie Weis' Evil Plan to Reanimate the Corpse of George Gipp Discovered by ESPN

Brian Stouffer — 2007-10-10T16:49:00 00:00

by Brian Stouffer

Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Gossip

Here's one you don't see everyday. Apparently, there's been some commotion around the gravesite of legendary Irish tailback George Gipp. "The Gipper", as you may know him from the famous Knute Rockne speech and by Ronald Reagan's dazzling portrayal of him in the classic film "Knute Rockne, All-American" was exhumed from his grave after 87 years.

Even more surprising was the fact that there was an ESPN crew on hand during the unearthing:

An ESPN film crew was at the exhumation, the newspaper said. ESPN is planning a profile on Gipp as part of its new "E:60," the show's coordinating producer Robert Abbott told the newspaper.

"We played no part in the exhuming of the body; we merely documented it for the piece that will air on 'E:60' in the coming weeks," Abbott said.

There's one thing blatantly missing from this article... any mention of why the hell they're digging up the Gipper. The only possible reason they're not revealing this info is because of a cover-up, and I think it's pretty obvious to everybody that Charlie Weis has set into motion his evil plan of reanimating the Gipper's corpse for this weekend's game against Boston College. Unfortunately for Weis, the Worldwide Leader in sports was a step ahead of him, and have the damning footage of this nefarious plot.

Drat!

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