Comedy of errors

It's been a nightmare beginning for Notre Dame. They got the ball first, and their first offensive play was a horrible snap that almost led to a safety, and ultimately allowed Michigan to get the ball back around the Irish 40. After the Domer defense held the Skunkbears to a field goal, QB Jimmy Clausen fumbled the ball away inside the 25, and Michigan scored a quick touchdown to make it 10-0. The offense's third time on the field, there was another botched snap and another fumble (albeit one the Irish recovered), and Michigan got it back again. They didn't score, though, and Tom Zbikowski returned the punt into Michigan territory -- only to have it called back on a clipping penalty. A couple of plays later, the Irish again fumbled it away inside their own territory... and Armando Allen was injured on the play. So, pretty much a worst-case scenario so far.

UPDATE: 17-0. And the Irish have "gained" a total of -19 yards so far.

Meanwhile, Florida leads Tennessee 14-3 and Ohio State is up 3-0 over Washington.

UPDATE 2: And Clausen throws an interception. Michigan again gets the ball in Irish territory.

"I don't see how they could possibly be playing any worse. ... This is shockingly appalling." --Becky

UPDATE 3: 24-0, with 11:28 left in the first half. Over at Blue-Gray Sky, their heads are exploding. There is talk of a 140-0 USC margin, and of losing to Navy. Can we still depend on beating Duke?

UPDATE 4: Washington just scored a touchdown with three seconds left in the second quarter!! Huskies lead Ohio State 7-3 at halftime.

Meanwhile, a few choice comments from BGS:

"Dejavu. After I had lunch today I made a deposit in the toilet that looked just like the ND offense."

"0-12 is not a fantasy... we're well on our way, y'all."

"days like this are difficult since i quit drinking. maybe i'll get some heroin."

"I've decided to just listen to the game on the radio. In my car. In my garage. With the engine running. And the windows down. It's better like this."

"I'm turning Protestant after this game"

UPDATE 5: 31-0 Michigan, with less than a minute left in the first half.

I daresay I'll be watching a lot more of the second half of UW-tOSU than of ND-UM.

Oh, and it's 28-6 Florida over Tennessee. So yeah: Huskies-Buckeyes it is. Go Dawgs! Go Pac-10!

UPDATE 6: Things have gotten bad enough that ND Nation has apparently shut down its football message board. Also, while the general-interest board The Back Room is still open, football-related posts are apparently being deleted from it. [UPDATE: Confirmed. There was a response to this post saying, "He was running from the Michigan defense." It has disappeared.]

The folks who run ND Nation get all censorious like this occasionally, when they deem that people are getting too angry and disloyal to Notre Dame in their furious comments. They did it when the Irish lost Urban Meyer to Florida, and they're doing it now. I think it's quite lame.

UPDATE 7: After a 96-yard interception return for a Tennessee touchdown, the Vols are within 28-20 of Florida. ...

... But, literally just as I was typing that sentence, Eric Ainge "pulled a Clausen," fumbling the ball deep in his own territory, and a Florida player picked it up and ran it in for a TD. So, 35-20 Gators. Damn.

UPDATE 8: One of the announcers on ABC just said something about Penn State's "impressive victory over Buffalo" earlier today. Huh? Is it possible for a Top 25 team to have an "impressive victory over Buffalo"? And even if it is, would a 45-24 win count?

UPDATE 9: Sharpley's in. Clausen was 11-of-17 for 74 yards... and was sacked eight times.

UPDATE 10: Michigan 38, Notre Dame 0, final.

Ohio State and Florida are both going to win, too. So all of the teams I was rooting for in this afternoon's "big three" games, lost.

Now I'm watching Central Florida vs. Texas on ESPN2. George O'Leary's team is threatening to stun the Longhorns... and Texas losing always makes me happy. Go Knights!

UPDATE 11: ND Nation's football board has reopened... and a quick glance at the posts makes clear that, if Charlie Weis's honeymoon with Irish fans wasn't definitively over after the first two weeks, it is now.

UPDATE 12: According to a commenter, I'm wrong about ND Nation:

Brendan and others, FYI: NDNation has a policy all this season of closing the football boards during games. This is to concentrate play-by-play discussion on the Game Day boards. They do this for all nationally televised games in any ND sport on its respective board.

However, nothing appears on the Game Day board from prior to 6:43 PM, which is around the same time they re-opened the regular football boards. So unless they routinely delete everything that's posted there immediately after the game, I still think they were being censorious because of the nature of today's loss. Especially considering that, over on the Back Room, they were threatening to ban anyone who commented about football.

Comments

[gahrie]

To quote myself:

Wow..after that start, you think maybe Demetrius Jones is thinking he left too early?

[Becky]

gahrie, I totally said the same thing to Brendan.

[gahrie]

To add insult to injury, Ty Willingham is beating OSU 7-3 at half.

[BK]

BGS:

Jimmy is going to transfer to NIU at the half....boy will that piss off DJ.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

There is a God. And he is a Michigan fan.

Funny how it has taken three games for Charlie Weis to go from being the next Knute Rockne to the next Ty Willingham to the next coach of Appalachian State when the current coach of Appalachian State takes over as head coach for Notre Dame next year.

[BK]

Honestly, not laying blame on anyone here, but this may be the worst team in ND history and the worst team in NCAA D-I right now.

Yikes.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

It's embarrassing. The only thing ND has going for it is Special Teams. Too bad they never get close enough to try for a Field Goal.

[teresa]

Thanks for mentioning Blue-Gray Sky. Their comments during the first half were hysterical. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Notre Dame can't stop the run up the middle. Navy has a good ground game and a decent defense. I could see Navy and Air Force f-ing Notre Dame up this season.

[JD]

When asked about the execution of his offense, Charlie Weis replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

[Brendan Loy]

Did he really say that, JD??

(I've been channel-flipping like crazy.)

[Charlie W.]

There's, um, no way a team could score negative points, right? Please?

Did he really say that, JD??

I've been flipping, too, so maybe he did, but it's also a joke I've heard before.

[Trisha]

Hey, maybe we have a chance against them in 2 weeks!

[Trisha]

Oh, and I'll add that, though I HATE Notre Dame with a passion, I *almost* feel sorry for them.

firecharlieweis.com takes you to NDNation...interesting.

firecharlieweis.com takes you to NDNation...interesting.

Did he really say that, JD??

No. I was just riffing on an old joke.

[gahrie]

Courageous call for UCF to go for it on 4th and goal....they're definitely in this game.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Only the second time in ND history it has started out 0-3. I imagine there are also some other historical records being set - least amount of yardage, biggest loss margin, etc.

You can say what you want about Weis not having time to recruit people. The fact is other coaches who were not "offensive gurus" have done better in their third year than Weis has. Also, the prestige of Notre Dame should attract the best players, so even if the O-line is made up of Juniors, Sophmores and a Freshman or two, they should still be among the best in the country.

I believe Weis has ignored the fundamentals and focused on his so-called wizardry on offense. He became so focused on making Notre Dame into the New England Patriots of college football that he didn't teach his o-line how to form and hold a pocket.

Weis is a fraud. His offensive genius at New England consisted of Belicheck and Tom Brady.

[Brendan Loy]

Okay, I figured it was probably a joke, but wanted to be sure.

If I remember correctly, firecharlieweis.com has pointed to ND Nation since Weis was hired. They registered it so some angry fan (or ND-hater) wouldn't set it up. Kinda like how the Bush campaign registered a bunch of anti-Bush domains like bushsucks.com, bushblows.com, etc.

[Trisha]

Ah, I see that Charlie Weis is now getting the Ty Willingham treatment. Except, this time, it's deserved...

[domerlaw2006]

I think it's more laughable that NDNation engages in that kind of shit because they're convinced that their generally bad reputation results from imprudent discussion about the football team -- not the piggish tendencies of their posters when it comes to women they find unattractive.

[John]

Brendan and others, FYI: NDNation has a policy all this season of closing the football boards during games. This is to concentrate play-by-play discussion on the Game Day boards. They do this for all nationally televised games in any ND sport on its respective board.

[Brendan Loy]

John, thanks for the info. But do they routinely delete all in-game posts on the Game Day board immediately after the game is over? Because there is nothing there now from before like 6:30 PM.

Even if they do in fact do that routinely, I think it's dumb and lame and censorious. Of course, they have every right to do it. But it's just another reason to not like/respect ND Nation.

Also, what domerlaw2006 said.

[Josh Rubin]

Just curious ...

Who's winning the ND Pick 'Em right now? Good lord!

[David K.]

Good question Josh, my money is on Andrew, he would pick them to lose the first three :) I think i had them losing two of the first three.

Max, we get it. Thread after thread after even unrelated thread...you hate Weis.

Seriously, we get it.

[B. Minich]

An "impressive" win over Buffalo?

Well, sure, in that any 45-24 win is "impressive" football score wise. But really, it isn't impressive that Penn State won by that much.

Glad Michigan lost, so that the edge is taken off of their anger when we visit next week. Still . . . *gulp* . . . we have to play Michigan. Maybe this is the year we beat them. *crosses fingers*

Oh, and Brendan, what about Kentucky beating Louisville? That's a pretty big upset.

[Condor]

I didn't see the game, but by looking at the box score (if any win could be impressive against Buffalo), then this one might qualify given the fact that Buffalo scored 21 of its 24 in the fourth, probably against a Paterno third-string defense. Now 45-3 would probably count as an impressive win, even against Buffalo.

[Andrew]

No. I was just riffing on an old joke.

Specifically, that quote was from John McKay in regards to his Tampa Bay Buccaneers team.

[Ed]

Brendan - the "nuking" of the NDNation board was unprecedented in-game.

Never before had they deleted all existing posts in Rock's House. They did the same for Cartier Field board. The unprecedented part was not posting anything on the Game Day board either. I cannot swear to the lull in posting on the Game Day board, but I can tell you that it was the longest since at least 2003.

It's a classic example of a bully not being able to take its own medicine. I hope you take some satisfaction in this.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

"Max, we get it. Thread after thread after even unrelated thread...you hate Weis."

No. Weis is an arrogant, fat fraud. His
PR people even had the balls yesterday to imply Weis is so focused on his special needs daughter that it could be impacting his coaching. Just play the game and don't drag your kid into it!

[domerlaw2006]

Aaaaand . . . NDNation has nuked its "JV" football board again. This is getting pathetic.

[dcl]

Wow, it's stunning what just an offensive line problem will do to a team's defense... You all might want to forfeit the USC game to avoid embarrassment.

[Becky]

Dane,

I shudder to think of what the ND QBs will look like after USC's defensive line has had a go at them. Those guys are gonna be begging for their mamas after Ellis gets through with them.

[Sandy Underpants]

I picked ND to lose their first 8 games, so I'm definitely at least tied for first in the ND Pick 'em. My only worry is that I picked ND to win their last 4.

[Addiction]

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