The Extra Point

Your moment in Zen

It's time for a new line coach

Holy crap. Maybe we need to work on our blocking technique?

Do not throw petty blitzes at the Red Raiders

For they know how to beat the blitz: a well executed quick slant, a broken tackle, and then 6 points.  I would have loved to have seen this from the Irish on Saturday.  I would have also liked to see more than 3 points.  And some protection.  And a whole lot of other things, but hey, at least it's not as bad as Michigan.  The videos from OSU fans and PSU fans hear the Michigan loss.  The Big 10s best sour grapes.  More to come later, but until then, let me point to a very good post from the Ndnation boards. 

The season is finally here.

Thank God, the season finally starts tomorrow. My excitement for this season takes more of a curious tone than in season's past. I'm hoping that without the high expectations, there won't be as much wailing after a loss, and more exuberance after a win. We can look at this season with a more mellow and carefree vibe. That will be our approach here at the Extra Point. But really we're just making excuses for lighter posting. This season we'll try and keep track with some video posts of our new starters, which should keep us plenty busy.
And Joey and Steph, if DJ's starting tomorrow, I want my $20.

More Rock n Roll

This is a band called Mink, they play the kind of rock n roll you could see in an ipod commercial.

Sorry for the light posting, but there haven't been many football games to analyze lately.

THE TRUTH about USC

Clarence Reese's website was floating around the Ndnation boards today. I don't know what to make of it. It's like Marco on acid posing as a USC receiver. There's really nothing more I can say about this site. It blows my mind.

My foray with a pick up truck

So I'm still working on this movie in St. Louis. Working 90 hour weeks leaves one very little time to shoot and edit all the footage I shot at the Blue and Gold game, that'll be coming in a couple of weeks when I'm done hanging out with Eddie Furlong. That's right. Eddie fucking Furlong.

But I did sneak off set enough to edit together this video. The only thing I can say about it--strange things happen when you give a pick up truck to a kid from Brooklyn.

Yeltsin!

Seemed appropiate. If you're a Notre Dame fan, you probably haven't heard of these guys yet. They're a decent indie/pop band, and I'm sure they're cashing in on their name today. Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin.

I went to the Blue and Gold game, and I shot some video, but I don't have the cables here to upload it to the computer. They are in New York, and I am in St. Louis, working on a movie. When they get mailed out here, I will cut up the video and deliver my awesome product. Until then, enjoy audio.

I have no problem with Postmodernism

These guys rock. And they are so much more impressively awesomely aggressively cool than I could ever hope to be. They scream, "FUCKING COOL!" at the top of their lungs. Even if there were a theoretical anti Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a makeover show that would take my lumpy soggy mass that I call a body and turn it into a gleaming rock-god-machine physique with hints of Iggy Pop circa 1970 adorned in the clothes that Hendrix wore at Woodstock, even then I could never hold a candle to these guys.

Since there's no football happening, I decided to provide some other entertainment of the non-sports related variety. Just got back from sxsw, and man it was awesome. I'm gonna go straight coma for two days to recover--I didn't sleep, we spent every waking moment either filming or partying, so check out the you tube page to see more updates in the next few weeks, you might just be seeing a video of the hot new band coming out of South By as the locales call it.

When I look at Earl Greyhoud I'm blown away by how damn cool they are. It reminded me of this bit from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. "If given the choice between hearing a great band and seeing a cool band, I'll take the latter every single time; this is why the Eagles suck." So there ya go-- these guys are better than the Eagles. Check out drum solo at the end, this guy is a monster. The bassist is so damn sexy, the girl's got rhythm. And for the ladies you have a dude that is 6'15", with long hair, a chiseled face, sings and plays lead guitar. These guys are unbelieveable.

It's been a while

It's been a while since we've posted anything relevant to college football, and it's going to be a little while longer. I just got back from a trip to Ireland, something I highly recommend to anyone invested in the Fighting Irish. A Fantastic Time.

Even the nuns rock in Ireland.

So now I head off to Austin for the big music festival, South by Southwest. If any of you are into the indie rock or just watching awesome live music, check out the youtube page of Autopilot Films. We'll be filming about 15 bands down there, in corroboration with some websites like Gothamist, Gorrila vs. Bear, and Brooklyn Vegan. Hopefully you'll be seeing our footage all over the internet.

So again, we apologize for not posting for so long about anything relevant to Notre Dame Football, but hey we only came into existence with the purpose of analyzing games, and there won't be any of those for another 5 months. Somewhere in there, we'll take a look at the LSU game, deluxe edition. I'm sure you'll be on the edge of your seat waiting for that one.

Idiotarod 2007

This video is the third part of a six part short about the Idiotarod that some friends of mine made. For those who don't know, the Idiotaord is a shopping cart race through New York City. Our team, the Guitar Heroes, was awarded Best in Show. The highest award. $1000 in prize money. And a golden 40 oz. We're not shown much in this clip, but here you really see the scope of the madness that is the Idiotarod. We were the best there, and we fuckin rocked! We were also awarded Best Sabotage, after the NYPD, which makes it three years running we've won Best Sabotage. That's what I've done with Notre Dame education, I've achieved excellence in shopping cart races. Oh, and I had an awesome wig.

The last two years, our team was "Boy Scout Troop 666". We would go for the Sabotage Award, which involved throwing banana peels and marbles under other teams, slashing their ropes so they couldn't pull their cart, using a chain and bike lock to lock up other carts, and somehow even finishing first last year (although no one could figure out how we did it.)

In so doing, we naturally acquired some enemies, the biggest being team C.O.B.R.A. They've got about 50 guys on their team, and they use the whole GiJoe thing. They thrive on misinformation, trickery, and propaganda. In 2005, we split Best Sabotage with Cobra, who made up fake fliers claiming that the checkpoint had moved. In 2006, Cobra could have won Sabotage too, as they made a fake checkpoint that fooled almost everyone. But they were instead given Best in Show, and given the stewardship of running this year's race. This year, we won Best in Show, and Best Sabotage (3rd year in a row). Look at what Cobra, our arch-nemesis had to say about us, on their Awards page. Thanks for running the race Cobra, but we got you!

AWARDS

BEST-IN-SHOW: Guitar Heroes.
Number Six's Commentary: The Guitar Heroes hit a lot of good points. They tapped into a particular zeitgeist at its height. Great costumes, great theme, great spirit. Many, many judges commented on how spirited they were (AND friendly). Their cart actually played Guitar Hero. They were also aggressive in lobbying for themselves in the final moments. And one agreed to take off his pants. It is amazing how far you can get in the world by offering to take off your pants.

BEST SABOTAGE: NYPD.
Number Six's Commentary: The NYPD out did themselves this year. While it appeared they forgot to enter an actual cart, they had a massive team with hundreds of members. They used organization and technology. I mean, they had HELICOPTERS! That is pretty bad ass. The horses were pretty cool too. They also managed to arrive at the real starting line before C.O.B.R.A. even got there. While the NYPD didn't manage to sabotage the entire race, they were amazingly successful at shutting down the original afterparty. Luckily for us, Lars at The Creek and The Cave came to the rescue.

Also a Special Sabotage Award to Guitar Heroes for being C.O.B.R.A.'s arch nemesis Troop 666 and not having C.O.B.R.A. discover that until after the Award Ceremony. Yes, C.O.B.R.A. gave Troop 666 a thousand dollars. We salute you Troop 666. Call the NYPD about sharing the prize money. Ask for Sergeant Douchebag. Just keep demanding your fair share if at first they say no.

F' Da Eagles

NSFW, or for public broadcasting.

Why does FOX show so many crowd shots during a game? It's like their desperate to show us how the fans are feeling. Who cares? Sitting at home, I don't need to be reminded that the fans are having a great time. I want to know what's happening in the game. Give me some hard analysis, tell me why a play worked or didn't. Football is probably the most complicated sport out there, and as I used to show on my video breakdowns, there is a wealth of information to analyze on every play. 22 people performing highly skilled athletic tasks in a synchronous movemeant that requires exquisite timing, body control, mental acuity and strenght of will. I've heard that there's a chess match going on out there so many times, but I never see any of this strategy analyzed unless there is a touchdown scored. Give me analysis, don't give me shots of some drunken bozos in the stands, it just makes me envious that I'm not there being a drunken bozo myself. During one of the BCS games, Fox even cut out in the middle of a play to a crowd shot. Who cares? Give me some cheerleading shots coming out of commercial every once in a while, and I'll be happy. In fact, if you could give me a shot of a cheerleader breaking down the plays, you'd have gold on your hands. Hmmm....

And how the hell did the camerman or the director not see the writing on her shirt. Everything that's broadcasted goes by the eyes of multiple people. That shot lasts for a good 5 seconds, but I guess everyone was distracted. Ohhh! Pretty girl!

Not that I really care, I think there's too much censorship out there as it is, and I don't like the Eagles that much either.

Sour Grapes never tasted so good

Troy Smith, Heisman winner. 4/14 passing for 35 yards, 0 tds, 1 int, 10 rushing attempts for -27 yards, 1 fumble lost, 5 sacks.

If you didn't see the game it just looks like there are numbers missing, like there should be more digits in there. If you watched it all, you would know that Smith was in negative yardage for most of the game. You also never got enough of those sour candy worms during childhood.

As a Notre Dame fan, I couldnt have hoped for much better, as I have no love for either team. College Football can be such a bitter world, it seems you can only root for teams that have never slighted yours, and everyone's done something to ND. The only teams I feel like I can pull for aside from the Irish are the likes of Boise State and Rutgers, teams without a history. So if you are a vindictive College Footbal fan, or live anywhere near Ohio and have had to deal with obnoxious OSU fans, you got exactly what you wanted last night. If you have moved past your bitterness or just wanted to see a good game, man, what a debacle.

If you were bitter that Brady didn't win the Heisman, you certainly got your dose of Schadenfreude. So all those media members who voted Brady Quinn 3rd in the Heisman race are now forced to doubt everything they so pompously proclaimed. It seems to happen every year now, doesn't it? 82 yards of offense! Can you imagine the media outcry if this had happened to Notre Dame? We were an upset away from exactly that happening. If USC doesn't lose to UCLA, ND likely would have played Florida in the Sugar Bowl, and we would have lost even more badly to Florida than we did to LSU. At least we made a half of it.

If UCLA doesn't upset USC, Florida never even gets into this game.

As I've said before, back when I used to do video posts, pressure up the middle and bad O-Line play will make any QB look bad. Take ND's O-Line and put them in OSU uniforms. Smith wouldn't have a had a chance to win the Heisman.

The more I watch College Football, the more I feel like I don't know anything at all about any team until I see these teams play each other. In a timely fashion, not two months after the season. Until you see teams play each other, how can you ever decide who is better, and who should be ranked higher?

The entire College Football system is ridiculous. Even a plus-1 system wouldn't be good enough. Who would Florida play in the next game if there was a plus 1 game? USC, Wisconsin, LSU, or Boise State? You can make a case for any team, and we still wouldn't know who the best team was.

Also, it seems that we can't watch a game now or highlight program without hearing about a record breaking performance. Now that we've entered the era of a 12 game regular season, none of these records mean anything. So what if Colt Brennan threw for 55 td's, he had an extra game to do it. I don't want to hear about Charlie's 10 game win total. This team didn't perform any better than last year's team. With their 12th game, ND added Army to their schedule. Without that game, the Irish would be 9-3 again this year, and that banner in the Gug should still be hanging up, because that's still not good enough.

ND names new Defensive Coordinator

In the wake of the Sugar Bowl rout, Charlie Weis saw the need for a change on the defensive side of the ball. In a recent press conference that only I saw, Charlie announced a new Defensive staff for the Irish. It appears that they have a strong New Jersey connection. The staff will be:

Jon Bon Jovi: Defensive Co-ordinator
Richie Sambora: Linebackers coach
David Bryan: Defensive Line coach
Tico Torres: Defensive Backs coach
Alec John Such: Defensive recruiting coordinator

Tom Zbikowski, who was considering returning for a 5th year, was quoted as saying, "Well I was gonna come back for one more year, you know, lead the team, give the younger guys some leadership, but now I'm not so sure. It'll just be another year of Jersey sarcasm and wisecracks. And if I have to hear "Livin' on a prayer" one more time, I think I'm gonna shoot myself."

Eyes on the Prize

Here's a nice little blub about Charlie from Maisel that you might not see anywhere, as it is banished to subscriptionland over at the Worldwide Eater.

Weis Fixed On The Prize
He may be loud and he may be big, but even Charlie Weis can be inconspicuous. On the night that Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn did not win the Heisman Trophy, the Fighting Irish coach stood behind a pillar at the far end of the lobby outside the Nokia Theater. If you came down the stairs into the lobby and craned your neck to the left, you might have seen Weis, which is how he liked it.

When public figures like Weis are in a public setting -- that is, one they don't control, complete with civilians -- they lurk on the edge of it. To dive in would be to surrender their time and their shield. Speaking of which, I can remember being in South Bend some years ago for a banquet at which then-coach Lou Holtz would speak. He stood in the second-floor lobby of the athletic building, self-pinned against a trophy case, sipping a diet Coke and girding himself to go on stage.

So Weis is off to one side, and I walk up and re-introduce myself and congratulate him on going 10-2. And here, from memory, is what he said:

"Listen, it's a polite thing to say, and politically correct, but if I'm happy with a 10-2 record, I'm going to get fired," Weis said. "The two losses were not close. We're not where we want to be. But I'm telling you, with the players we have coming in, including a couple of recruits that nobody knows are going to commit to us, we're going to be a lot better. A couple of years from now, you are going to remember that we had this conversation tonight."

"All right," I said. "I'll remind you. No, you remind me."

"I won't have to," Weis said. "We'll just look at each other, and you'll know."

You can't hear tone of voice online. On the screen, Weis might sound arrogant in that exchange. He didn't in person. He is fixed on a prize, and he intends to claim it.

One other thing: that's why journalists love unscripted moments. That's the real Charlie Weis.

Heads Up!!!!

Chest Bump! Brady Quinn, winner of the Maxwell Award.

It seems that Paris has switched allegiances

Notre Dame has gotten a lot sexier in the Charlie Weis era, and now we've got the arm candy to prove it. We encourage your comments.

Technical Difficulties... and Apocalypto!

Without a playoff, College Football is like great sex, a lot of arguing, and no finish.

Well, for some reason there have been problems with the website lately, as I posted something a few days ago that was just posted today. While we try to figure out our issues over here, just enjoy the fact that USC lost again, and will not be playing for the title. I'm much happier to see SC lose their shot at the tile than Michigan at this point, considering their recent string of dominance. When I watched the ND game last week there were a couple of UCLA fans sitting next to us, the only people in the bar sharing our pain. Tonight I share their joy.

This has to be the year with the most teams losing their hold on the #2 spot in a season. SC lost their hold on #2 not once, but twice. How much do they miss Norm Chow now?

Now the BCS chaos and arguing that we love to hate to love, or maybe I should I say hate to love to hate, begins again. Wait, I'm confused. Hate...to love...to hate? Hmmmm... Too much BCS talk, makes brain hurt! The pundits and talk show hosts rejoice, as they now have another week's worth of material, which they have been rehashing for a month. Remember when people were arguing about Notre Dame getting into the MNC game instead of an undefeated Rutgers--maybe we should just wait until the season is over before talking about it endlessly for months.

Apocalypto! By Mel Gibson! To digress for a second, the name above or below the title should make you want to see the movie... not avoid it. Not that I would really want to see a movie called Apocalypto anyway, it sounds like a satanic ice creamed pop.

I'm a raving lunatic

Wow. What a bad game. I can't really say too much right now, it still hurts when I think about it, so I'll try not for a little while. Let's just say that I looked something like this afterwords.

I won't say anything more about that. But I will link to another awesome video that the best Heisman site out there pointed out. I didn't think many ND fans would be too concerned with the Heisman at this point.

Thanks

I'd like to take a moment to say thanks to all the people who have visited this site. We just received our 50,000 hit last week, and I think that's pretty good for a website updated once a week if I'm lucky. So thanks to all the people that have taken a look at my little baby over here.

Last week I worked on Sportscenter commercial. It was fun, but getting up at 3:30 in the morning to catch the crew van from NY to Bristol, not so much fun. It was pretty strange to stand in the studio where they actually shoot Sportscenter. The words "Sportscenter" or "ESPN" are written on every spare inch of wall space, like the Cthulu monster, as Orson likes to call it, went crazy and wrote all over the walls like Homer did in the Treehouse of Horror "Shinning" episode. But Cthulu can't write "No beer and no tv make Homer go crazy." It can only write its name over and over. Cthulu may have many arms, but not much brains. Although I realize I may be risking my life by writing this post, exposing the inner workings of ESPN. The Worldwide Leader has grown powerful indeed.

Being a lifelong New Yorker, I've been a Yankee fan since I was a kid. So it was pretty cool to be shooting a couple of spots with Jorge Posada. Nice guy. Yep that's me with the slate. I won't tell you what the commercial's about, no spoilers here, I know that the Leader is watching, always watching.

Oh yeah, GO IRISH! BEAT SC!

So enjoy some crappy cameraphone pictures, and Happy Thanksgiving.