The Extra Point

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.

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.

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.

What a wookie!

I wanted to give a shout out to the guys at Blue-Gray Sky and Her Loyal Sons for linking to my site, driving up my minimal web traffic.

It's also interesting to note, as the hours wind down to the OMG 4real biggest game of the fucking century which is only 6 years old, the difference between Notre Dame and other campuses. Compare my video below to what surely will be one long episode of Cops: live from Columbus. I cannot imagine any school ever sending it's alumni an email like this about a Notre Dame game. I'm just waiting for the photoshop job that replaces burning oil fields with burning couches, and war torn soldiers with football fans.

Also, Cinemax is showing a marathon of the Star Wars trilogy. The real Star Wars. While caring for the gfriend who now has two bloody sockets in her mouth instead of wisdom teeth and looks sorta like a mild stroke victim, I watched 6 hours of storm troopers, gay interpreter droids, and of course, wookies. Check out Chewies blog, it's friggin hilarious, and also consider that you may be having sex with a robot in the next 5 years. Favorite human-robot break up line: "It is not you. It is my AI 23000 central processing unit. "

Holy Crap. Rutgers???

I just think of Charlie head banging along with some Jovi, jumping around his office as he celebrates New Jersey, and I smile. Other people that are smiling--well, all of Jersey for one, and fans of florida, texas, auburn, nd-- everybody except Louisville fans and the BCS committee. the bloggers are gonna love this one, too. cue hairspray, gangster, and springsteen jokes. That smell coming from over the Hudson, no that's not a chemical plant, that's the smell of burning couches. How much money do ya think Gandolfini had on the game. And what did he have to do to get the Ville to throw the game? Was it a simple flash of the piece, or a promise to Brohm that his chances of going pro would be in serious doubt if his hands were to be broken in 12 places? When you put Gandolfini in your commercials, youLre just asking for it. But what a way for Rutgers to join the scene. You light up the Empire State Building red, and then pull the biggest upset in jersey since... well, ever. The biggest game for Rutgers since they started this whole thing back when there were still carpetbaggers around. For a cfb game to make the New York papers, now that's big. If wish there was a playoff system- you know how many people would be watching RU?

Fuck You, Rule 3-2-5-E

Take that, motherfuckers! Finally, we have a coach that will not take it anymore. Someday a real rain will come down and wash all the trash NCAA regulations off the streets.



It's a good thing they didn't include rule 325e on NCAA 2007, or you know that all you cheating bastards would be doing the exact same thing. It's like the opposite of that time you were down by 14 with 2 minutes left in the Championship game and played the "unlimited timeouts" penant and ended up winning the game. Except it's real.



To think that the rules committee was dumb enough to not forsee this happening furthur exposes their ineptitude. For a committee to purposefully take away a portion of the product that millions of people love, to make me watch more advertising and less football, that's just evil man, E-V-I-L! Which is why Bret Bielema should be considered a hero, a champion of all that is good and right in the world. And considering that College Football is a great American sport, we should consider Coach to be a Great American Hero as well. A peer to Thoreau.



I just love that McGuire is the first to figure out what's really going on. Sometimes the most abnoxious guy in the room really is the smartest. Wooo!

Coming to you Live from South Bend

While my girlfriend does this thing called "work" at a public computer in the Library on the campus of Notre Dame, I do this thing called "play", which involves cruising, in rapid fashion, the cfb blogs, going way over the allocated 15 minutes for this workstation, but which is vital to my health and mental well-being, and absolutely necessary, so eat shit, nerds! 

But yes, I bring you a post, live from South Bend, where I'll be giving you constant updates possibly a brief, crappy update on Tuesday when I get back.  Oh yeah, we'll be breaking it all down. 

But until then, I'll be the guy in the stands with the Irish wig on, scaring small children and the elderly, not to be confused with an angry, aggressive, drunken muppet.  Go Irish!

On Getting the Play in Early--A Study in Contrasts

After considering the ND-UCLA game for the last week, I came to the following conclusion this week. Because Charlie gets the play in early, he gives his players an advantage. And in antithesis, UCLA's inability to get their plays in cost them dearly--having to burn their timeouts, they were unable to control the clock at the end of the game. Charlie never ran into this problem--it's been a while since Brady had to burn a timeout because the play clock would expire. As Charlie said in post-game interview on the field, "Thank God we had our timeouts."
Also, Charlie gets the play in early, and Quinn never feels any anxiety as time is winding down and he's waiting to get the play. By not getting the play in on time, you're wasting not only timeouts, but time as well. As a coach, I wouldn't want my players standing around waiting for the playcall. This is time they spend in anxiety, time they know their coaching staff is in disarray, in confusion, or just unable to make a decision. It's just a waste of time.
When Charlie gives Brady the play, he has plenty of time to think about it. Consider it. It's a complex offense, it must take time, especially as a quarterback, to think about the formation, the routes, the pass protection, the defense, blitzes, down and distance, time on the clock, etc... The amount of things a Quarterback has to think about, under duress, amazes me. Still more when running a complicated offense in hurry up mode. So Charlie gives Brady an advantage--he gives him more time to think about all that stuff. He can even envision a successful outcome, picture it in his mind, as I've heard successful athletes do, I wouldn't know. Brady has enough time to think about his girlfriend, audible two or three times, and retie his shoelaces before a pooch punt (quite a surprise, how often do you think Brady practices that one. And how long before we see Brady pull a Flutie and drop kick a field goal?)
The advantage that Charlie grants with his early play-calling extends to all the players, not just Brady. The receivers have more time to think about their routes and how to beat their man. The running back can consider the play, where he will run and what the linebackers are doing. The Offensive Line has more time to think about how they will hold or give up a sack. Everyone has time to think about how they are going to march down the field and score the winning touchdown.
It's a vibe, and Charlie's team has it. Dorrell's team didn't. Willingham's and definitely Davie's teams didn't have it. And last week, Charlie earned his paycheck big time, because that made the difference in the game. It made the difference in the Michigan State game, and it made the difference in the Georgia Tech game.