McSweeney
39 articles
-
Notre Dame, Our Mother: The Most Legendary ND Coach You’ve Never Heard Of
If you’ve ever tuned into the end of an NBC broadcast of a Notre Dame football game, like most of America you’re at least vaguely familiar with "Notre…
-
The Andrew Hendrix Experience
After the Stanford game, the Notre Dame message boards understandably lit up with talk of Andrew Hendrix. Some were quick to anoint him the Second Coming. Others did…
-
Dissecting the Big Least
I’m not just saying this because I’m a bitter Colts fan, but leave it to a Steel Town sportswriter to be a total freaking idiot. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist…
-
Irish Stewed: Catholics, Convicts, and the Return of the Spectacle
When Sun Bowl officials announced that the University of Notre Dame and the University of Miami had accepted invitations to play one another in El Paso, Texas on…
-
Irish Stewed: Please, call them “Southern Cal”
The year was 1988. And Notre Dame was winning football games. All of them. It started with the home opener versus Michigan. A diminutive walk-on kicker by the…
-
Irish Stewed: The Not-so-Metrosexual Offense
Pitt week is upon us. Yawn. “But Mac, it’s Notre Dame’s longest rivalry outside of Navy, USC, Purdue and Michigan State.” So what? If we’re really committed to…
-
Irish Stewed: Tying One for the Gipper and Choking on Applesauce
There was a time when the Notre Dame-Michigan State rivalry was the only thing that mattered to the entire country, let alone just to fans in South Bend…
-
Irish Stewed: The Road Less Traveled from 1887
The date was November 23, 1887. Geronimo had just surrendered. Coca-Cola and the Statue of Liberty were one-year-old. The population of Los Angeles was 50,000. Neither the University…
-
Irish Stewed: Deconstructing Marve and Beating the Boilers
Let me be upfront about a couple things. First off, I probably like Purdue more than most Notre Dame fans; at the very least, I’m not as relentlessly…
-
Irish Stewed: Waking Up the Echoes and Shutting Up the Idiots
Chicago Tribune sportswriter David Haugh recently penned an almost obscenely ill-informed editorial on Notre Dame football that I feel requires a slightly more informed response. His article rehashes…
-
Repost – Irish Stewed: Fun with Numbers
The follow post was written in the middle of the season by UHND’s own McSweeney. Originally posted on November 13, the entry ended up be prophetic as Kelly…
-
Irish Stewed: Intro to Brian Kelly 101
In the early 1980s, Brian Kelly was a political science major and starting linebacker at Assumption College, a Worcester-based Catholic liberal arts school with an enrollment of just…
-
Irish Stewed: Blood in the Water, Idiots at the Microphone
As the curtain was drawn on the ND-UConn game—on yet another late-game collapse by a Charlie Weis-coached team—the sports media talking heads prepared to feast on some pre-Thanksgiving…
-
Irish Stewed: Anchors Aweigh! (But watch out for those knees.)
If you don’t know the story behind the Notre Dame-Naval Academy rivalry, I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes version. In the spring semester of 1943, Notre Dame’s total…
-
Irish Stewed: Sean Astin, David Gordon, and Jesuit Butt Kicking
Neither Jim nor I was what you’d call in great physical shape. We curled around the south side of the stadium and sprinted west across campus. I crossed…
-
Irish Stewed: The Florida University – South Coast Edition
The day was unseasonably cool, but the sun had finally come out, warming the air just enough so I could mow the lawn. I threw on my favorite…
-
Irish Stewed: U-Dub, Jake Locker, and Why I’m Sick of Blaming Ty
Trying to summon genuine rancor for the upcoming Washington matchup is next to impossible. Washington is a reputable school situated on a beautiful campus. They have a reasonably…
-
Irish Stewed: The Spoilermakers
I have a confession to make: I don’t hate Purdue. Both my sisters attended the school, as well as at least a dozen of my high school friends.…
-
Raising the Bar
I’m not going to sit here and play Monday morning quarterback. Suffice to say, if you told me before the Michigan game Notre Dame’s offense would account for…
-
The Centennial Celebration You Don’t Know About
On November 23, 1887, there were 38 states. Grover Cleveland was president, the first Democrat to hold the office since before the Civil War. The population of Los…
-
Bowl Bull: The Myth of Notre Dame’s Preferential Treatment
As I watched Ohio State lose to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl, putting the finishing touches on the Big Ten’s current six-game BCS Bowl losing streak, I got…
-
WANTED: Has-been dynasty seeks I-AA teams, preferably sub-.500
Is this a joke, Bobby? On Friday, February 8, Florida State released its 2008 football schedule. The mighty Noles will be opening their season with back-to-back home games…
-
ESPN’s Recruiting “Experts” Are Agenda-Driven Idiots
So I woke up yesterday morning expecting to thoroughly enjoy National Signing Day. Most recruiting analysts projected Notre Dame as having one of the top classes in the…
-
Irish Players Define 2007-08 NFL Playoffs
AP Photo/Eric Gray Here we are, less than 24 hours from National Signing Day. Coach Charlie Weis is on the verge of landing arguably Notre Dame’s best recruiting…
-
Ryan Grant: A Game for the Ages
Photo from NY Times The date was October 11, 2003. Julius Jones had just run wild on the 15th-ranked Pitt Panthers defense, calling to mind the earlier game…
-
How many guys have run the spread and made it past college to the next level?
“Tell me how many guys have run the spread and made it past college to the next level.” –Ryan Mallet, former UM QB, Detroit News, 1/10/2008 Take these…
-
Trevor Laws not an All-American? The AP can kiss my Irish ass!
For those who haven’t been paying attention, on December 11 the Associated Press announced its All-Americans for 2007. To quote the AP article, When it comes to being…
-
Urban Meyer Is a Lying Sack of Crap
What’s it going to take to shut this guy up? First he bashes the BCS system only to quietly backtrack when his Gators end up in the Championship…
-
2001-2002: The last “great” Notre Dame defenses?
I believe new defensive coordinator Corwin Brown will resurrect the the Irish defense. Name me another college DC who can list as references on his resume Bill Parcells,…
-
I hereby retract my comments regarding the Gators and the SEC
No smartass commentary here, folks. Coach Urban Meyer and his Florida Gators earned this one. They outhustled, outmuscled, outplayed, outcoached, and outhearted Ohio State in every facet of…
-
Bucknuts…or just plain old nuts?
Not even 12 hours after Brady Quinn “shocked” the college football world by winning the Maxwell Award, and some asinine Buckeyes fan writes an article quite nearly devoid of…
-
The Sugar Bowl: A “Capital” Opportunity?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one… The pundits said they had no chance in their January bowl game. Outmanned and outgunned on both sides of the…
-
I hereby retract my comments re: the Gators and the SEC
No smartass commentary here, folks. Coach Urban Meyer and his Florida Gators earned this one. They outhustled, outmuscled, outplayed, outcoached, and outhearted Ohio State in every facet of…
-
Troy Smith vs. Brady Quinn: The 3.3% Doctrine
Last Saturday night I found myself halfway catatonic and all-the-way hungover on my friend’s couch in Annapolis. The Navy-ND game had ended with an Irish victory and about…
-
Hail, Hail, to Michigan, the champions of the…what exactly?
Michigan week is upon us, a nauseous back-and-forth pissing contest about who has the better fight song, who has the better helmet, who has the better tradition. Michigan…
-
Remembering the Penn State Rivalry
“I just don’t think there’s anybody in the land who can outcoach Joe Paterno.” –Lou Holtz “Let’s be practical here and think about what we’re talking about. [Coach Paterno]…
-
Notre Dame 12-time National Champions?
As we all know, especially in recent years with the whole idiots-running-the-nuthouse trainwreck that is the BCS, crowning a true college football national champion is far from an exact science.…
-
126: The Coolest Notre Dame “Streak” No One Knows About
While chatting up some of my fellow Irishmen on uhnd one day, I asked them to come up with the most random Notre Dame-related statistic they could find.…
-
Georgia Tech – Notre Dame: A Bigger Deal Than You Might Think
Great, Georgia Tech. What am I supposed to make of a team that can’t even settle on a mascot? Is it the Ramblin’ Wreck or the Yellow Jackets?…