Best Reading I’ve Had in year! Laughed Until I Cried!

I have literally laughed until the tears ran down my face – and no, this is not nearly so much a blog about football as it is about partisan bloggers.

There was a great column by a Notre Dame Alumni who writes on his Alumni website, and you have to read it, and his subsequent column after Notre Dame played Navy.

Without going deeply into that column, which was headlined “Screw Navy” – and which was actually much more vitriolic than that – the premise was that after 43 consecutive victories over what always must, by its very nature be an undersized and outmanned Navy football team, Navy should not be allowed to play Notre Dame.

He attributes the recent Navy wins (now three of the past four years) as a result of the previous Notre Dame coach telling his team that they should respect the Annapolis bunch because they are the cream of the nation, none could get recruited by a first-class football team, and ND should not play too hard against them.

But, finally, this year, of a powerful Irish team:  “So I say again: Screw Navy.  Let’s beat them, grind them into a pulp, run up the score, then hand them their check.  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out guys.  I hope you have something entertaining picked out for the bus ride home.”

Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/on-down-the-line-notre-dame-football/2010/10/weekly-vitriol-screw-navy.html#ixzz13Qso9Msn

Then, a funny thing happened: Depending on whose newspaper you read, a small Navy team – outweighed an average of 70 pounds a man in the line – crushed Notre Dame. The local  South Bend newspaper said the worst problem Navy had in the game was to try not to run up the score!

A Notre Dame team that had limited the three previous opponents to fewer than a  TOTAL of 150 rushing yards, gave up 210 yards to the Navy backup fullback, by himself! Previous teams had been limited to 1.9 yards a rush – Navy averaged 6.1 yards.

Notre Dame had taken the initial kickoff down to the Navy two-inch line, fourth down, and could not score – the Down the Line blogger was beside himself that, as he said it, “approximately 1600 pounds” of Notre Dame line could not move the ball two lousy inches! (Navy then marched straight down the field and scored.)

The Washington Post said the game, “was much more authoritative than even that lopsided result would indicate.”

But you must read the first column referenced to get the depth of the disdain that the Notre Dame Alumni columnist held Navy.

It sort of reminds me of the liberal disdain for the Tea Party – and I strongly suspect that the Tea Party is similarly underestimated.