Friday, November 9, 2007

Air Force Non-preview

I just refuse to do it. Despite the pathetic 1-8 record of the Notre Dame football team, I refuse to sit here and type an analysis that attempts to find a rational basis to believe that the Irish can somehow beat the favored Falcons of the United States Air Force Academy in Notre Dame Stadium. It's freaking Air Force! I refuse to stoop so low as to try to come up with reasons why I should HOPE that we can beat AIR FORCE!

Game notes:

  • As I expected, Jimmy Clausen will be back at QB for the Irish. According to Coach Weis, he looks pretty good throwing the ball right now. Let's hope so.
  • Air Force is a slightly better team than Navy. The Falcon offense is slightly less prolific than Navy in piling up yards, mostly on the ground, and a bit less efficient in turning those yards into points. But the USAFA defense is considerably better than Navy's, ranked #19 in scoring defense and #41 in total defense (Navy is #114 and #105).
  • Air Force is #54 is the Sagarin Rankings this week, while Navy is #84.
  • Despite the aforementioned statistics, Navy beat USAFA 31-20 in week 5.
If you want to read articles by bloggers less principled than I, who actually stooped so low as to analyze the match-ups in this game, you can try these:
I've done analysis and given my expectations every week, and I have been proven spectacularly wrong in almost every attempt to forecast the performance of this team. All I can say this week is: We Are ND! They Are Air Force. The winning has to begin some time, why not now?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm posting this after the AFA win. I am a 73 AFA grad. I love ND. College football isn't the same without a great ND team. You won't be happy to read that my two favorite College footabll teams are USC and AF. I grew up in CA and my father was a USC fan since the '30s since he grew up in LA. However, I love ND. I love what you stand for, I love what you represent for college football, ... I just love ND. I'm so happy that AF was able to win this game. Just imagine ... less talented players across the board, academics as stringint as those at ND, summer programs that prevent year-round conditioning or skills training, a manadatory winter academic schedule of at least 28.5 semester hours (when I was there, anyway). Yet, we were wble to win this year against your wonderful athletes. You will become stong again. You will have your day (many). Don't begruge us this victory at this time. You will be back. Go AF and go ND.

Anonymous said...

I am just stunned. The only good thing was JC played pretty good. Yes we will be back.