The point spread for the college football national championship game between the infidels from Ohio State vs. God’s chosen gladiators of the gridiron, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, has been posted.
You can tell I’m impartial.
Nine and a half points.
So all the gambling “experts” have stated that the Buckeyes will easily defeat the Irish a week from Monday night in Atlanta.
Relax.
Didn’t these exact same gambling “experts” say that Ohio State would beat Michigan by 19 points?
How’d that work out?
In years past, I would be nervous as a cat to play a big-time team like Ohio State for all the marbles.
But not this year.
This team is a different animal that seems to find a way to win. Will it be enough against the best team money can buy?
I rate this game as a much more even matchup than the so-called “experts” do.
I also hope the Notre Dame football team is not too relaxed, but confident in what got them this far: unity and execution.
I was shattered when the team lost their home opener to Northern Illinois in only the second game of the season. I had almost accepted that we were already out of contention for the new college football playoff after only the second week of the season.
But the team never got that memo.
They just rededicated, re-focused, and started fighting their way back. They have put together the nation’s current longest running winning streak of fourteen straight games and now stand at the precipice of an all-time return to glory since 1989.
It will be nuts if we find a way to win it all.
There is a much different feel to this game as opposed to our last dalliance in the national championship picture when we felt very much like lambs being led to slaughter by Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide.
We lost by four touchdowns and my ass still stings from that one.
This year is different. These aren’t your 2013 Irish.
We can win this one.
I will hold off on any more ND football posts until after the game, but I leave you with this little ND snippet from my book EMOTIONS: Not your Mama’s ABC’s!
Take a subject such as college football, for example. I have always been a Notre Dame fan. My father used to tell me at his school, the nuns (Sisters of the Holy Cross) would march he and his four brothers into school playing the Notre Dame Victory March. The song is one of the most recognizable college football fight songs ever. Now, with that being said, I want the Fighting Irish to win another national championship, but first I need someone to find a way to stop Alabama, Ohio State, USC, and the others. Right?
My impartial take is simply everyone is a Notre Dame fan, some just refuse to admit it. In the Final Walk up to the pearly gates of heaven, those standing in line as they approach St. Peter will undergo a slight metamorphosis. Forget “On Wisconsin,” “Hail to the Victors,” and “Fight On.” Inching closer to FINAL ADMITTANCE through the gates (and I have NO doubts about this) EVERYONEwill start humming the Notre Dame Victory March.
Just in case…
*****
Stay well.
