This week ESPN’s “College Gameday” travels to Clemson, South Carolina for a battle between a couple of unbeaten squads as the host Tigers take on North Carolina State. Notre Dame is off for their bye this week but with the weather that is expected it’s seemingly fitting from a Fighting Irish fan’s perspective that these two are meeting up.
Hurricane Ian is making landfall on Wednesday on Florida’s gulf coast and with it is bringing an incredible amount of rain and dangerously high winds. In all seriousness, far beyond the importance of a silly football game this weekend or from years ago now, all the best to those having to evacuate or ride this thing out.
Clemson playing host to North Carolina State on Saturday will be played in what should be a ridiculous amount of rain and probably wind, too. With it being at Clemson it brings back memories for Notre Dame fans as in 2015, the unbeaten Fighting Irish and Tigers met in Clemson and played a classic while being poured on by the rains from Hurricane Joaquin.
We looked back at that memorable night with photos here.
For Notre Dame fans it also brings back memories of one of the ugliest games in Notre Dame football history, the 2016 game at North Carolina State as the rains from Hurricane Matthew took a toll on the east coast.
The game was only memorable for all the wrong reasons, especially for Notre Dame. Brian Kelly’s questionable game plan that afternoon called for 31 passes (five of which resulted in sacks) in conditions that featured a constant downpour as well as wind gusts north of 50 miles per hour.
It’s no surprise that the teams combined to throw for less than 100 yards and the only touchdown came on a botched punt.
Said [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] after the 10-3 defeat, “I think it was pretty evident to me that we were in need of throwing the football when we did throw it. We just weren’t as effective as I thought we could be.”
That one is still mind-numbing six years after the fact.
Perhaps it would have been wise to have pushed that one back a few weeks.
Then again, would anyone really look back on this meeting had it been played in sunny conditions?
Enjoy some incredible photos below from perhaps the most infamous weather game in the long history of Notre Dame football.