Notre Dame fans that have an appreciation for good special teams play may enjoy hearing this. The other day I woke up a bit early and on my YouTube recommended videos was the 2018 Notre Dame-Michigan game. So of course, I hit play and watched parts of it as it was mostly a tremendous way to start the eventual 12-1 season for the Irish.
Just minutes before halftime, Notre Dame took a 21-3 lead on what was [autotag]Jafar Armstrong[/autotag]’s second rushing score of the first half. It felt like game over. It seemed like the rout was on as Michigan had virtually done nothing up to that point.
But just moments later, Notre Dame’s brutal special teams play showed its ugly head. Ambry Thomas returned the following kickoff 99-yards for a touchdown and that was it for the blowout, instead the Wolverines had new life and the Irish spent the second half hanging on to win 24-17.
That was one of countless special teams miscues for Notre Dame from 2010-2021. Jokingly called “Fair Catch U” for the better part of the last two decades, [autotag]Brian Polian[/autotag] headed the Fighting Irish special teams from 2005-2009 and again from 2017-2021.
Polian left with [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] to LSU following the 2021 regular season and it’s hardly a surprise that it didn’t take even a year for Notre Dame to go from “Fair Catch U” to “Punt Block U” under Brian Mason. Polian and LSU suffered their very unsurprising pile of special teams miscues this year that cost them severely in a few of their biggest games.
Tuesday saw Brian Polian in the news and in this longtime college football observer’s eyes, LSU got better as a result. Polian will no longer serve as special teams coordinator for the Tigers, instead being moved to an off-field role that will help in roster management and not for running special teams.
If you’re a Notre Dame fan you’re probably thinking “Wow, what took Brian Kelly so long to do this?”
And if you’re an LSU fan, you can take it from me that you should be thrilled because the unit that was a liability on the SEC West champions a year ago just got markedly better by this move.
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