WATCH: My Favorite Notre Dame Football Play, Ever

Quick – what is your absolute favorite play ever in Notre Dame football history?

Quick – what is your absolute favorite play ever in Notre Dame football history? Heck, if you’re a bigger basketball fan you can share that as well but I’m legit curious as we sit here avoiding contact with each other and trying to pass the time until better days are upon us.

An up-start and top-ten Notre Dame team welcomed defending champion and No. 1 USC to Notre Dame Stadium. It was the biggest game at Notre Dame in a dozen years and a classic wound up playing out.

A Brady Quinn pass found Jeff Samardzija for a 32 yard touchdown pass to tie things at 14 and Notre Dame’s defense answered the call forcing a three-and-out immediately after.

Then entered Tom Zbikowski:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t89zYrTfJ5w]

Forget for a second how things ended that afternoon and instead remember just that exact moment. In the dozens of games I’ve been too I’ve never heard it louder, not even when Quinn gave the Irish the lead late in the fourth quarter.

From the Tom Malone punt nearly being blocked initially to Chase Anastasio’s block at the 37-yard line (seriously, go back and watch again and appreciate it) and finally Zbikowski breaking three tackles at the end to finish the return.

Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart and soon-to-be Heisman winner (before it was taken away) Reggie Bush coupled with Pete Carroll and everything USC was at the time, I thought for the life of me that Tom Zbikowski shifted the tide in what was to be a monumental win.

We all know it didn’t end that way and maybe it’s just me looking back at wide-eyed me in my very late teens. For a team I’ve always rooted for but never seen win a championship though, I don’t know if things have gotten much better for me as a Notre Dame fan than at that very moment.

So what’s yours? Share it on our Facebook page or send us a tweet explaining which play and why, and maybe yours will be chosen for a future post here at FIW.

Notre Dame Football: Where Did the Experts Rank 2020 Irish Recruiting Class?

When people say recruiting doesn’t matter, they’re lying. It does. Maybe it doesn’t always play out on the field but you aren’t a regular powerhouse if your team’s name isn’t at or towards the top of these lists with regularity.

The second and final national signing day has come and gone with no movement for Notre Dame, who had all of their eventual signees known back in December during the early signing period.

Now the grades and rankings start to come out from those who are much smarter than myself on such things. Where did the three big outlets rank Notre Dame’s class and how many elite prospects were they able to bring in?

247 Sports: 17th
Of Notre Dame’s 19 signees, 247 ranks just one as a five-star talent (TE, Michael Mayer) and eight players as four-stars and eight more as three-stars.

ESPN: 14th
ESPN doesn’t give away their information or thoughts on recruiting for free but they do reveal their team rankings without cost. This is however the highest ranking any of the three services gave Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish.

Rivals: 21st
Rivals, like 247, has Mayer ranked as a five-star recruit. However, Rivals lists nine players as four-star talents but just six as three-star caliber. This is the lowest of any of the three major outlets ranked the Fighting Irish.

Listen, you see the rankings and they leave you far from thrilled. I get that.

Clemson is ranked atop all of these and your usual super powers of Alabama, LSU, Georgia and the other regulars are right there as well.

The loss of Landen Bartleson hurts as depth at corner takes an obvious hit. I think it’s important to remember how high folks were on Chris Tyree just a few short weeks ago in these same rankings, yet his overall ranking went down the closer to national signing day we got.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still be bad or disappointing if your name does appear high. See Notre Dame under Charlie Weis or what our friends over at USC are going through right now.

It’s a class with a lot of potential, just few certain future stars. Here’s to hoping we look back on this class four years from now and are discussing how much it shocked the college football world for all the right reasons.

Giants to hire Patrick Graham as defensive coordinator: 5 things to know

The New York Giants will hire Patrick Graham as their next defensive coordinator, so here are five things you should know.

During the midst of the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs on Sunday, the New York Giants made an important hire to their coaching staff.

Joe Judge picked his defensive coordinator in Patrick Graham, who had been serving as the defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins.

Graham replaces James Bettcher, who served as the top defensive assistant for two seasons under previous head coach Pat Shurmur.

Graham is inheriting a defensive unit that ranked near the bottom of the league and has his work cut out for him.

Here are five things to know about the new Giants’ defensive coordinator.

Worked with Joe Judge previously

Part of why Judge is picking Graham as the defensive coordinator for the Giants is due to their time together with the New England Patriots.

Graham initially got to the Patriots back in 2009 as a coaching assistant before taking over as the linebackers coach in 2011.

Judge came to the Patriots in 2012 as a special teams assistant after spending several seasons with Alabama as a part of Nick Saban’s staff.

Judge and Graham worked together until the end of the 2015 season before Graham moved onto his next assignment, which ironically enough, was with the Giants.

Pages: 12345

Notre Dame Almanac: Charlie Weis’s Dumbest Decision

That loss to Navy was laughable and anyone with any sense saw how over-matched Notre Dame had become, not in terms of talent, but in terms of employing a know-it-all coach who actually didn’t know a sneeze from a wet fart.

With it being Navy week I started to try and think of the most-memorable moments in the rivalry to me. For a series that has been played seemingly forever, I have very few actual lasting memories of it. With that said, a few did come to mind from games I remember watching.

2002 – A week after getting upset against Boston College, the Irish trailed 23-15 entering the fourth quarter before Carlyle Holiday threw two late touchdown passes, the final being the go-ahead score to Omar Jenkins to avoid a disasterous loss to a 1-7 Navy team.

2012 – Ten years later the Irish kicked off their season in Ireland, dismantling Navy 50-10. Stephon Tuitt’s fumble return for a touchdown helped blow things wide open on an afternoon that belonged to the Irish, even abroad in Dublin.

And the single worst in-game-decision Charlie Weis made at Notre Dame, which is saying something…

Pages: 12