Don't Bet On It!: National Game of Disinterest

Once we have gone around the SEC and examined the national games of interest, just one game remains for our examination, if only so we may dismiss it derisively as utterly undeserving of our attention.

At first blush, I thought Tuesday night’s tilt between Arkansas State and Louisiana-Monroe might qualify, but that actually turned out to be a good game. Likewise, I gave passing thought to Delaware State’s visit to the Big House before remembering that it is unwise to overlook Division I-AA teams facing the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor.

Accordingly, there could be only one choice for the national game of disinterest:

Don’t give me any nonsense about this being a storied intersectional rivalry. These two teams only started playing one another because Knute Rockne’s wife had the good sense to want to get the heck out of Indiana in November. Good for Mrs. Rockne for finagling a vacation in sunny Southern California, but mistaking a weekend getaway for something with staying power is how Jack Donaghy ended up with a time-share in Port Arthur, Texas.

There is also the small matter of 38-3, 38-0, 44-24, 34-31 on a field that looked like my back yard is going to look after all this rain, 41-10, 45-14, and 44-13. If someone in South Bend had sent up a prayer to St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners and cab drivers, asking for a lawn mower, this series would have seen seven USC blowouts in a row. As it stands, the Trojans have posted a septet of consecutive victories, six of which were not competitive.

Don’t even try to tell me this year is going to be different. You don’t believe in Notre Dame. I don’t believe in Notre Dame. Doug Gillett doesn’t believe in Notre Dame. The Men of Troy don’t believe in Notre Dame, or they wouldn’t be spending time on the slip ‘n’ slide.

The most storied . . . oops, sorry, nodded off for a second there; most storied program . . . whoa, I keep dozing off for some reason; most storied program in the history of the sport is prepared to declare moral victory if the final score is anything closer than eleventy billion and twelve to negative-two. If that doesn’t make this game a total snore, I don’t know what does.

Go ‘Dawgs!