Why I Love (Touchdown) Jesus

In case it’s not obvious, that title is meant to be sarcastic. I love Jesus, okay? But I am not a fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, because as a college football fan without cable TV or ESPN, I’ve been forced to endure their crappy teams and boring games week after week on broadcast TV for years, while the games I wanted to see were not shown. But then, when a journalist has to start out by pointing out his sarcasm, she can’t really complain about “crappy.” I’d advise you to stop reading this right now and do something more productive!

The final play of the Texas Nebraska game—Colt McCoy loses his mind, takes way too long and sails the ball out of bounds, really wanting that touchdown, but settling on setting up a field goal—but he’s taken too long—the game is over—Nebraska wins! Except then they did a review, and because the ball hit a railing—on someone’s condo or something—rich people bullshit encroaching the field—rather than sailing harmlessly to the ground—they decided the clock should stop at that point, and put a second on the clock—time enough for Texas to kick a game winning field goal. It’s kind of like those situations in baseball where an outfielder is going to catch a ball, and a fan reaches out of the stands and catches it first. I’ve heard they’re considering, in struggling markets, setting up some four star restaurant tables right in the outfield so wealthy fans can have dinner there and further interfere with the game. You couldn’t really do that with football, but what’s with this “official review” madness? What’s next? Why not have an official video review after every single play in football? The game can last 12 hours, and there will be plenty of room for commercials.

Why is this important, really? Because if they didn’t do the review, or that structure wasn’t there, and the ball hits the ground, Nebraska wins the game, and Texas doesn’t go to the National Championship game. Instead, Cincinnati rightly goes to the championship game, and Brian Kelly, instead of taking the Notre Dame job, stays at Cincinnati. Bob Stoops takes the Notre Dame coaching job, and they go 3 and 9, 6 and 6, and 4 and 8 in the next three years before he’s fired and then Brian Kelly eventually gets the Notre Dame job. The Touchdown Jesus works in mysterious ways.