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The Irish Triple Crown

Theo Riddick

Navy was a good warm-up race for Theo Riddick and his Notre Dame teammates, but capturing a Big Ten Triple Crown in September would be a significant achievement for the program.

The next three weeks will serve as the acid test of whether the 2012 Irish are a bona fide BCS candidate or might remain in the 8-4 range.

Lou Somogyi

    • Good piece Lou. The Irish Triple Crown has a nice ring to it!!

      ND Q

    • Lou,to me the key game to achieving this triple crown will be the road game against MSU.For some reason I feel that the Irish can defend the home field this season.

      frase

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      vin4irish ●

    • Based on the games I saw Notre Dame is better than any of the Big Ten teams they face the next three weeks! It remains to be seen if ND can protect their corners but with the athleticism of the ND defensive line I like our chances. No one is going to effectively run on that front seven, and after ND opens up the offense (this week) Notre Dame can be scary good... I liked what little I saw from our very young receivers! Troy Niklas looked like the giant from Jack and the Bean Stalk, this is going to be a very fun year for ND fans! Golson is The Goods!!!

      ndin12

    • Take one game at a time......and do not take any game for granted.

      irishEddie

    • Great article Lou. September is a huge month for ND.

      edd1066

    • I like metaphor and hyperbole as much as the next English major, but it has been 34 years since the last Triple Crown in horseracing, 10 years longer than the last Irish NC.

      I would like to suggest that in the grand scheme of things, winning these games is not so much a huge achievement as a valid indicator that ND is really good. The huge wins still come in games with teams like OU and USC and the BCS Bowl opponent.

      But in football, great seasons are not achieved in the grand scheme of things. They are earned one week at a time, one play at a time. Purdue is huge.

      65too

    • As Bk has said , I think we will all have a better feel for this team after the Purdue game. If our secondary can hold up, and show a really good performance, maybe we can all breathe easier. I think Purdue will be a good test for the secondary, and how much pressure the front 3 or 4 can get on the QB. By the way Lou is Wes on your couch or someone else after the camera thing in Ireland.

      TX Irish

    • Is Terbush starting now that his suspension is over or will Marve start?

      IrishManChild

    • Another very good article Lou, just like yesterdays piece "What We Learned". Your info/perspective is always fresh and your writing skills are better than any writer covering ND on a daily basis, locally or nationally. Your work is impressive.

      Tennessee Lamb

    • Tennessee Lamb,

      Thank you for the kind words. There are so many good writers out there that it forces you to try as best you can, so to receive that kind of praise from you means a lot.

      65too,

      Your perspective is definitely the correct one. Just to make things interesting, though, to balance short-term goals with long ones, I sometimes like to divide a season into three or four segments just as a gauge, not so much as evidence that "ND is back." The Big Ten segment often has been a good barometer of how a season eventually plays out, and I just think the internal vibe, mojo, body language, psyche, whatever you want to call it, would be so strong if you went into the bye week 4-0. It's been so long since it's happened — and just once in the last 18 years — that it would edify the masses too. Then the next step is seeing how the program can handle success.

      Lou Somogyi

    • No excuses... if we are not 4-0 leaving sept, which is completely doable, then we have issues on the coaching side. There are teams all across college football that find ways to "play up" and that mentality comes from the staff and head coach. If anything else the idea of Ara P. should be the rule here, these kids need to taste real success and then have a hungar to never want to lose again.

      I have been saying for months this schedule is only as hard as we let it be. So many teams start out in the top 15 and end up un ranked or at the bottom looking up. This team should be rolling over the likes of Mich. Mich St., Purdue and the like. There are let down games mind you, but the let down game should be a let down half not the full 60 min.
      Since June I have been saying 10-3/11-2 with OU and USC being the two loses (just facing facts) the rest we should be able to win by a margin of 7-10 pts a game.
      I shouldnt have to list why but
      we only need to worry about ONE position!! CB, the rest are full of young, FAST, hungary players.
      We should never have the mindset next year, we should only have the mind set of "next week"!
      GO IRISH
      35-21 IRISH, next week.

      This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by CraigR on 9/3/2012 at 1:59 PM

      CraigR

    • Still very, very concerned with the Irish secondary. Slow safeties and inexperienced corners.

      Uganda

    • can't believe mich looked that bad or is bama that good? we should be able to pound the rock, until we run into sparty. not sure we can stand toe to toe with their linemen.......

      Coach_Clancy

    • A good article, but we're not a BCS canidate. If you look at the Navy game there are two issues that need addressed if we hope to win 8 games. First Goldson's timming. Several times he threw behind his intended receiver. Second, our defensive backfield. If Navy could gain yards, by throwing, how do you think Michigan, and Mich. State is going to do??

      tcboxer

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