Quote:
Originally Posted by Labonte18
Ok.. I half-believe. Pull off a competitive game against ND and I'm sold.
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I was surprised by the Virginia Tech game. Miami actually dominated them. The Canes look improved.
I am very familiar with the Notre Dame campus. I also lived in South Florida for one year and went to the U many times to watch basketball. I used to work by MIA at an engineering job.
Here is a primary factor working against Notre Dame - the humid heat. Right now, the team came from really cold weather in Northern Indiana which is 90 miles east of Chicago. The weather is literally freezing up there. I am an experienced runner in Florida and know that the humidity and heat of South FL are not to be underestimated. An athlete needs to be acclimatized. The dense football pads, fanatic home crowd of the Canes, sheer magnitude of media exposure, and the humid heat will likely take its toll by the 4th quarter. Meanwhile, the Canes will be going strong late in the game and probably start to pull away.
To be fair, I am confident the U would lose badly if they had to play at South Bend in that freezing weather. I used to laugh when South Floridians started wearing jackets at 60 F. A cold-weather game at ND would spell doom for the U. But this game is at Miami.
Comment on "30 for 30" - ESPN "Catholics vs Convicts" Show
I went to many home games for the Irish when I was an undergraduate and recall the fierce rivalry. There used to be a poster on campus called "Avoid the Rush - Hate Miami Now" with a picture of Jimmy Johnson yelling. Notre Dame had that 31-30 victory that was supposed to be payback for the 58-7 score run-up by the U a few years earlier.
The "30 for 30" ESPN documentary left a few things out. One of the problems at Notre Dame back then was racial tension. The Gary Faust Era had a team of some black and white players who could not get along. That was a factor. But when Holtz arrived, he changed that dynamic and got the team united. However, Steve Huffman, a lineman who quit the team in 1988, said he was made to play with severe injuries and also claimed to have witnessed steroid abuse. That article was on the SI vault for many years but has since been removed. It can no longer be found on Google but should still be available in the average library - see fall of 1990 for SI. Some of the players from that team now have CTE. Most notably, Andre Jones, a star defensive back, died of a brain aneurysm. He had been a scholar athlete and excelled in the classroom as well as the game. But he is now deceased - RIP.
Ironically, from having lived in South FL, I know Miami is heavily Catholic. The area has many Latin Americans for whom Catholicism is the prominent religion. This is in contrast with North FL which is heavily Protestant like Georgia and Alabama (the Bible Belt). The "Catholics vs Convicts" theme was inaccurate. In my opinion, it was subtle racism against the black athletes of Miami. At that time, Notre Dame had many students from expensive private schools in the "white flight" suburbs of Chicago, Detroit, etc. who avoided the inner cities due to racism. Hence, that theme arose (in my opinion). I met one Alumni club member who told me many ND alumni did not want to go to Miami games because it has too many "w--b-cks" - the slur against Mexicans. Ironically, Miami is mostly Cuban, South American or Caribbean (not Mexican). So you can see the racism from that alumnus' comments and slur.
To be fair, modern ND does not have that problem of racism anymore like the 1980s. It's just that the ESPN documentary left that out among other issues. But realistically, the "U" wasn't innocent either. As for that Gary Cleveland play, modern instant replay would have reversed the call (in my opinion). But the late touchdown by Miami that was actually an uncontrolled "reception" would have been reversed too. So the game's true outcome was altered both ways.
It should be a great game - best wishes to both teams. I just think the U has the edge because of the heat - not to be underestimated when the team from cold weather is not acclimatized.
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