IBG: Thanks for the memories

We can spend tomorrow and Saturday listening to Boyz II Men and getting out the yearbooks and hankies, but it’s been a good run for the Notre Dame senior class. Led by All-Americans Manti Te’o and Tyler Eifert, this class fought its way through some pretty horrific times and led a resurgence that has made this football season probably the most enjoyable of my years following Notre Dame.

As we roll into this week’s Irish Blogger Gathering, I strapped Bayou Irish from HLS with a few questions focusing on the senior class, and then threw a BCS rankings question his way to make things even more interesting. For more pressing queries, I answered some questions over at the Strong and True blog, while Subway Domer and Her Loyal Sons did that sort of thing as well.

Here’s Bayou Irish on the hot seat.

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1) It’s Senior Day. Give me the ten most important seniors on this football team and tell me why.

Just ten, Keith? In no particular order: Te’o, Eifert, Watt, Riddick, Martin, Fox, Calabrese, Motta, Toma and Turk. I don’t know that Te’o isn’t the most important player we’ve had in a decade or more. While his story is still being written, I don’t think it would be a stretch arguing that he’s as important a “get” for the Irish as hiring Brian Kelly. To my mind, you’ve got to go back to Rocket to conjure as iconic a player as Number Five. Moving on, Eifert’s an obvious first rounder and his ability to challenge a defense as a threat or as a blocker is really extraordinary. As a New Orleanian, I can’t help but enjoy the blurred line between watching Tyler on Saturday and Jimmy Graham on Sunday. I think Tyler’s in that mold of the Graham/Gronk hybrid-TE we’re seeing in the NFL. And by hybrid, I mean half-man, half-superman. Watt and Martin are rocks on the O-line and so much of this team’s success is built on the line, as with any successful team. I don’t know how much credit to give Zeke Motta alone for the better-than-expected secondary play, but I’m giving him enough. Dan Fox and Carlo Calabrese are noteworthy in at linebacker – I think Carlo had every reason in the world to throw in the towel a number of times and he didn’t. Turk and Toma round out the list – Toma Time is something that I don’t think took off the way it maybe could have, but he’s an exciting player and we’re going to miss having him around.

2) It’s easy just to say “Haters gonna hate.” But diagnose why Notre Dame is the de facto No. 3 team of the unbeatens.

I think any diagnosis that focuses on objective data puts us 1 or 2, so you need to get into the b.s. subjectivity of the dreaded “eye test” and then you make the case that teams that compete for the National Championship don’t eek out wins over Purdue and Pitt and should put up a ton of points on B.C. We crushed Navy (in Ireland), Miami (in Chicago) and Oklahoma (in Norman), but we have the #91 scoring offense, which doesn’t compare favorably to Oregon or K-State, but the only scoring comparison that compares favorably to Oregon is Wilt Chamberlin. You know, we started off the season “unranked,” so there’s that aspect of it, too. This question becomes different on Sunday if we do hang 50 on Wake while holding them to zero as a number of their bloggers think is likely, for what’s that worth.

3) Take Manti Te’o and Tyler Eifert out of the equation. What senior will the Irish miss most next year? Of the fifth-year candidates, who do the Irish absolutely need to have back?

Zack Martin. As you know, Keith, and as most of your readers know, I played left tackle for Morrissey Manor when we ran the table in interhall in 1993. What we had on the Manor and what the Irish have today is a stud at left tackle is the point I am driving at. You keep the QB clean and very good things happen. Zack’s given up one sack all season – and as today’s Washington Post points out, that came on the second play against Navy. Zack moves people and I’m a proponent having leadership and cohesion on the lines. If he wants to stay, BK should roll the red carpet out for him.