Archives › Keith Arnold
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Alabama and Georgia will face off this afternoon, with the winner earning its way into the national championship game, where they’ll face Notre Dame. For Irish fans, it’ll be an opportunity to see their opponent face their stiffest competition of the year. It’ll also be a chance to see the vaunted SEC in all its…
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For the first time in a long time, Saturday will be spent watching football for enjoyment’s sake. We’ll still have five weeks to break down either Alabama or Georgia, but just because this SEC Championship will be a bit more interesting to Notre Dame fans than usual, we’ll be live-blogging the proceedings tomorrow. Joined by…
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Let me utter a sentence that isn’t often said on the last day of November in northwest Indiana: It’s a great time to be in South Bend. The Irish await the winner of Alabama-Georgia in the national championship game. Mike Brey’s hoops team dispatched John Calipari’s lastest gang of mercenaries. As the student body galvanizes…
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Brian Kelly stayed on the West Coast after beating USC, visiting some top California prospects before stopping in St. Paul to visit James Onwualu and onto Michigan to see Steve Elmer, two early-enrollees in the class of 2013. But before he left California, he certainly left his stamp on the area, and some top 2014…
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Having a blog that covers Notre Dame football stump for an Irish player’s Heisman candidacy is pretty transparent. And lame. So I’ll spare you some of the usual rhetoric that comes with this type of column. Do I think Manti Te’o should win the Heisman Trophy? Yes. Do I think he deserves it? Yes. Do…
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Being No. 1 in the country has its privileges. Right now, those perks include chasing down some of the top talent in the country, something Notre Dame’s coaching staff is doing as they try and put the finishing touches on a stellar 2013 recruiting class. There isn’t a lot of room in a class that…
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Yesterday, Bob Diaco was nominated as one of five finalists for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant coach. Other assistants nominated are Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, Kliff Kingsbury, the OC at Texas A&M, and defensive coordinators Dan Quinn of Florida and Derek Mason of Stanford. Diaco, who serves as assistant head…
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With Saturday night’s victory, Notre Dame kept its stranglehold on the No. 1 spot in all the land. As expected, with just the conference title games left, the BCS rankings have the Irish atop their standings, with a No. 1 ranking in the Harris Poll, the USA Today Coaches Poll, and the top spot across…
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LOS ANGELES — It’ll be a game that ends up etched in a coffee table book. Or a victory memorialized by a catchy turn of phrase. History will certainly be kind to No. 1 Notre Dame’s gutty 22-13 win over USC. But make no mistake, this victory was not extraordinary. The Irish beat the Trojans…
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That’s it. Notre Dame is going to the national championship. No really. Notre Dame is going to the national championship. It wasn’t pretty, but thanks to a hard-nosed effort by Theo Riddick and a gutty performance by Everett Golson, the Irish survived multiple scares by the Trojans and a vallant effort by redshirt freshman Max…
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LOS ANGELES — We are finally there. On an unseasonably warm November evening, the No. 1 Fighting Irish prepare to take on USC, battling their rivals for the right to head to Miami for the national championship game. Stories like this one usually write themselves. But we’ll still be here keeping you up to speed…
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The Irish have invaded Southern California. A biennial pilgrimage that usually doubles as a short vacation for Midwesterners looking for one last long weekend of sun before winter, there’s a different feel to this year’s game, and for good reason. Notre Dame is playing for its shot in the national title game. As usual, we’ll…
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On Friday afternoon, Notre Dame will board a plane for Los Angeles. By the time they leave, they’ll know if they’ve punched their ticket to Miami, awaiting a challenger in the national championship game. After three months of twists and turns, the No. 1 Fighting Irish take on Southern Cal in the country’s greatest intersectional…
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Thanksgiving Day. A time for the Macy’s parade, a day of football, too much turkey, and corny columns from writers everywhere. But in the midst of a historic season, some stories absolutely have to be written, even with family, football, and food waiting. As the Irish gather at their coaches’ homes for holiday meals before…
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Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Hope we can all spend a little time with our families before the entire focus turns to the big game this weekend. Until then, I tried to throw my best at the Subway Domer for this week’s Irish Blogger Gathering, and he stepped up and took on all comers, not unlike a…
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USC’s No. 1 weapon, wide receiver Marqise Lee, went on the air with Russ Thaler on SportsTalk today, talking about the big game this weekend, Max Wittek’s “guarantee,” and what a victory over No. 1 Notre Dame would mean for the Trojans. ***
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Notre Dame isn’t just in control of its own destiny this weekend, it’s in control of the entire college football world. A Notre Dame victory on Saturday guarantees that the Irish will find its way into the national title game. Everybody else — with Alabama having the inside track — will have to fight for…
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Well folks, it doesn’t get any bigger than this one. With Thanksgiving upon us, it’s Notre Dame’s biennial trip to Los Angeles, with this showdown in the Coliseum meaning more than any other in recent memory for the Irish. As we’ve discussed (and will continue to discuss for the next few days), Trojan’s quarterback Matt…
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As Brian Kelly, the head coach of the No. 1 ranked team in the country, stood at the podium for his final game week press conference of the season, he was candid when he spoke of Notre Dame’s rivalry with Southern Cal. Frankly, it hasn’t been much of one. “Well, it’s not a great rivalry…
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With senior quarterback Matt Barkley on the sidelines for Saturday’s game, the Trojans will turn to redshirt freshman Max Wittek to pilot their high-powered offense. Having appeared in only three games in his USC career, Wittek is far from a proven commodity. But that hasn’t stopped the young quarterback from calling his shot. “We’re going…
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At this point, it’s probably best to give up looking for a bad and an ugly from the weekend that was. Between the Irish’s demolition of Wake Forest, senior day festivities, and losses by both Kansas State and Oregon, there hasn’t been a better autumn Saturday in South Bend in quite some time. With the…
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Perhaps Irish fans shouldn’t be too heartbroken about losing out on Anthony Barr. Once a highly touted prep prospect looking at Notre Dame, the son of former Irish great Tony Brooks seemed destined to follow his dad’s footsteps, but decided to play closer to home, committing to Rick Neuheisel and UCLA, where he spent his…
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After the craziest night of football in five years, both the Associated Press and the Coaches poll have made it official: Notre Dame is No. 1. The Irish were a unanimous choice top the AP Top 25, garnering all 60 first place votes. Rounding out the top five are Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Oregon.…
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As it tends to happen in November, college football threw its fans a curveball and toppled the country’s top two teams, all but flipping the world on its head with just one week to go in the regular season. A week after an impregnable Alabama team fell to Texas A&M, the top two teams in…
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For a long time 38-0 signified the gap between Notre Dame and college football’s elite programs. In 2003, Michigan embarrassed the Irish, a top five team proving skeptics right that 2002 was a fluke as the Wolverines pounded the Irish, holding Notre Dame to just seven first downs and 140 yards. “They came at us…
