Archives › Keith Arnold
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Welcome to another episode of the Irish Blogger Gathering. This week, I’m asking Twibby of HerLoyalSons.com some questions, and he’s, in turn, answering them. If you’re into this kind of thing, you’ve got my answers over at HLS, and the Subway Domer and Josh Flynt of Strong and True taking turns as well. It’s a…
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Third in the BCS Standings. Fourth in the Coaches’ Poll. Strong with the computers. Weak with the pollsters. A November schedule that softens before USC. Opponents losing games that could cost Notre Dame in the end. The variety of permutations and enormity of the variables that go into determining the BCS formula makes most football…
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Expect things to be testy in Bristol this weekend, as Mark May and Lou Holtz actually have something to bicker about. After a massive win in Norman, the Irish return home to South Bend, a place that’s been much tougher on Notre Dame than any opponent’s stadium. They’ll face a familiar opponent in the Pitt…
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With Superstorm Sandy battering the East Coast and many of our readers under water and in bad shape, let me be one of the many voices from somewhere safe to wish you all well and hope that you’ve stayed out of harm’s way. Not to take the devastation that has hit our country’s Eastern Seaboard…
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Let’s take a stroll across college football and see how Notre Dame’s opponents did last week. NAVY — If Notre Dame fans are feeling disappointed in their opponents, don’t look at Navy. After a rough start, the Midshipmen have rallied nicely, continuing that trend with a big victory over East Carolina. Navy put up a…
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If it took a little longer to get this column up, it’s because I’m still trying to process the football game Notre Dame played. This is far from an original thought, but Brian Kelly‘s troops played as close to a perfect football game as you could have ever imagined, putting together near flawless execution in…
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After another signature victory, Notre Dame continues its slow climb to the top of college football. The Irish are No. 4 in both the AP Poll and the USA Today Coaches’ Poll, behind Alabama, Oregon and Kansas State. The Irish moved up thanks to a loss by Florida, and have significantly cut the distance between…
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Games like this built the legend. Thunder shaking and echo-waking, it could only be built upon a tradition of winning big match-ups like this, what though the odds. No. 5 Notre Dame added another brick to the house that Rockne built with its incredible 30-13 victory over No. 8 Oklahoma. And after 20 years of…
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Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Notre Dame gave up its first rushing touchdown of the season, when 6-foot-6, 260-pound Blake Bell shook off Ishaq Williams and rumbled forward, running through Bennett Jackson on his way to a touchdown. Ah, but the good news… It was nothing but gravy after that…
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It’s finally here. After breaking down just about every angle of this game thinkable, it’s finally time to actually see what happens. As No. 5 Notre Dame visits No. 8 Oklahoma, the Irish find themselves having to spring the upset, a significant underdog even though they’re ranked higher in the polls. Notre Dame will be…
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It’s finally here. Now the long wait until tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST begins. Before the Irish and the Sooners take the field (of course, we’ll be here for the live blog), let’s run through a few last minute questions I’m still pondering. It sounds like Notre Dame will be without George Atkinson. The news…
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Moments like this are earned. Big games, premiere Saturdays, they are a product of hard work off the field and fortune on the field. As Notre Dame prepares to play in their biggest game in a decade, and easily their most anticipated since Pete Carroll’s Trojans came to South Bend to battle first-year head coach…
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I’ll be the first to admit I come up a little bit shy when it comes to being a Notre Dame historian. And while my Irish memories only go back to the days of Holtz and Rice, I’ve certainly got an affinity for the wonderful history and tradition that comes along with Notre Dame football.…
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As we get to the Irish Blogger Gathering, it’s pretty hard not to focus all our questions on the big game this weekend. Notre Dame is still a decided underdog. Oklahoma’s record in big games hasn’t been exactly sterling. We’ll start emptying out the proverbial notebook for the rest of the weekend leading up to…
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Brian Kelly was fulfilling a few media obligations before turning his focus onto the big match-up with Oklahoma this weekend. Part of that media tour included a few minutes in the “Herd,” joining ESPN’s Colin Cowherd to discuss the state of the Irish football program, and go one-on-one with a pretty polarizing radio personality that…
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Broken streaks. Stolen slogans. Biggest game in a decade. It’s the kind of hype most Notre Dame fans didn’t see possible heading into this season, but with the Irish at 7-0 and No. 5 in the country, just about every fan under the Golden Dome is hoping for this magical ride to continue. If it…
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Brian Kelly stepped to the podium Tuesday afternoon the head coach of the No. 5 team in the nation. Ready to bring his team to Oklahoma for the biggest match-up of his career, many believe this Saturday is the one that the Fighting Irish are exposed. To read some third-party accounts, it’s only a matter…
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Over at the Oklahoman, Barry Tramel continues his dogged reporting on the Notre Dame-Oklahoma series with a piece insinuating that Notre Dame stole its beloved “Play Like A Champion Today” sign from Bud Wilkinson‘s Sooners. Between breaking Oklahoma’s historic winning streak and stealing an iconic sign, I half expect Tramel to tell me Lou Holtz…
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I’m still processing the thirty-plus minutes Brian Kelly dedicated to the big game this Saturday during his weekly press conference, but I’m glad that the Irish special teams came up. As mentioned in the past few days, the Irish special teams have been a big disappointment this year. With blue-chip freshman Davonte Neal handling punt…
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When Brian Kelly meets with the media tomorrow, we expect to hear that quarterback Everett Golson is cleared and ready for Oklahoma. The sophomore quarterback, who left the Stanford game after taking a helmet-to-helmet blow, sat out Saturday for precautionary reasons, leaving the Irish offense to Tommy Rees (and a sprinkle of Andrew Hendrix) as…
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It’s fair to say that Oklahoma isn’t looking at this weekend’s game with Notre Dame as just another Saturday on the calendar. “Probably the most anticipated game here since 2000, when Nebraska came in here ranked No. 1 in the country and we were No. 2,” Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops said. “It was a…
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It was a Saturday devoid of style points for No. 5 Notre Dame, who got a victory without playing their best yesterday. On a weekend where the rest of the top five all rolled to easy victories, the Irish slugged it out against BYU, needed to come back from down a touchdown to win in…
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From the sounds of it, you’d have thought Notre Dame’s football team beat BYU while keeping an eye on Twitter, Facebook and message boards. The same social media and white noise that Brian Kelly warned his team about all week was tough on the No. 5 team in the country after a hard fought 17-14…
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Perhaps it was the most elaborate trap ever set. Convinced there was nothing to worry about after discussing a potential trap game all week, the No. 5 Fighting Irish fell into one anyway. Looking sloppy throughout the game’s first 30 minutes before scoring the only 10 points of the second half, Notre Dame escaped against…
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Another Saturday, another big game for the Fighting Irish. And as usual, we’ve got every angle of this game covered. For those of you that want to chat during the game, see below for the live blog. Standard live-blog protocol applies, and as we’ve done the past few weeks, the guys at The Observer will…
