Dantley to Davis caps improbable win for Orange

It was a most surreal afternoon at the hallowed ground where Touchdown Jesus spends it days watching over the home Fighting Irish.

I could only image what that statue must have thought while watching one of the more pedestrian match-ups on a day that saw games vie for varies trophies,  like the Olden Oaken Bucket or the River City Rivalry or The Game.

Well it sure wasn’t the prettiest football game I have ever watched.  Neither team really did much to prove that there should be a clear and decisive winner.   Syracuse had a pair of punts blocked.  Curtis Brinkley fumbled an early second half hand off that should have led to an easy game changing touchdown.   Ryan Howard continues to find fielding punts to be a challenge.  And Syracuse showed that it hasn’t practiced defending in the prevent formation.

Notre Dame did its part as well.  The Irish rushed for an anemic 41 yards.  They converted only 4 of 16 third down conversions against a unit that normally allows teams to convert 12 of 16.  When you add in that Notre Dame was completely complacent after grabbing a 23-10 lead and taking it into the fourth quarter where Syracuse hadn’t scored two TDs in the final stanza all season.  Its easy to see how ol TD Jesus wasn’t amused with what transpired in the last 45 minutes of senior day.  Especially odd was witnessing the pelting of snow balls by ND fans at their own players!

The Orange did some things that I haven’t seen all season.  The kinds of things a team whose coach is fighting for his job should be doing.  But alas it was after the job was taken away that we finally see the Orange pull out all the stops.  Why did we have to wait for all this creativity?  Let me list of few of them here:

1)  The Wildcat formation.   Direct snaps to true frosh Antwon Bailey seemed to confuse the ND defense.

2) A half back pass, which would have resulted in an easy 6 if executed correctly, again by Bailey who did manage to hit Dan Sheeran, who made a circus catch that led to a Pat Shadle FG

3) Stacking 8 or 9 in the box on defense. Sure it made Kevyn Scott look bad on a couple of throws to ND wideout Golden Tate, but the strategy made ND’s RBBC approach down right awful.  It also set the stage Arthur Jones to have a career game with 14 1/2 tackles and 1.5 sacks.  He was a man possessed and last night’s scheme allowed him to excel.

Still the Orange had to go win this thing.  And they did in dramatic fashion.  Bailey did all the damage on the first drive that begin at the end of the 3rd quarter, busting out runs of 5, 6, 11, 3, 9, and then 29 yards.  He seemed to get stronger with each run.  And despite what Pat Haden said, it was the type of running that normally was the dominion of Curtis Brinkley.

When Notre Dame missed a 49 yarder, the stage was set for the Pontiac Game changing moment.  Again Bailey went to work – 21 yards, 4 yards, 5 yards, ND’s penalty and Cuse was in the redzone.  It seemed to be in trouble when the Cuse was called for holding.  But Dantley made two big plays – a 9 yard pass to Fiammetta got the Cuse to the 11 yard line.  Then Dantley threw a perfect strike to Donte Davis and the game was ours!  Well not until we had to sweat out the worst coverage ever on a 4th down Hail Mary that I thought was ordered straight from Touchdown Jesus to deliver another cruel blow to hard scrabble Greg Robinson.  But alas it was not to be, Brandon Walker’s 53 yard field goal was short and the Orange had a victory!

I feel great for Greg Robinson, who really is a classy guy.  I feel bad that things haven’t materialized the way he envisioned.  But it was nice to see the players rally around him, chanting Grob!, Grob!, Grob! – even if he thought they were just text messaging him, it was great moment.  A memory to take from a season that most of us would like to forget.  It is a reminder that had the Orange just handled Akron and finished off Pitt when they had them that this team, with all the stuff swirling around them, could have still been in the hunt for a bowl.

Of course it didn’t happen and change wil be occurring.  And while we wait for what could be a Randy Edsall signing, let’s all savor last night’s victory in South Bend!