Notre Dame-Alabama: War of tradition
- Both schools can match football history with the best of 'em
- Notre Dame has won five of six meetings with 'Bama
- Tide looking for its third national title in last four seasons
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame football tradition. Who matches it?
Well, I can think of one place that believes it does.
Funny, how they've ended up in the same national championship game. Touchdown Jesus vs. Tuscaloosa, and you can cut the legendary history with a shillelagh.
A good thing it's Alabama vs. Notre Dame, too, because college football in 2012 has gone bananas here at the end.
Northern Illinois in a Bowl Championship Series game instead of Oklahoma? How do they like those rules of inclusion at the moment in Norman?
Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl with five losses? Forty-eight FBS teams have fewer defeats.
The Heisman frontrunners a Texas A&M freshman quarterback and a Notre Dame linebacker from Hawaii? Johnny Manziel and Manti Te'o.
Notre Dame – despised by so many who grow weary of its eternal exposure, and maybe its fight song -- now the popular people's choice as the last chance to stop the SEC plague?
All inexplicably true, even if Irish coach Brian Kelly reported Sunday, ``I just was down at Atlanta and the Georgia cheerleaders were booing me.
``I don t know that we've picked up any more fans along the way.''
. Amid such bizarre activity, the stately tradition of the BCS matchup has almost a quaint feel to it.
``We wanted Alabama,'' Irish safety Zeke Motta said Sunday. ``And I think we got what we wanted.''
So let Notre Dame and Alabama match auras at 20 paces.
Notre Dame has been to 31 previous bowl games.
Alabama has won 33.
Notre Dame and Alabama have had six meetings.
Notre Dame won five of them.
Notre Dame has not won a BCS-level bowl in 20 years.
Alabama has won three national championships in those 20 years.
Notre Dame has had one non-sellout at home since 1966.
Alabama has averaged 86,089 the past six years – at its spring game.
Notre Dame claims 11 national titles.
Alabama claims 14. That gets a little tricky, though. The Tide includes 1973, because they were 11-0 and ranked No. 1 in the final poll of a wire service taken before the Sugar Bowl. Which Alabama lost. To Notre Dame.
Need we go on?
``We're not really into that,'' running back Theo Riddick said. ``We've just got to go to Miami and handle business.''
``At the end of the day, that doesn't really matter,'' defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore added. ``We've got to live in the present.''
Yeah, but as he sat at a table talking, right above him on the wall was a photo of Lou Holtz talking to the 1988 national championship Irish just after the won the Fiesta Bowl. The past is everywhere here.
So is the present. Most of the players Sunday were wearing T-shirts with the same message: ``Unfinished business.'''
``Essentially I said to them,'' Kelly mentioned, `` `What do you want to do? It's 12-0. Is this it? Are we going to just kind of flim-flam our way through the next two, three or four weeks? If that's the case, we'll have a nice break. We'll go bowling a lot, we'll do those nice trips down to South Beach.
`Or do you want to finish this thing off?' ''
Apparently, everyone voted for the latter, So how could it get more perfect than Alabama? Surely, the Irish were hanging on every SEC snap Saturday night.
Lewis-Moore just watched the last few plays. ``I only caught glimpses,'' Riddick said. ``What can I say, I was interested, but whoever won, I was going to have enough time to do my research.''
Research? Maybe we can help:
Notre Dame's mascot is an angry-looking guy in a green hat.
Alabama's mascot is an elephant named Big Al.
The Irish patron saint was a Norwegian immigrant who worked part-time as a janitor in college. That's how Knute Rockne helped pay for his schooling.
The Crimson Tide patron saint was the 11th of 12 children, who wrestled an animal as a kid for a dollar. That's how Paul Bryant became known as Bear.
Notre Dame has seen only 13 losing seasons in its history.
Alabama has seen only 14.
``It's college football. It's what it's supposed to be,'' Kelly said of the dream date. ``But for me, it's still about the process.''
Notre Dame, national university, has players on the roster this season from 27 states. Plus Kenya.
Notre Dame has never played Auburn.
Alabama has done that 77 times
Alabama, king of Dixie, has 45 players on the roster from in-state. And 30 more from Georgia and Florida.
Notre Dame is the team half of you love to hate.
Alabama, and the SEC in general, the other half of you love to loathe.
Kelly has been calling around to BCS title game veterans LSU and Oregon, checking on how best to handle the long hiatus before the game.
``We're just trying to better than Alabama on Monday, January the 7th,'' Kelly said. ``We don't want to be better than Alabama on the 27th of December.''
Alabama is the 10-point favorite. The Irish say that just keeps them hungry.
``If we were content, you'd definitely see it,'' Riddick said. ``It's great to be 12 right now. It's even better to be 13-0. We understand that.''
``I love being the underdog,'' Motta said. ``Because the odds are against you. You get the chance to prove people wrong''
Notre Dame, Cinderella? Well, it's the year for it.