The Petty Irish Give Us a Refresher

Yesterday evening, the Purdue Twitterverse exploded a bit with the news that Purdue’s band was not welcome to bring the largest drum into Notre Dame Stadium for Saturday afternoon’s game. The drum has been present at every Purdue Marching Band performance since 1979, by the way. Our pal Dave reminded us that Purdue’s 1979 football team went 10-2…so perhaps UND’s athletic department’s decision to turn away the drum might wake up the echoes, so to speak, for our Boilers.

The lousy thing about this decision is that, while the drum is too large to fit in the visitor’s tunnel, the ten foot behemoth would easily be able to enter through UND’s other tunnel. Granted, that tunnel probably has some secret VooDoo-Catholic blessing on it that Jack Swarbrick doesn’t want to break, but this decision by Notre Dame is inhospitable and shabby…and we would expect nothing less.

The truth of the matter, is that UND’s decision, for me, acted as smelling salts for old hatred and ill-will that I have had toward UND for a long time. I’m not a former Marching Band member, nor do I see this as the end of the world, BUT, the level of petiness is noteworthy and exactly what I have grown to expect from Notre Dame.

If Mike Bobinski held grudges like I do, or was as petty as Jack Swarbrick, he might react in kind when Notre Dame visits Purdue in 2024…but I bet he does not and will not. As one of our pals on Twitter suggested, maybe he could simply say, “We don’t have a tunnel small enough to fit your leprechaun into Ross-Ade.”

UND fans don’t see Purdue as a rival, and their athletic department didn’t care about Purdue enough to defend the match-up that dates back to 1896. But this decision alone is another reminder of the money-making, hypocrisy-laden machine that is Notre Dame football. They preach tradition and faith in the brochure, but at the end of the day, Swarbrick and co. are chasing greenbacks. That’s alright, but just be truthful and stop shoveling the bullcrap.

Similarly, this move is absolutely designed to be a thumb in the eye to Purdue fans who will be traveling to that hellhole of a stadium in South Bend. There will be plenty of them there by the way, UND is struggling to sell out this season as subway alums are pushing back a bit on the poor finish to last season, I’m told. I honestly didn’t care, nor follow UND’s 2020 season as they haven’t been on Purdue’s schedule since 2014…so they’ve been dead to me for years. That said, I have been reminded of their existence a few times as I saw them getting thumped in post-season games by the true blue bloods of college football.

UND is still riding the coattails of Holtz and Parseghian…all the way into undeserved pre-season top-10 rankings in hopes that Touchdown Jesus might bless them with a lil’ luck along the way as seasons progress. He did last week, as UND squeaked by v. the vaunted Toledo Rockets in the final minutes.

If you watched the Handsome Hour or my QuickCast, you know that I don’t think Purdue will win this game. That said, not everyone at BS agrees with me. A few of my fellow BSers are feeling pretty good headed into Saturday. I love the optimism, but the history at that place gives me a heaping helping of pause before I make my prediction. There are also murmurs of an injured starter to our Boilers that might affect the outcome. Regardless, I’m far from confident that the BrohmSquad will come away with a victory tomorrow and improve to 3-0 on the young season.

A win would almost-assuredly put Purdue in the top-25, I would guess as beating such a noteworthy opponent and improving to 3-0 should be worth quite a lot. Purdue hasn’t beaten UND since Weis’ bunch lost to our Boilers in 2007 in God’s Country…and The Good Guys haven’t won in South Bend since Orton/Stubblefield beat the leprechaun senseless in 2004. Before that, we have to go allllllllll the way back to 1974, the year before your pal Boilerdowd was born, to find another win in Notre Dame Stadium…those ghosts are the reason that I’m not confident. Some really good Purdue teams have lost games at UND to some not-so-good UND teams in that crappy venue.

One thing we all agree on at BS is that we don’t like UND, check that, we hate UND. It could be the elitist air about them, it could be that they bastardize the Christian faith, it could be that IU basketball fans are also UND football fans, for the most part (that’s generally an unlikable bunch) or it could be that I have seen them beat up on Purdue so many times in my life. Regardless, my negativity toward UND, much like this series, has returned…and honestly, I’m thankful for it.

The game kicks off at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. Hammer down!