Our Honor Defend

Per user request, I’ve uploaded the 1996 Ohio State-Notre Dame game, the game 60 years following the rematch in South Bend the year after the “Game of the Century”.  This game was much hyped on NBC, and featured live cut-ins by Tom Hanks, host of SNL that night, to promote SNL by way of this matchup.

The game itself was not exactly a Game of the Century, nor as much of an explosion of big plays as the game in 1995.

In fact, it was something akin to an asskicking by Ohio State’s defense.  Ohio State’s offense looked like worldbeaters and its defense like gangleaders en route to a convincing 29-16 victory.  The rout was possible by way of a dominating first half effort by the Buckeyes.  Fred Pagac, newly minted defensive coordinator for Ohio State, blitzed freely and heavily, harassing Ron Powlus and holding Notre Dame to just 93 first half yards.  The Irish’s only touchdown in the first half came by way of a dumb interception in Ohio State’s own red zone.  Ohio State’s offense, for its part, just looked otherworldly behind All-American Outland/Lombardi winner Orlando Pace, who registered an unofficial 14 pancakes (or more, I lost count) on the game.  The first half yardage discrepancy? 283-93.  The score at half: 22-7.

Ron Powlus, 8 time Heisman winner, was pummeled through most of this game.  He finished 13 of 30 for 154 yards, with a touchdown and 2 interceptions.  Indeed, he spent more time with Rob Kelly in his grill than he did doing anything else.  His comments after the game basically summarized not only the game, but how Fred Pagac likes to approach things as a defensive coordinator.

“Their defense wasn’t confusing,” Powlus said. “They just beat us up on defense. They were blitzing and weren’t disguising it.”

The tone for the game was set early, and even before the game itself.  Lou Holtz made it known publicly that he was tired of talking about Ohio State and its worldbeater offense (70 points against Rice, 72 points against Pitt).  Indeed, he expressed that people should be talking about his team, who had just beaten 6th ranked Texas the game before.  He vowed that his team would be ready, and that Ohio State better be ready to play.

Dimitrious Stanley took a note of it, and ran the opening kickoff for 85 yards, setting up a quick touchdown.  Special teams blunders aside, everything went Ohio State’s way in the first half.

The second half was mostly academic.  Notre Dame played most of the second half deep in its own side of the field, even while Ohio State’s offense stalled on a few drives.  After a sack of Ron Powlus — one of 4 on the day — made Notre Dame punt from within its own 5 yard line, Ohio State scored its final points of the game, pushing the margin to 29-10.  Notre Dame’s only remaining score came from, again, a turnover.  Pepe Pearson fumbled the ball at midfield, which was returned to the perimeter of Ohio State’s red zone.  Marc Edwards, Notre Dame fullback, scored his second touchdown of the game, and Notre Dame’s last for the contest.

Scout.com, by the grace of God, has done a more through recap of the game than I really want to do at the moment.  However, there are two more things I want to do here.

Miscellaneous Observations

• The only way the 1995 and 1996 games were made possible was by the Michigan-ND series receiving a reprieve.  By Michigan momentarily being cycled off, Notre Dame and Ohio State were able to renew the series exactly 60 years after the 1935-36 series, which Notre Dame both won.  Ohio State and Notre Dame were, apparently, in discussion to renew the series once more, with Notre Dame alum and Ohio State AD Gene Smith being the connection between the two schools.  This was made even more probable by Michigan and Notre Dame getting a reprieve from each other in the next 10 years.  However, the Irish and Sooners scheduled a home and home, thus felling the prospects of a matchup between the Buckeyes and the Irish in the foreseeable future.
• There’s a promo SNL did at the beginning of the second half to promote the night’s SNL broadcast (with Tom Hanks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) that had Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri doing their cheerleader skit, but taking sides during the contest.  The promo itself was kind of cool and, for the record, Will Ferrell was cheering for Ohio State.  If I wasn’t convinced that those obsessive philistines at NBC/SNL would file a copyright violation against me and take it down, I would put it up since I think it’s worth watching and it would otherwise be lost to history for college football fans.  The art history major in me has me believe that it’s art and that it belongs to the community writ large especially when it would otherwise be lost to history.  However,NBC/SNL are real assholes about their stuff being on YouTube.  I just don’t want to be bothered, and that’s why I’m debating putting it up or not and making them go through the process of removing it.
• Mike Vrabel registered a sack at the end of the first half that moved him to no. 1 on Ohio State’s all-time sacks list.
• I’m considering creating another YouTube account just for the commercials that I’ve come across from watching these old games.  Remember those old Dean Witter commercials?  The one that resulted in those “Grayson Moorhead Securities” parodies on SNL? Oh yeah.
• That, and this was election season in 1996.  Bob Dole and Bill Clinton both ran campaign ads attacking the other during this broadcast.
• My God, the defense during this game… fan. tastic.  Rob Kelly walked around like he was cock of the walk during this game.  I’m considering just putting up a compilation of the defensive highlights during this game.
• Coincidentally, Luke Fickell registered a 4th quarter sack, but was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct/delay of game for getting over Ron Powlus after the play and taunting him about it.  Niiiiice.

The Despair of Bob Davie

If you don’t remember, current ESPN… “personality”¹… Bob Davie was the much ballyhooed defensive coordinator for the Fighting Irish and was, basically, the head coach in waiting.  Naturally, it wasn’t a very good day for him as Ohio State torched his defensive unit.

This day was made worse by the fact that NBC panned to him every single opportunity they could.  The result? Well, the images… well… they’re just fantastic.

I think I’m going to create a Bob Davie-specific YouTube compilation, because his reactions during this game were that awesome.

At long last, here’s the video itself.  Enjoy, though you might have to watch this in high quality to really see everything.

1. That’s not fair, I do appreciate his production of college football games or analysis. [↩]