BCS Frenzy - College Football News and Opinions

It’s Official. This is the Weirdest Year in College Football EVER.

by Allison on October 7th, 2007

Just when I think the upsets and almost-upsets couldn’t get any worse, I read the Notre Dame-UCLA score. Are you kidding me? Notre Dame won 20-6 in a game full of UCLA blunders and injuries. Yes, you read that correctly. The Fighting Irish won.

In the beginning of the season, all of us sports writers thought it was weird that ND wasn’t playing well enough to be ranked. They usually are, even if they are young. Now that I’ve finally gotten used to the team blowing every week, they turn around a win one. Weird, weird, weird. And against UCLA, a team that’s not all that bad.

The game started with an early injury of UCLA QB Ben Olson, which meant that freshman redshirt McLeod Bethel-Thompson was the it man for the Bruins. He’s never thrown the ball in a college game before, and I’m guessing that his nerves got the best of him. Paired with inexperience, those nerves cost UCLA a number of interceptions. The team had a total of 7 turnovers for the game. Notre Dame had a near-perfect game, with no turnovers and not nearly as many penalties as UCLA.

This win, in which Jimmy Clausen really showed that he is improving in the college football world, ends the 8-game losing streak for Notre Dame. The team was a 0-5 laughingstock this season, specially since Clausen made such a big deal of choosing Notre Dame as the top high school quarterback. It may be too early to say, but I think this game was just a shadow of what is to come with this kid and the Notre Dame offensive line. By his junior year, I think the team could have chances at the championship game.

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POSTED IN: Notre Dame, UCLA, Upsets