Top 5 Plays of the 2014 Irish Football Season #3: Winston Coughs it Up

Over the past couple of weeks the creative department at OFD has entertained a wild hair of sorts by attempting to animate some of the top plays of 2014.  After hours upon hours of Windows 95 tutorials and late night trial and error, we've managed to produce a few short animated clips thus far: #5 on our list, Brindza's game winning field goal over LSU,

and #4, Golson's beautiful 53 yard TD strike on the run to 'Sise against Rice.

I think many will agree that the production quality, attention to detail, sound editing, and cinematography are all, uh, shall we say rudimentary, which to put it kindly is an indication we have lots of potential still to be realized.  However, since our chief animator is gainfully employed during normal working hours, there is a rather sizable discrepancy between time needed and time available to learn this fine craft.  After pondering over cheeseburgers last week, we came to a realization: it is extremely disappointing to spend so much time on something and have the viewer's attention only for 15 seconds.  We need lasting animation, a movement that continues indefinitely as long as the viewer will stand it.  We need the Gif.

#3 is tricky because objectively it might not even be the best play from Notre Dame's epic match against FSU.  Had the outcome been different, surely Golson's 4th and 18 conversion to Robinson to keep the final drive alive would've been the standout play, and even independent of the final score it's nearly miraculous.  Realistically though, there's just something about the futility of it that makes us want to forget the whole game.  But there is one play from this game that just never gets old:  Jarron Jones's pursuit and satisfying knockdown of Jameis Winston that resulted in an interception by Joe Schmidt.  After a pretty deflating turnover from Golson as the Irish were close to scoring, this play put the Irish right back in it and showed the kind of disruption the defensive was capable of.  Plus it was just enormously satisfying watching Jameis book it with JJ at his heels, which is why we give you this lasting moment from the #3 play in .gif format:

(At some point Jarron does get to Winston, just after Winston manages to chuck an ill-advised duck into the air for Schmidt to pick off).