After Parietals: Is Brian Kelly the Pope now?

Notre Dame’s victory over Stanford may have been Brian Kelly’s biggest accomplishment to date. Currently, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are undefeated, in possession of all 6 rivalry trophies, and holds a slew of records. Brian Kelly beat the Cardinal. If you’re one better than a Cardinal, doesn’t that make you the Pope?

Here is what 16 years of a Catholic education plus a google search taught me about the requirements to become the Pope:

1. Be Catholic
2. Be a man

Brian Kelly fulfills both of those requirements. Kelly is the controversial, yet supreme leader of one of the Catholic Church’s largest institutions: Notre Dame football. He also administers the Eucharist, as demonstrated below.

The Legends Trophy

That is one of the 6 rivalry trophies I mentioned earlier. SIX RIVALRY TROPHIES. I did not know that Notre Dame and Stanford even had a rivalry trophy. This is probably due to the fact that I cannot remember the last time Notre Dame beat Stanford.

Here is a quick background history on the Legends Trophy:

• It is named after Legends of Notre Dame, the bar and grill located on Eddy Street
• The crystal bowl is a replica of the Kool-Aid bowl that freshmen must ritualistically drink out of at Domerfest
• The wooden stand is imported from the far off land of Palo Alto, California

*Fetty Wap voice* 17-38

Notre Dame finally beat a top-10 opponent in primetime. There were a lot of fun plays, like Dexter William’s opening touchdown run and Jerry Tillery’s four monster sacks. BUT THIS SHOVEL PASS WAS THE BEST PLAY OF THE ENTIRE GAME.

(Shoutout to reddit user Strid3r21 for uploading this.)

I could watch that play on repeat every day for the next 100 years and it wouldn’t get old. That’s without even mentioning that this throw was in garbage time and was to a 4th string running back. Speaking of garbage time, Notre Dame had the opportunity to kick a field goal or try to score another touchdown at the end of the game, but since Brian Kelly is such a nice, merciful man, he decided to call for the kneel down instead.

DAVID SHAW HATES THE BAND

Here is a neat little tidbit I found out this weekend thanks to an anonymous source with close ties to the Notre Dame Marching Band, reminiscing on the 2016 Stanford-Notre Dame game.

David Shaw has always had a problem with our band. Every year he complains to the officials that we play too long. The NCAA rule states that we are allowed to play until the QB goes under center. This causes problems for teams that like to play call in a hurry up. Back in 2016, the band used to be in the current away tunnel corner on the field. We had two massive speaker towers. One pointed towards the middle of the field for goal line stands. The other pointed towards the away sideline. I turned around and saw a Stanford grad assistant of some sort crouched down over our wires behind the tower. I was a band manager as well so I was extremely familiar with the sound systems. I tapped the state trooper and pointed the guy out. He started laughing and said, “One second.” He walks over to the guy and yells, “Hey! What’re doing over there?” The Stanford guy looks up and immediately became super nervous. He said, “Uh... Uh... I dropped something.” The trooper then said, “Sure ya did. Get back in the box.”

This begs the question, do opposing fanbases hate playing at Notre Dame?! Or does David Shaw just hate the array of Bon Jovi/Irish folk music that the Notre Dame marching band plays. In two years when Stanford returns to Notre Dame Stadium, we should all be on guard for David Shaw Band Watch TM.

Speaking of the band...this is incredible and there needs to be a video of it online ASAP.

Lastly, I will leave you all with this treat.

Go Irish. Beat Hokies.