After Parietals: Does anyone *actually* know the words of the Notre Dame Victory March?

Good evening, readers. For those of you DYING to know where last week’s recap was, I am sorry to inform you that after watching the Ball State game, my cardiologist and therapists advised me to take a week off. (I moved into a new apartment and didn’t have time.) Without further ado, here is the highly anticipated sequel to Week 1’s Michigan post.

*Mike Collins Voice* The Noootre Dameeeee Victory March

This weekend the game ball went to the Mullet Man himself, Mr. Long Hair Don’t Care, YOUR Notre Dame Team Captain Tyler “Slick Kicks” Newsome. Traditionally, the game ball recipient stands in front of the locker room and leads the team in a lightning-speed rendition of the Victory March. Here is the tape from this weekend:

Note that they start at the *actual* beginning of the song with “Rally sons of Notre Dame,” and not at the more common start of the song that most Irish fans know by heart, “Cheer cheer....” If you keep watching, around the “We will fight in every game” mark, the ENTIRE locker room is hilariously mumbling through the verse and barely trying to hide it. You can almost see Newsome smirking, probably because he probably doesn’t know the words at all either and is now miming empty syllables to a room of people staring at him. Unfortunately for us, he wisely held the football between the camera and his mouth so you can’t tell what he’s actually mouthing.

I’m not trying to knock any players for not knowing this part of the song. I am willing to bet only ~5% of Notre Dame fans actually know anything past “Sing her glory and sound her fame.” In fact, I only know this part because my dad forced me to listen to the Undertones sing it on the way from Chicago to South Bend before every Notre Dame home game between the ages of 1 to 18. In other words, they lyrics to the Notre Dame Victory March are coded into my DNA. This is just a great reminder that we should probably just abolish the beginning of the song.

Here are the lyrics:

Rally sons of Notre Dame
Sing her glory and sound her fame
Raise her Gold and Blue
And cheer with voices true
Rah, rah, for Notre Dame
We will fight in ev-ry game
Strong of heart and true to her name
We will ne’er forget her
And will cheer her ever
Loyal to Notre Dame

Not to be overly critical of the songwriting here but using the lines, “We will ne’er forget her/And will cheer her ever” back-to-back are rhythmically out of place and impossible to sing quickly. Seriously, try it. I mean no disrespect to the guy who wrote the Victory March, whose great-great-grandson Baba O’Reilly is probably reading this while shaking his fist at all the “youths” ruining Notre Dame traditions, but it’s just poor songwriting. There are going to be people in the comments telling me that they know these lyrics by heart and to that I say, yea you’re reading a hyper-niche Notre Dame football blog right now on a weekday, of course you’re in the minority of fans who actually know this shit.

Vanderbilt is... good?

My gut reaction to the game was, “Of f*****g course Notre Dame scheduled Vanderbilt the one year that they have the next Smokin’ Jay Cutler starting at quarterback.”

Shurmur kept Vandy in the game, despite Notre Dame’s defense creating some key turnovers. So maybe Notre Dame is good and Vanderbilt is good, too. Or perhaps Notre Dame is bad and Vanderbilt is worse? Or is Vanderbilt good and Notre Dame actually bad because according to some people they “should have won?” One thing we know for certain is that we don’t know whether Notre Dame is good or bad, but they are 3-0 and for that we are all thankful.

The refs were...bad?

I read a lot of complaints about the officiating Saturday. Like, more than usual. Vandy fans thought that this play should have been whistled dead for forward progress before the fumble, which Notre Dame’s twitter account seemed to troll here.

Notre Dame fans were upset at the lack of holding calls. There was also a HUGE missed call for a block in the back in the 4th quarter that I am too lazy to find on the NBC replay, which probably could have ended the game right then and there.

Mood:

Champions of the first quarter

A fun thing is when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish plays a great first quarter and you think to yourself, “This game is going to be great. I have nothing to worry about.” and then two hours later you’re pacing back and forth praying that the defense can force a three-and-out while all the national reporters on twitter are telling their followers to turn on NBC because it’s a close one!

I don’t think this is a, “The players are tired and out of shape,” thing. I DO think it’s a, “Let’s call the safest game possible so that we get no first downs and give the other team 17 chances to tie it up.”

Let’s check in on Doug Flutie

Flutie had more haters than usual on Notre Dame twitter this weekend.

Do a twitter search for “Flutie Schurmur” if you want to see the worst of it. Flutie was hired to be an objective analyst for home games, but most fans think that since he played at Boston College he HATES Notre Dame. Outside observers think that NBC is the “Notre Dame network” anyways. (The fight song is in the opening theme! They show the alma mater after the game! They give us Brian Kelly’s impassioned halftime speeches!)

Basically by having Flutie on NBC makes no one happy. I can see why people dislike him, especially since Mike Tirico outshined him with what was clearly the call of the game.

AND IT’S CAUGH-SSENSAT—DROPPED INCOMPLETE.

(P.S. Note the shitty video quality that I intentionally made bad so that NBC wouldn’t take down my tweet. I don’t understand why college football rights holders are so stringent about internet users tweeting their footage when all it does is add free publicity/awareness/eyeballs to their games, but I digress.)

independents > SEC

I don’t know about you but Notre Dame is 2-0 in their last two SEC games!!!!!11 THAT’S DOMINATION BABY. Go Irish. Beat Demon Deacons (by more than a touchdown)!!