Notre Dame Football: Crockpotting with Chris Finke

Crockpot Game

Saturday’s performance by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish against the mighty Duke Blue Devils of Durham, North Carolina can best be described as a crockpotting. Coined by Dan and Ty of the Solid Verbal Podcast, a crockpotting is when a team slowly but surely dominates their opponent over the course of four hours, until they are perfectly cooked. Delicious.

Notre Dame didn’t jump all over Duke to start, they didn’t step on the throat and finish them late, they just methodically went about their business and beat the Blue Devils 38-7. This was a win that left most Notre Dame fans feeling pretty satisfied, a rare occurrence during this 7-2 campaign. So how about we put some satisfying hard-g Gifs onto the internet and see the ingredients that went into this Blue Devil crockpot.

Ian Book stands in a clean pocket to deliver a strike across the middle to Chris Finke for an 18 yard touchdown that gets this meal started.

Jahmir Smith shows off exceptional vision to find a crease and breaks a few tackles, for one of the best runs by an Irish running back in almost a month.

Chase Claypool fillets Duke CB Leonard Johnson with a devastating cut and the Irish go up 14-0. Strange... “nOtRe DaMe DoEsN’t HaVe TaLeNt At WiDe ReCeIvEr!”

It’s difficult to fully encapsulate how dominant Notre Dame was defensively in this game via gifs but the mallet Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah brings down on Duke RB Mataeo Durant on this swing pass is a pretty fair representation.

Book with the keeper for a big gain. [Insert every white guy running with a football trope about how surprised we are that he is capable of moving faster than Pat Fitzgerald scrolling through a website by clicking the arrow on the scroll bar.] What a gym rat.

Duke was driving to make this a one score game early in the 3rd before Troy Pride picks off Quentin Harris and sprints into Duke territory. The final result is all but sealed at this point.

Ahem... “nOtRe DaMe DoEsN’t HaVe TaLeNt At WiDe ReCeIvEr!” I do love how that point is made after folks hand wave Chase Claypool like he’s not one of the 10-15 best WRs in all of College Football.

Book rolling out and Finke continues to roll, as the game enters blowout territory. The crockpot is getting ready to switch to warm.

Ian Book is deceitful. He is duplicitous. He is knavish. Unscrupulous. Treacherous. Machiavellian! He shouldn’t be capable of having that kind of burst!

They call him the Slippery Fox and he shows why on this punt return.

Five catches for 59 yards, 2 touchdowns, 46 yard punt return and a Macarena routine that will meme on in infamy. To this point, he’s had his best game of 2019. Why not put a decorative garnish on top of this roast and call it a night?

“Crockpot” Bowl Theories

The bowl picture is starting to come into focus. By that I mean a lot of folks are making definitive assumptions in the face of a literal quarter of the season left to play. Notre Dame has games against Navy, Boston College and Stanford remaining. The general consensus at this point is, at 10-2, the Irish are either going to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas for a New Years Six game or the Camping World Bowl in Orlando for perhaps a sexier match-up. (Texas?)

Most of the teams in front of them in the rankings still have to play some difficult games. Do you believe Auburn is going to remain where they are ranked with games against Georgia and Alabama? Baylor is living on the razors edge, with Oklahoma and Texas staring them in the face. Will Florida have a better resume than the Irish by season’s end? Not to mention the back half of the Big Ten schedule is set up like a Mexican standoff, with just about every team ranked above Notre Dame squaring off with one another.

I’m of the opinion that if the Irish go 10-2, the Cotton Bowl would move heaven and earth to get the Irish back in Dallas and back to a top-12 ranking. Everyone is entitled to their own crackpot* theories of where the Irish will end up but it’s impossible to say at this point. So cherish this upcoming stretch and wherever the Irish go bowling in December, it’ll be a better game than the ones they play in the following eight months.

Crockpot Recipe

I’d be remiss to spend this whole article using a crockpot metaphor without giving you an actual crockpot recipe! Recently, one of the hosts on my favorite non-sports podcast’s (The Glass Cannon) brought to my attention something known as the Mississippi Pot Roast. The hype surrounding this concoction is serious; this recipe has been sweeping the nation! I tried my hand at making it over the weekend and whoo-boy. Let me tell you... This isn’t Pete Sampson (love you Pete!) selling us on Heisman Dark Horse Ian Book level hype. This is straight up Kyle Hamilton-lighting-the-world-on-fire level hype. The Mississippi Pot Roast is the real deal. It’s painfully simple and yet the flavors are so complex, with a unique depth that you rarely get from something as basic as a pot roast.

All you need is to do the following:

Feel free to give your best/favorite crockpot recipes below!