Bagpipe Monday: Forget what you know about Notre Dame football

Welcome to another Bagpipe Monday on One Foot Down. Friends, I know many of us live by the creed, “winning is hard,” and rightfully so. Winning is hard and winning should be celebrated. The thing is though, is that we are (probably) still living off the lies of August.

@phillykelly

As The Athletic’s Pete Sampson has pointed out several times this week... the starting offensive personnel that we had in fall camp will end the 2019 season having not played a single snap together. These kind of things happen because of injuries and “other” stuff, but it certainly feels like it hit the Notre Dame Fighting Irish hard this year.

Quite simply, we can’t sit here in November and still use our August thoughts when projecting on the field play. We were wrong on so many levels anyways. Forget about the offense for a minute, and I think the defense is playing better than most expected — and with considerable drop-offs in play by Julian Okwara, Jalen Elliott, Troy Pride Jr., and Alohi Gilman. At the same time, Asmar Bilal, Drew White, and Jayson Ademilola have been pleasant surprises.

And man... special teams was a complete misread (especially via ME and Lacrosse Bro Kicker).

So, you have to forget what you thought Notre Dame had in August and remember we are already past Halloween and into the second game of November. The road trip to play the Duke Blue Devils is this week — game #9. We may all have been wrong on many different levels, but at least we can start to form some thoughts about next year — and probably be really wrong about those too.

Your pipes (and why do the Tennessee Volunteers get bagpipes at halftime and not ND?):