The Anti-Preview: 2009 Notre Dame Fighting Irish VS Michigan State Spartans Game Watch

WELCOME TO THE ANTI-PREVIEW MY SPORTS STARVED FRIENDS! We’re all hurting from the coronavirus pandemic and our souls are slowly being sucked away by our own homes with social distancing, so on Monday I decided enough was enough and we’re having us a sporty Saturday for all of you Notre Dame Fighting Irish football fans.

This Saturday at 2:00 PM EST, we’ll hit play on the 2009 game against the Michigan State Spartans and we’ll try to have a little fun.

If you’re available to join us for the battle for The Megaphone, we’d love to have you.

In 2009 the Irish went into the annual game against Sparty 1-1 with that loss coming at the hands of those dirty asshole refs up in Ann Arbor to the Michigan Wolverines. It was as good of a fucking as anything posted on PornHub — and left you feeling just as empty inside.

Michigan State 2009

The Spartans were also 1-1 and were also coming off of a loss from the week before. Their loss, however, was at the hands of the Central Michigan Chippewas in which they [Sparty] fucked themselves. Sparty had some offensive firepower with Kirk Cousins at quarterback and a trio of good receivers in Mark Dell, Blair White, and B.J. Cunningham — as well as a hard running Larry Caper at running back. Their defense had some talent too with Greg Jones, C.L. Rucker, and Eric Gordan.

This was a team, however, that finished 6-7 on the year (but they beat the Skunkbears). That Central loss had to burn hottest though, and it was at the hands of a Brian Kelly special in Dan LeFevour.

What should you be drinking?

This is kind of tricky due to all of the social upheaval with “shelter-in-place” and all of that — so use your best judgement. For my own purposes, there’s only one thing that comes to mind:

3 things are very important here:

• Notre Dame has 33 wins over the last 3 years
• Notre Dame scored 33 points in this game
• Rolling Rock is fucking delicious

What should you be eating?

You may have a few more options here than with your booze of choice, and one of those options is a delivery service. I’ve pimped this food before, but it’s worth saying again... ARBY’S GYROS ARE THE FUCKING BOMB DOT COM SEND TWEET. They’re seriously good, so if you can get your hands on some — do it.

What should you be wearing?

Perhaps the worst “The Shirt” ever produced in the history of this tired product. It’s flesh colored. I know they didn’t want another “Sea of Pee” like in 2005, but the whole thing here is just terrible. If somehow you bought one of these and haven’t burned it or used it in place of toilet paper — put it on loser. If you don’t have one, you can just wear the same pajamas you’ve worn for the last three days.

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STATS ON STATS ON STATS

Usually this is where we plug in a predictor chart, but given the circumstances, you can have this present instead. Consider it a gift for reading this thing.

3 Reasons to hate Sparty

1. 1997-2001
2. Little Giants was bullshit because 00:00 was on the clock
3. Because they were never good enough for this game to actually mean something nationally — and I love this rivalry game.

At the end of the day...

We already know the outcome here, so hopefully this helps fill the void in your life right now. Yes, this is the Golden Tate game where he teabags the tuba player, but it’s also the game which Jimmy Clausen haters need to see. Clausen was a tough son of a bitch and played through a ton of pain to help guide the Irish to this victory, and hopefully this re-calibrates your thoughts about him as a player at Notre Dame.

Thanks to Notre Dame and Brian Kelly, this is Game 1 of a double-header on Saturday. Notre Dame will be doing a rewatch of the 2015 game against the Texas Longhorns at 7:30. Kelly jokingly said he’s be down for a double-header this season — but this is no joke fam — we got you.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images