Rakes Report #150: Tiny little triumphs, massive bloody failures
~optional musical accompaniment~
My apologies for not sending an update last week. I didn’t feel like there was enough information about the program shutting down as of Monday morning and then my plans for a mid-week update were scuttled. After things felt quite wobbly in regards to even being able to continue with a season with nearly half the team in quarantine or isolation, it seems like following an unscheduled bye and then a scheduled one we’re officially back in a Notre Dame football game week.
Brian Kelly said that most of the players who had been kept out for either positive tests or contact tracing would be able to take part in Sunday’s scrimmage, which is good news, as it appears they’ve managed to stamp out the spread. Blame is being placed on a team dinner prior to South Florida*, which is plausible because of the number of studies showing how important super-spreader events are in the virus exploding, but we shouldn’t ignore how many players were already inactive for the Bulls in spreading not tied to the meal. With cases increasing in St. Joseph’s County and roughly 18 faculty members returning from an apparent virus jamboree in Washington, it’ll be important for everyone on and around campus to be extra vigilant and stay safe.
* Apologies to the Bulls: Suggestions that they might have an outbreak that canceled last month’s game were probably more than a little unfair considering it was their exposure to Notre Dame that meant their following game got axed.
If Notre Dame can get out of this situation with nobody getting seriously ill, nobody suffering any long-term complications and one game simply being postponed, they’ll be extremely fortunate. (We won’t know about the long-term complications for, well, a long time, which makes any short-term assessment of the wisdom of powering through with this season incomplete.) Moving the Wake Forest game to December 12 means the Irish are nearly out of flexibility if another game has to be rescheduled, with only a bye on November 21 available. (To all the leagues starting over the next month that will attempt to cram in bye-less sprints before the College Football Playoff selection: Good luck.) Anyway, Notre Dame having to postpone a game due to an outbreak is far from the most embarrassing high-profile COVID-related debacle for the university, but more on that at the conclusion.
I am not sure what kind of effects missing out on practice and conditioning will have for the Irish, but Kelly said that morale was high and players were excited to be back at it. It’s also nice they get to ease back in with a woeful Florida State team that’ll be about a 20-point underdog. The Seminoles seem to have found a quarterback that is at least functional in their come-from-behind win over Jacksonville State, but Jordan Travis’ dual threat abilities will likely be limited by an offensive line that simply cannot block, even if there are some dangerous threats on the outside. If the Florida State defense — which features stars like Marvin Wilson up front and Asante Samuel, Jr. at corner — is able to cause a little ruckus while Travis improvises a few big play this could be interesting for a while, but as long as the Irish aren’t completely thrown off by their unplanned sojourn away from the practice field they should be able to take care of business.
In additional positive news for the Irish, Kelly announced Kyle Hamilton will be back for Florida State, now having had several weeks to recover from the scary injury he sustained last month. Grad transfer wide receiver Bennett Skowronek is also set to return but the most exciting non-COVID health update is that Kevin Austin, who broke his foot in early August, will be back on a “modified” basis. I don’t know exactly what “modified” means and I don’t expect a major impact on Saturday night, but it’s a good sign Austin might be rounding into form by the time Clemson comes to town.
Notre Dame shouldn’t need Austin to win out the rest of October barring a loss of large chunks of the roster again or general fluky college football stuff. However, if they want to have a shot against the Tigers, they’ll need to put out a skill position unit that’s something like Austin/Braden Lenzy/Tommy Tremble and two from the group of Michael Mayer, Kyren Williams, Chris Tyree, and maybe another wide receiver that has a strong month between now and then.
Few juniors with this little actual production have been as hyped as Austin, who was highly rated as the 82nd overall recruit in the 247 Composite but not some sort of five-star sure thing. However, setting aside praise from the coaches and the glowing reviews from the single spring practice media watched in The Before Time, this is what a few of his peers have said about him:
Troy Pride, Jr.: "It’s a sight to see what he can do on the football field. I saw him every day on scout team. It was a battle every day."
Chase Claypool: “People don’t talk about him, but he’s a special talent. He’s still learning, which is kind of scary.”
Braden Lenzy: “Kev the best lol just watch”
Plus, I always have a soft spot for guys who stick it out through suspensions. Not to put too much pressure on a player with five career receptions, but he has the ability to take this Notre Dame team — the one that’s currently sitting at 5th in both the polls and SP+ — to another level. Here’s hoping.
We lost an important member of the Notre Dame family last week with the passing of Sergeant Tim McCarthy, whose intentionally hokey public safety warnings were a part of every Notre Dame home game for over half a century. One of the little joys of visiting the Stadium was watching opposing fans or first-time visitors trying to process the over-the-top reaction from veterans of the announcements, which were delivered with regularity at the conclusion of every third quarter.
Imagine, suggesting people think of others in their community instead of doing something selfish and reckless – a wild concept. This is a lovely video put together by the athletic department that I recommend taking a couple minutes to watch when you have the time this week. McCarthy was 89 and we wish the best to his family and friends as they mourn and celebrate a full life.
Winning Is Hard/Schadenfreude Round Up: So, the biggest problem with not doing one last week is we now have a lot of ground to cover, with eight Top 25 teams losing on Saturday after some major players went down last weekend. In an attempt to keep this from turning into a novella, we’ll keep this to the headlines, so teams with comically on-brand starts (we see you, South Carolina) will not get the normal attention.
Let’s start in the Big 12, which is on fire. Last weekend, Oklahoma blew a 35-14 third quarter lead to lose at home to Kansas State*, which came into the game as a four-touchdown underdog. Not good, but they’re not going to start 0-2 in the Big 12 are they? Whoops, they are, because they fell at Iowa State on Saturday night. Matt Campbell is back! Iowa State and Kansas State are now unbeaten in Big 12 play but unfortunately for any national title aspirations they are also winless in Sun Belt play after losing their non-con openers.
* Even though they prevailed in Norman, the Wildcats had multiple big plays negated by illegal formations in the final minutes of the game. Dumb stuff like that even happens to great coaches like Chris Klieman.
Who does Oklahoma play next week to avoid 1-3? It’s Red River time already, baby, and their opponent is not Doing Great. The Longhorns were down two touchdowns in Lubbock in their Big 12 opener but pulled off a miracle rally to get an overtime win against Texas Tech. Glory for Tom Herman and Texas, with the Sooners flailing? Unfortunately, no, as they lost at home to TCU as a double-digit favorite. This is Year Four for Herman and while he will always have that Sugar Bowl over a Georgia team that didn’t care, I imagine the natives are starting to get a little restless. The loser of Red River is going to be on absolute tilt.
Over in the SEC, the defending national champion LSU Tigers lost* their season opener at home in Mike Leach’s debut as Mississippi State head coach because Bo Pelini refused to just switch to a freaking zone against the Air Raid. In peak Leachian fashion, Mississippi State then lost their next game at home to Arkansas, who had not won an SEC contest since October 2017. If Texas A&M can’t beat Florida at home on Saturday they will be paying Jimbo Fisher $75 million to be 1-2 with a five-point win over Vanderbilt. Georgia looks really good but it must be noted they were trailing Arkansas 7-5 at the half in their opener.
* LSU’s defeat meant Notre Dame temporarily held the longest win streak in the country at eight, but they’re now a game behind Air Force, who trounced Navy on Saturday. If the Irish prevail over the Seminoles, they will be tied with the Falcons, who are idle. Should Tennessee beat Georgia, they will also be at nine consecutive victories.
Tulsa ended Central Florida’s home win streak on Saturday night as a three-touchdown underdog and then dropped an amazing “Bob’s Burgers”reference. With the Knights falling in Orlando, Notre Dame now has the second longest home win streak in the country, behind only Clemson. Speaking of Clemson, they remain awesome, but the rest of the ACC save for maybe Miami (rolling opponents) and Virginia Tech (2-0 despite a roster and coaching staff limited by the virus) has been really underwhelming. Perhaps North Carolina will live up the preseason hype (they’re still 11th in SP+), but they didn’t look good against a Boston College team that needed a late rally to beat Texas State. Louisville was supposed to be good but they can’t play defense and sit at 1-2. Pitt plays defense but they just lost at home as a two-touchdown favorite to NC State, who was dropped down a well by the Hokies the prior week. Also, update on Duke: That is not going to count as any sort of quality win, unfortunately, although they have been hit with injuries since the opener.
Okay all the football talk is done and the rest of this is going to be discussing Father Jenkins. If that doesn’t interest you, allow us to part ways and I’ll see you in this space a week from now to hopefully review Notre Dame continuing their undefeated start to 2020 and their seasons-long success against unranked teams.
I have never been a university president but I am wondering what it would take for me to leave campus during a pandemic (a thing I’ve basically forbidden anybody else from doing) on the same day my school’s famous football team isn’t playing due to a COVID-19 outbreak and then fly to a mansion occupied by a guy who is not only known for shirking proper public health guidelines and downplaying the effects of the aforementioned pandemic that’s killed more than 200,000 Americans but is according to at least one Cornell study the number-one single driver of virus-related misinformation. In this alternate timeline, would I have just always wanted to attend a hyper-realistic Masque of the Red Death theme party and wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity? If I’m a university president I probably like books so that’s possible, I guess, but I would maybe give it a second thought if I had already apologized once before for not following best practices. If I were to attend this event, I would definitely wear a mask.
Is it a good thing for the photo of Notre Dame’s president to show up in repeated stories about the most famous potential outbreak of the virus to date, including in a viral tweet in which he is labeled as part of the “95-96 bulls of racism?” Again, I do not have much experience in the upper echelons of higher education, but it doesn’t seem positive. It’s obviously unfair and incorrect to call Father Jenkins a racist, but I think there’s mounting evidence to say he doesn’t give enough consideration to race or those with income levels statistically uncommon among the Notre Dame student body.
Jenkins has repeatedly seemed to not fully understand the threat of COVID-19, a disease that has disproportionately infected and killed members of minority communities and the poor. In his May op-ed that really kicked off his winning 2020 in earnest, he does not mention South Bend, St. Joseph’s County or the word “community” without modifying it with “campus” when discussing the potential fallout of bringing students back. This pandemic has killed people from across the socioeconomic spectrum, but it does the worst of its damage to our most vulnerable, who don’t have the opportunity to work remotely or jet to the White House on a whim.
Following the death of George Floyd, Black members of the Notre Dame family pleaded with the administration to make things better on a campus that is far too comfortable being far too white. The response was a June letter in which Jenkins said they would give “serious consideration” to items that included “Increase the number of Black students, other students of color and students from under-resourced communities” and “Create a culture that is intolerant of discrimination and racism and increase transparency regarding the administration’s response to racist or discriminatory incidents.” To the best of my knowledge —I promise you, I’ve looked, although it’s possible I missed something — I have not seen a follow-up to that letter regarding concrete actions or even another toothless missive. It’s been three and a half months, and if you can respond to a party invite to celebrate tens of millions of people potentially losing their health care on the same day it’s issued you can give a shit about this.
I could go on at length and perhaps will at some point I will, but I don’t see any need to belabor the discussion because if you’ve read this far you’re probably at least moderately pissed off and don’t need any convincing and if you don’t think Jenkins did anything wrong then nothing I say could possibly sway you. Three quick quotes and we will close.
From the Times op-ed that was a bad idea at the time of its publication and has somehow gotten worse with each passing folly: “The pivotal question for us individually and as a society is not whether we should take risks, but what risks are acceptable and why.”
From a letter Jenkins wrote in July outlining the rules for reopening campus: “Faculty and staff, failure to comply with the directives will be considered significant, deliberate personal misconduct for which you will be subject to serious sanctions up to and including dismissal from your position.”
From alumna Erin Ryan following Jenkins being caught on video hobnobbing sans a mask but before we found out he had tested positive for COVID: “Dude, you’re a priest.”
I hope Father Jenkins recovers quickly and fully, but I also hope he reflects upon his actions and words (and lack of actions in some areas) over the last few months. I have disabused myself of the notions of justice and karma at this point, so it’s likely he will join the long, bipartisan list of leaders who’ve failed this year and declined to step down, but I take a bit of solace in knowing his legacy is forever tied to this. Any time he walks into a room at least one person will think “Wait, is that the guy who maybe took a respiratory virus into the White House?” I really, truly hope the party was worth it.
There is so much to love about Notre Dame and it’s disheartening that this will be what people associate it with for at least a few months (let’s be honest: there is so much happening little sticks in the popular consciousness for that long). However, it will absolutely be mentioned in every book written about this election and this pandemic at a minimum, which is just swell. There are too many good people doing great things at Notre Dame for this one colossal fuck-up to define the university but it’ll at least be in the dictionary and like so so much of this year it did not have to be this way.
~
That’s it. Thanks for reading. Please take care of yourselves and each other and hey might as well beat the Noles again.
If you were forwarded this email and would like to sign up to receive future editions, you can do so here.