The last word: Final thoughts before Navy vs. Notre Dame football

DUBLIN, Ireland — Friday night I spoke briefly with a gentleman from Switzerland at Leo Burdock, a world famous fish and chip shop in the heart of Temple Bar. He went to last year’s Northwestern vs. Nebraska Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland. He enjoyed it so much he came back for round two.

Then he said Nebraska fans took over the town to a greater extent than those of Notre Dame this year. Hm?

I found that hard to believe considering you couldn’t take two paces on any street in Temple Bar all day Friday without seeing a Fighting Irish fan. Or two, or three, or four. On and on. The Notre Dame logo was everywhere. It felt like South Bend East. Far, far East, over the pond and through the Irish hills.

It quickly occurred to me, maybe this fellow just isn’t accustomed to seeing it. He did say, after all, he was a foreign exchange student in his senior year of high school in a town an hour outside of Omaha. When he thinks college football, he thinks Big Red.

When the world thinks college football, it thinks Blue and Gold.

Something just feels right about Notre Dame playing in the first game of the season in a place like Dublin. Leprechaun logos emblazoned on the walls in bars a few blocks from Aviva Stadium fit the vibe better than Cornhuskers. It’s far more of a seamless transition. Put it this way; if you visited Dublin this weekend and knew nothing about college football, you’d think the Leprechaun logos, glitzy gold and grandiose green were all part of the city’s natural ambiance.

One of the main drags through Temple Bar is called “Dame Street,” too. Appropriate.

But speaking of Cornhuskers. They were defeated last year’s kickoff special to a team that ultimately lost every one of its matchups from that point forward. All 11 of them. Notre Dame, a 20.5-point favorite over the Midshipmen of Navy, doesn’t feel like it’s in any danger of putting any more of a damper on the weekend than an out of nowhere rain shower soaking the streets of the Emerald City. And as an attendant at the Jurys Inn directly across from Christ Church Cathedral said Friday amid a heavy downpour around 6:15 p.m., “A little evening rain never hurt nobody.”

It’s par for the course in Dublin. The forecast is calling for it Saturday. Rain or shine, Notre Dame should take care of Navy.

Season openers can be a crapshoot, yes. We think we know what this Irish team is made of, but nothing is certain until actual football is played. We don’t know everything about Navy, either, for that matter. It’s possible they’re being underestimated in Brian Newberry‘s debut season as the Mids’ head coach.

We know a whole lot about Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman, though, and we also know Irish head coach Marcus Freeman feels calmer, more confident and more comfortable in his role in year two than he did in year one. We’re not expecting any Marshall or Stanford-like slip ups.

Maybe this one won’t end 50-10 in favor of the Irish like it did the last time these two programs met at Aviva Stadium in 2012. But it definitely feels like the favorite giving double-digit points won’t succumb to a pesky underdog and lose by three like Nebraska did a year ago. Hartman should have his helmet off sometime in the fourth quarter, showing off a beard locals should be proud of, yielding playing time to backup Steve Angeli.

Perhaps at that point, when the Notre Dame band blares its Victory March, the lad from Switzerland has his epiphany; Notre Dame does run Dublin in a way Nebraska could never.

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