GAME PLAN | Navy-Notre Dame | Saturday, 2:30 p.m. ET
Mike Slade looked across the Miami Crown Room last January and saw me slumped in a state of utter fatigue. Nine hours earlier my ESPN crew had finished broadcasting our fifth bowl game in 16 days. I was unkempt and uncivil. He smiled. I didn't.
I thought, "This guy wants to talk and I cannot keep my eyeballs from rolling back in my head." My Calvinist conscience kicked in and said, "Don't you dare be rude -- you will be punished!" I nodded to him; he got up and walked over. Within minutes I was captivated by his energy and sincerity. It was the beginning of a real friendship.
Slade and his wife Suzanne were doing a whirlwind tour of the BCS games, zipping from one to another in a carefully orchestrated effort to see all the top football teams. I awakened enough to ask this remarkable young couple why they would do such a wacky thing. "We love college football and this is our idea of a great way to celebrate the New Year. We try to do it every year," they responded.
I woke up some more. "Who do you pull for?" Mike didn't hesitate. "Well, I grew up in middle Georgia and played baseball at South Carolina, but my team is Notre Dame!" he enthused.
I found that odd, but forgot the conversation until this week, when I called to see if Mike were a sunshine soldier for the Irish. I noted the tough times and asked whether he had changed allegiances.
"Absolutely not," he said. "I am not Catholic and did not grow up in the Midwest. I do not know any Notre Dame players. I have no ties except their tradition, but I walk around in Notre Dame Gear all the time." I wondered why. He responded, "Gosh, just think, Hornung, Montana, the dignity of the institution."
I was pleasantly surprised, but there was more. He said, "Look, watching them play now is like watching my child play and lose. I hurt in my stomach. But understand, they play the toughest schedule in the nation, they really do build character. They engender respect. Furthermore, our son is going to go to Notre Dame! I am going to see to it."
I baited him: "So I guess you'll be pulling for them against Navy?" His unequivocal response: "I will be pulling for them against everybody!"
That is loyalty, folks, and it is proof positive that the subway alumni of the Fighting Irish are alive, well and very much on board.
Is that a factor in this football game? It is indeed. It is also a contributing factor to the fact that Notre Dame football always comes back. Mike Slade is just one of millions of people who pull with all their hearts for the good guys from South Bend.
Mike Golic and Bob Davie are ESPN associates and friends of mine who have more than a passing knowledge of how it feels at Notre Dame right now.
Golic, an Irish team captain in 1984, endured losing streaks under former Irish coach Gerry Faust and can speak to the frustrations and emotions of this year's team. "My 14-year-old son Mike gets frustrated, but I can understand since I went through the same kinds of things. I am confident the team will come out of this difficult time."
"As for the service academies, we lost three in a row to Air Force and barely beat Navy my senior year," Golic reflected. "We had to kick a field goal to win -- I think the score was 18-17. Honestly, it was the closest thing to real terror I have ever felt."
When I scoffed at the idea of his being afraid, he said it again. "I'm not kidding. It was terror! We did not want to be the senior class that lost the first game to Navy since Staubach!" He was adamant. (I looked up the score. The big fellow was correct, further cementing his contention that his memories were firmly implanted. Terror does that, as we all know.)
I asked him about the status of Notre Dame's current coaches, and Golic was emphatic. "Tyrone [Willingham] will be back, no matter what. He will need to show improvement over the remainder of this year and next year, but he will be back."
Davie, the former Notre Dame head coach and a brilliant defensive mind, reflected on the character of the service-academy games. "You can ask my wife Joanne which week is the toughest for Notre Dame coaches. Army, Navy and Air Force engender such respect and are so difficult to prepare for that they are the most difficult weeks of the year.
"Even when everything else is going well, service-academy games are demanding because Notre Dame has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The expectation is that we should never lose to them, but the fact is that they can beat anyone. They are tough, disciplined, and we had some great games with them. It is a tremendous coaching challenge!"
DON'T LOOK AT THEM!
Davie continued, "We tried to arrange warm-ups so that our players could not see the Navy players." You what? "I'm not kidding. When you see how lean and relatively small they are, your players cannot believe that they are going to be capable of beating you. Think about it."
I did. Then I remembered coaching against the Naval Academy in my first year as an assistant at Georgia Tech. Our head coach was Pepper Rodgers, and he told our squad something I've never forgotten. He said, "Remember guys, this is going to be hard. These service-academy players know when they take the field against us that this is going to be the most fun they have all week!" Sure enough, they had fun, we didn't and they won.
The game within the game this week is a testament to triple-option football. Davie reminded me that Navy coach Paul Johnson has had success at Navy before. He was Charlie Weatherby's offensive coordinator prior to Johnson's stunning run at Georgia Southern. The 1996 Navy squad was a bowl team with a powerful ground game executing the vaunted triple option from a variety of formations.
What makes the triple option so effective today is that it's so rare. Preparing is extremely difficult because scout teams cannot begin to replicate the speed and precision of the option team. The fact that it forces "assignment football" reduces defensive pursuit.
Simply put, someone must take the fullback, someone must take the quarterback and someone must take the pitch back. No matter how big and fast a team is, much of the talent is neutralized because the slightest mistake in assignment leads to a long run by any one of the three options.
To further complicate defensive planning, the play-action pass from the triple-option fake is an instant touchdown unless someone accounts for a simple post pattern.
Davie's assessment of Navy's Johnson is telling. "He is the guru of that offense. He can take the crowd out of the game and cause a sort of panic in the stadium. Your defense can't get the ball, the score is low and the crowd wants more. You might be playing well, holding a lead, but the flow of the game feels negative. Wow, we had some great games."
Hidden yardage will be fairly easy to assess. Navy has done more than lead the nation in rushing this year, with 310 yards per game. Johnson and his staff have quietly improved the defense from 108th in the country to 29th. Last year Navy relinquished 36.3 points per game, while this year's squad gives up 19.8.
The Middies' offense averages an amazing 51 percent on third-down conversions, and the last five games the number is 64.5 percent! Notre Dame is at 29 percent. If you see these trends played out in South Bend on Saturday, Touchdown Jesus will have his hands full getting a win for the Irish. Notre Dame will simply not get the ball enough times to win.
ESPN college football analyst Bill Curry coached for 17 years in the college ranks. His Game Plans for marquee matchups appear each week during the college football season.