IRISH PUT SQUEEZE ON ORANGE
Finally, we get a taste of big-time college football
IF YOU are born in New York, ego is embedded in your veins. If you are transplanted, it is injected. At some point, you lose count how many times you’ve heard that you are part of the “greatest city” in the “greatest country” in the world. If it isn’t fact, it feels like it. Then, autumn Saturdays arrive, and you are insignificant. You stare with envy at Clemson, S.C., or Auburn, Ala., or State College, Pa., or dozens of other towns whose entire populations could comfortably fit in a few city blocks.
For decades, the best college football venue in New York City has been the bar with the most TVs and the cheapest beer. But for one afternoon, the greatest void of our sporting scene disappeared.
Tailgating stood near scaffolding. Tents overflowed, with family and friends. Coolers overflowed, with bottles and cans. Flags — of the Orange and the Irish — flew high. Carbon monoxide from tailpipes and grills merged in the lower-levels of parking garages.
“It’s a beautiful afternoon for football in The Bronx,” referee Stuart Mullins told the captains of third-ranked Notre Dame and 12th-ranked Syracuse, prior to the highest-stakes college football game in the city in 71 years.
College football returned to Yankee Stadium in 2010 — when Subway Alumni watched Notre Dame play there for first time in 41 years — and has continued with the annual Pinstripe Bowl, but Saturday was the first time the country noticed. The building buzzed with novelty, but also with meaning.
Brian Kelly came to town with an undefeated power, capable of winning its first national championship in three decades. Dino Babers showed up with Syracuse’s first ranked squad in 17 years.
The Bronx was the sport’s most important site.
As it was when 80,000 people watched the Irish clinch the 1929 national championship in The House That Ruth Built. And when Knute Rockne asked his team to “win just one for the Gipper.” And when Vince Lombardi, and Fordham’s six other blocks of granite, had their Rose Bowl dreams foiled by NYU. And when Notre Dame and Army — the sport’s biggest rivals, and top-two teams in the nation — played to a scoreless tie in 1946’s version of the Game of the Century.
With each passing year, those sentences slide closer to science fiction. The original stadium is gone. So are most of the witnesses who walked through the old turnstiles.
On the other side of 161st Street, a sellout crowd of 48,104 left with memories that won’t be worth revisiting, learning that only one participant was worthy of the stage.
“If they keep playing the way they played us, they’re probably going to have an opportunity to play for the national championship,” Babers said after Notre Dame’s 36-3 win. “I can’t remember the score, they were so dominant.”
Less than six minutes after kickoff, the Irish (11-0) were in the end zone, and their band was playing the Vic- tory March from the Bleacher Creature seats.
A Syracuse offense averaging 44 points per game lost quarterback Eric Dungey to injury before the first quarter was done, but Notre Dame’s defense didn’t need the assist. Dungey could have made the beatdown less brutal, but the outcome wouldn’t have changed.
The Irish picked off Dungey once and backup Tommy DeVito twice, while Ian Book threw for 292 yards and two touchdowns, moving Notre Dame one win — against USC (5-6) — from its first College Football Playoff appearance.
“I’ll never forget that picture of walking into the stadium,” Book said. “I’ll never forget this night ever.”
Until the final quarter, the orange-occupied seats in left field remained full. The basketball school couldn’t know when another football game would matter so much again.
“They did not handle the surroundings well,” Babers said. “It was disappointing. … The next time we have an opportunity like this — and lord willing, there will be a next time — they’ll handle it a lot better.”
The city, too, has no guarantee it will see a similar moment come again, needing a scheduling quirk and unforeseen success from the only Power Five football team in the state for this day to occur.
For so many years, college football hasn’t needed New York. For just as long, New York hasn’t needed the sport.
Now, the void returns. Couches and bar seats will have to do.