‘A weird feeling’: Not a lot of buzz over game
With all due respect to Journey and its epic 1981 hit, it was perfectly fine for Lobo football fans to begin losing some faith early in Saturday’s college football game in South Bend, Ind.
Just as “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” started to play over the speakers at Boxcar in the Santa Fe Railyard, Notre Dame was dropping into punt formation while holding a 7-0 lead on New Mexico in a nationally televised once-in-a-lifetime trip for UNM’s notoriously bad football program.
For just a moment it seemed like it would be the Lobos waking up the echoes, that a fairy-tale upset would unfold in that most magical of places made famous by seven Heisman Trophy winners and 11 national champions.
“If that happened,” said Theresa Law, “it would be a sign of the apocalypse.”
Law sat at a large round table within arm’s reach of a big screen TV showing Saturday’s game. A ’91 graduate of Notre Dame, she was joined by fellow alums Bob Novak (Class of ’74) and Michael Ortiz, a St. Michael’s grad who earned his degree in 1995. The three form the nucleus of Northern New Mexico’s Notre Dame Alumni Club that organizes watch parties throughout the football season.
The group had 25 people crowd the upper level at Boxcar for the team’s season opener. On Saturday, it was just the three of them.
“This is one of those games where a lot of alums from around here were interested in going to,” Novak said. “They give us an opportunity to get tickets and I’m not sure how many of them went, but I’d think quite a few wanted to be there.”
“This one’s different,” Ortiz said. “We’ve been to so many games but seeing one against the Lobos is kind of weird, you know? There’s more to it when it’s a big rivalry game like USC or Michigan. People are going to get pretty excited for them, but New Mexico? It’s a weird feeling.”
Whatever weirdness existed early on was quickly buried under an avalanche of Irish points. By time it was 21-0, the celebratory cheers from the alums started to fade. Then it was
28-0, 38-7 and 52-7. It got steadily worse and less exciting as the game wore on. Long before the final quarter the reactions were more of a, “Oh, look, they scored again,” stare shared by most bar patrons still managing to pay attention.
“Had they lost this game, they’d have brought back Bob Davie,” joked Novak.
“If they’d lost, the chat rooms would have gone crazy,” Ortiz said. “They’re bad even after a win. Even a close game against a Bob Davie team would have been awful for them.”
If you’ve never been, Boxcar is a popular Railyards gathering place for people wanting to watch their favorite sport. It routinely overflowed with big crowds during the World Cup and all the usual mainstream events like the NCAA Tournament, Super Bowl and NBA playoffs. Saturdays and Sundays are always big during football season and the Notre Dame-New Mexico game was no different.
Thing is, it wasn’t a blue-andgold versus cherry-and-silver kind of crowd. The lack of Irish supporters was mirrored by the lack of Lobo lovers. In an establishment filled to capacity, only two tables — the one occupied by the Irish alums and another about 40 feet away by a trio of cherryclad ladies from Albuquerque — established the boundaries.
It proved to be a veritable United Nations of college football fans. One table had a couple dressed in Auburn apparel. Seated at the bar were four people openly rooting for Temple against Maryland. Another section had three USC fans with a table behind them occupied by an Oregon fan. Up top were two people openly rooting for Stanford and another was seen wearing a Clemson hat.
If you didn’t have Google Maps to prove you were actually in New Mexico’s capital city, you’d have never known it based on the lack of fan support for the school just an hour down the road.
In a sense, Law said, it falls in step with the lack of energy Saturday’s game generated in general. The Irish were fivetouchdown favorites, a spread surpassed early in the third quarter.
Law said people with UNM ties seemed to be more curious and even nostalgic than they were fired up.
In an informal Twitter poll earlier this week, nearly twothirds of those responding said they were rooting for the Lobos.
No biggie, said the Irish alums. The dates they always circle are against longstanding rivals like Michigan and USC. Until those dates roll around, their vantage point from the table under the TV works just fine.