Feeling the Love

 Look, I am not a Domer homer. Let's get that out there right from the jump.

"Yes, you are," you're saying now.

No, I'm not.

"Yes, you ARE. You love the Golden Dome. You love the Grotto. You love Touchdown Jesus, and Fair Catch Corby, and the fake George Gipp deathbed scene in 'Knute Rockne, All-American.' I bet you even have a plastic Rockne riding on the dashboard of your car."

That's ridiculous. Besides, everyone knows a plastic Lou would be better, just for the irony.

No, I am not a homer. I have the hate mail to prove it. But I do feel compelled to say something here.

Which is that I think Notre Dame is going to be a dangerous out in the College Football Playoff, which the Fighting Irish seem destined to make now after bouncing No. 22 Pitt off the walls yesterday at the Panthers' place.

Beat a 7-2 Power 4 team in a walk, 37-15, and it wasn't that close. Jeremiyah Love busted a 56-yard score, and on the very next play from scrimmage Tae Johnson (All hail, Fort Wayne North Side!) jumped a route and raced 49 yards with the pick for another score, and that was that. It was 14-0 and the Irish never looked back.

And, yeah, OK, I know. The Irish have fooled me before. I've thought "Hey, don't look now, but Notre Dame's legit," and then they get in against an Alabama or a Georgia and get sent home in sandwich bags. But this time I think I know what I'm seeing.

What I'm seeing is a team that's won eight in a row since losing by a total of four points to Miami and still-unbeaten Texas A&M to start the season. What I'm seeing is a team that beat a ranked USC team by 10, mauled a once-beaten Navy outfit by 39, and then mauled a ranked Pitt outfit by 22. 

That's three wins by an aggregate score of 120-46 over three teams with a combined record 21-7, if you're keeping score at home.

Know what else I think I'm seeing?

A team with a precocious young quarterback and quality receivers and an elite defensive backfield, and a guy named Eli Raridon who looks for all the world like he's fixing to be the next great Irish tight end. Oh, and a Heisman Trophy winner at running back.

There. I said it. Jeremiyah Love for the gnarled little stiff-arming guy.

I say this knowing full well that Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza has been amazing and stupendous, and Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson has been mostly amazing and stupendous, and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin has been perhaps the most amazing and stupendous of all, although for some reason he's not getting the buzz the other two are -- perhaps because his own teammate is the amazing and stupendous wideout Jeremiah Smith, another Heisman candidate.

Nonetheless. Love gets my vote, even though I don't have one.

I'm picking him not because he plays for Notre Dame or because I have a plastic Rockne riding on the dashboard of my car, but because without him Notre Dame is gearing up for the Chicken Sandwich/Radial Tire/Riding Mower Bowl, not the CFP. I'm picking him because he and Smith are the best football players I've seen this season.

I'm also picking him because he's scored 14 touchdowns and averaged 6.4 yards per rush this season. And because in his last four games, with every defense keying on him, he's lugged it 55 times for 505 yards, which comes out to 9.1 yards per lug. And because, what the hell, running backs haven't been getting much Heisman love lately.

One running back winner in the last 15 years. That's it. And a full decade since the last one, Derrick Henry out of Alabama.

We're way past due, in other words.

"Homer," you're saying (OK, sneering) now.

Plastic Lou says get bent.