Columns
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Duranko’s Digest: Defensive Personnel 2013
Duranko takes a look at the 2013 Notre Dame defense.
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Duranko’s Digest: 2013 Offensive Personnel Analysis
Duranko breaks down the 2013 Notre Dame offense.
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Duranko’s Digest: 2013 Schedule – A Peek Ahead
On the 2013 schedule, we lose Miami, Wake Forest and Boston College and add Temple, Air Force and Arizona State. Recruiting is not finished, player injuries and attrition will occur,…
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Duranko’s Digest: 42-14, The taste of ashes. What’s Next?
Alabama, the better team, won. A numbing, total defeat after twelve wondrous victories. But it was the correct football result. The fantasies, the possibilities began in Dublin: " Your young…
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Duranko’s Digest: ’66, ’73,’77, ’88 Notre Dame’s National Championship DNA
November, 1965 saw a lot of long faces in the Notre Dame football fan base. Ara had burst onto the scene, the unwashed phenomenon, in '64.
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Duranko’s Digest: Year End Outlook, State of the Irish
This is an evaluation of the long-term outlook of the Notre Dame football program. It attempts to answer the question “Was 2012 a one-hit wonder or are the Irish back?”…
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Duranko’s Digest: Notre Dame – Alabama Preview
We’ll get into matchup elements below, but let’s first examine four significant data trends that will, largely, be ignored by the sports entertainment hype industry wearing the “journalism” mask. (1)…
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Duranko’s Digest: Deja vu (all over again) “Southern speed will bury ND in the bowl!”
And a stroll down bowl memory lane. Background: Ernie Nevers, who played for Pop Warner, yep the guy they named youth football after ran for Warner at Stanford in the…
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Duranko’s Digest – What We Saw Against Wake
At last! Exerting total domination from the opening whistle, the Irish efficiently built a 31-0 halftime lead enroute to the 38-0 final tally against Wake Forest. The maturing offense, a far worthier…
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Duranko’s Digest: What did we see against Boston College?
While we had cognitive dissonance over Alabama’s loss to A&M, and while dreaming dreams and seeing visions of BCS glory, we saw an excellent, big swift, skilled Notre Dame team,…
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5 Things I Didn’t Like: Pitt ’12
In wrapping up the Pitt game, here is a quicker than usual look at the 5 things I didn’t like seeing out of the Irish this past weekend. Mike Mayock’s…
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5 Things I Liked: Pitt ’12
While there may have been a lot to not like about last weekend’s win over Pitt – we’ll get to that later – there was still more than enough to…
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Duranko’s Digest: What did we see against Pitt?
We saw a gritty Notre Dame that is better at winning games than looking pretty. We saw an Irish team that plays better outside of Indiana (Navy, Michigan State,…
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Initial Analysis: Notre Dame 29, Pitt 26
Wow. Never expected to be writing about a Notre Dame victory this morning when the Irish entered yesterday’s fourth quarter down 14 points, but I never expected the game to…
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Duranko’s Digest: What did we see against Oklahoma?
In a magnificent performance against the best football team on its regular season schedule, the Irish moved to a glistening 8-0. As if heeding the call of Jim Morrison, the…
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5 Things I Liked: Oklahoma ’12
I thought about renaming the title of this weekly column to 5 Things I Loved instead of Liked, because I absolutely loved what I saw last night out of the…
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Initial Analysis: Notre Dame 30, Oklahoma 13
Wow. It’s the morning after and I am honestly still having trouble putting into words my thoughts about this game, this team, and this season. It has been just about…
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5 Things I Didn’t Like: BYU ’12
Sorry for the delay in this week’s 5 things I didn’t like – I may have under estimated how much running a 5k, 10k, and half marathon all within about…
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5 Things I Liked: BYU ’12
Notre Dame squeaked out a three point victory on Saturday in a sloppy game in which they made more than their fair share of mistakes. The Irish were able to…
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Duranko’s Digest: What did we see against BYU?
The Fighting Irish moved to 7-0 by defeating two opponents. The first was a game Cougars team, going all out for a signature win. The second, more daunting opponent was…
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Initial Analysis: Notre Dame 17, BYU 14
For a couple of quarters it looked like Notre Dame was going to fall victim to a classic let down/trap game. Coming off an emotional win over Stanford and with…
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5 Things I Didn’t Like: Stanford ’12
The easiest time to find things to not like in a game is after a team wins a hard fought, ugly game over a quality opponent. You still feel good…
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Duranko’s Digest: What Did We See Against Stanford?
A wet, ugly duckling of a game, a pigskin Elephant Man, initially repulsive, grotesque and difficult to look at. Then it revealed itself: noble, virtuous, elegant, classically beautiful. The Irish…
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5 Things I Liked: Stanford ’12
Another week. Another win. Another list of a lot of things I liked seeing from our Fighting Irish. There were a lot of hiccups along the way on Saturday, but…
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Initial Analysis: Notre Dame 20, Stanford 13
Wow. After celebrating Notre Dame’s latest victory – a heart pounding, seven point, overtime thriller – over Stanford, my heart has slowed down enough to put some thoughts down on…
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