There isn’t a lot of joy in beating a football team as hopelessly awful in every aspect of football (“flummoxed” is the word Seattle Times reporter Bud Withers used) as Washington is, but there is a hell of a lot of relief in avoiding a doomsday scenario no matter how unlikely it was in the first place.

I had hoped that crushing the hapless Huskies would have provided a little more satisfaction than it did. But it’s hard to exact revenge on Willingham by victimizing the innocent. It was a little like trying to get at Al Gore by clubbing baby seals.

Sure, bring that up again. I feel bad for the seals, but I really thought it was going to work.

After their offense sputtered in the second quarter, the Irish started the second half in the no-huddle offense in to try establishing a rhythm. Asked whether he considered alternative approaches when his team’s offense sputtered throughout the game, Washington Head Coach Tyrone Willingham said, and I am not making this up, “I thought at that time, with the limited success that we’ve had, that just staying the course would be our best thing to do.”

Is it possible that Willingham was holding Diedrick back all this time?

Diedrick’s suckiness can’t be held back. You can only hope to contain it.

Brandon Walker… My man!

Good for him. But the thought of Walker lining up a 42-yarder to win a game makes me want to drink seven Carlings and a double rock and rye.

I suggest that you wait until the end of the season to stop sniffing glue.

I’m going to try really hard not to take Michael Floyd for granted before his freshman season ends.

Not me. He’s on my shit list for not making a circus catch in the end zone on that underthrown bomb by Clausen. Flash in the pan.

I’m willing to give him a pass until he’s a seasoned veteran, which means he has until the BC game.

Whenever I see Willingham on the sidelines wearing his headset, I wonder what’s on his play list.

I’m In Love With a Dead Dog, Gwar; Dead, the Pixies; I’m Dead, Scarface; Dead End, the Dead Kennedys.

I knew we’d work Gwar into these musings if we kept at it long enough.

Bob Davie, the faux Southerner who provides white noise between plays on ESPN’s least interesting college football games, opened the broadcast by insightfully explaining that Armando Allen “plays great in wide open spaces.” Don’t all backs play great in wide open spaces? Their problems begin when those damned defensive players clutter up the wide open spaces.

Tell that to the Kansas defense this week. They were all space and not much clutter in their game against Texas Tech.

I’m sorry… Kansas has a defense, you say?

Why is Davie the faux Southerner, you ask? The perfect example was an observation by KJR-AM’s Dave “Softy” Mahler who interviewed Davie on Thursday. After Davie professed his undying love for Texas A&M;, Mahler said, “You certainly sound like a Texas guy.” Davie was born in Pennsylvania. He went to Youngstown State. Half of his coaching career was outside of the South. Yet Davie has morphed into a Bubba. I guess we should be grateful Davie didn’t develop an affinity for Collège de Sorbonne.

I suppose he would be providing bruit blanc between jeux on Le Dirigeant Mondial, opining on le footbaw and les derrieres rouges .

I knew I should have gone with “Wossamotta U”.

On the list of things I don’t miss – Coming out of an ND time out late in the first quarter, Washington had to call one because its defense was disorganized.

Right behind that on the list of things we don’t miss – Coming out of a defensive timeout in that situation and still being disorganized.

I’ll say right now… He had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between the ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! He’s collecting another cool million for doing nothing next year.

Those who saw James Aldridge play before his high school knee injury tell me he lost a lot, but he still has his inclination to finish a run.

He was just being polite. The Washington defense couldn’t stop him, so James finished his runs on his own.

His lowered shoulder looked mighty rude from the Washington linebackers’ points of view.

Asked early in the week about the attention the game would receive, Willingham attempted humor by saying, “It’s exciting that people care.” Washington fans have long wished their coach would reciprocate.

Judging by all the Huskies fans in the stands who appeared to be more interested in texting than spectating, I think Willingham overestimated how much they care.

Judging by the lack of Huskies fans in the stands by the fourth quarter, you’re right.

It’s possible that we will never again see Jimmy Clausen play as badly as he did yesterday. Atypically inaccurate, Clausen completed 14 of 26 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown. We called that a good game, not a bad one, in the days of Willingham and Diedrick.

I’ll take Clausen’s “bad” stat line coupled with 250+ yards rushing any day.

I have a hard time believing a Weis team will often have enough carries to reach 250 yards, but 5.3 yards per attempt will always work for me.

Willingham told Faux Southerner Davie’s broadcast partner Mark Jones that the best thing he can do for his team is to stay consistent. It seems to me that Willingham’s consistency is the problem, not the solution.

Perhaps Jones was simply passing on a coping mechanism that he’s found helpful. Both he and the Washington players are trapped in an association that they are powerless to do anything about. Consistency, even in fecklessness, offers a kind of comfort.

Yep. They may be knee deep in shit, but at least the smell is familiar.

I don’t have a per se problem with throwing long on third and nineteen, even twice in a row; but if you aren’t planning to punt if it’s incomplete, why not look at options that would shorten the fourth down distance?

A shorter completion on third down might have brought a field goal attempt into the calculus, and who wants that?

I hadn’t thought of it that way… Now where’s that glue?

With his victory over Ohio State on Saturday, Joe Paterno maintained his lead over Bobby Bowden in all-time victories as a head coach. More significantly, Bowden has several challenging games remaining while Paterno’s weak Big Ten opposition will allow him to put a death grip on the record.

Are you saying that Bowden doesn’t stand a ghost of chance?

Yes. Thanks to a really crappy Big Ten, Bowden’s chances of staying in the derby are on the Stygian Ferry.

Speaking of Paterno and Penn State, isn’t it amazing how well a team can do when not burdened with stadium cleaning duties on Sunday mornings?

Not to mention mopping up the spilt embalming fluid from the floor of the coaches’ booth.

When Joepa has to take a leak, he literally leaks.

Commenting on successful run from punt f
ormation, Willingham said, “We had people in place, but I guess I’m not surprised because every time you send your team on, you tell them to be ready for the fake, to be looking for it. But we didn’t. We went with our double-look outside to try to get a return, but we didn’t get it taken care of.” Huh?

Translation: Notre Dame scouted us on film and saw a flaw in our punt return scheme that was so glaring that they were confident that a fake punt on 4th and 13 from their own 35 yard line was a high percentage call, OK?

A simple, “Yeah, we suck at that,” would have sufficed.

Unclear on the concept – Late in the Illinois vs. Wisconsin broadcast, play-by-play announcer Pam Ward announced that College Football Scoreboard would air “at 3:00 Eastern Time, right at the bottom of the hour.”

Maybe she meant Nova Scotia Time.

I think you meant Newfoundland Time. Nova Scotia would be on Newfoundland Time had the Newfies’ attempt to annex Nova Scotia worked years ago. They actually went to war over it, but the Nova Scotians won when, after the Newfies lobbed grenades at them, they pulled the pins and threw them back. I knew we’d work a Newfie joke into these musings if we kept at it long enough.

This week the Hardin Award nominee for absolutely true but meaningless published statistic is going retro. Back in August, 2005, The Orange County Register’s Steve Bisheff wrote, “The most famous school in the sport fired the only black coach in Irish history just two years after he had become the first to win 10 games in his initial year on the job.” When the first coach to win 10 games in his first season is also the first coach to play 13 games in his first season, his 10-3 (.769) accomplishment doesn’t compare favorably to Leahy’s 8-0-1 (.944), Parseghian’s 9-1 (.900), or Terry Brennan’s 9-1 (.900).

Willingham is in the wrong business. He parlayed one Rose Bowl (loss) and one 10-win season into two multi-million dollar contracts. With that kind of Midas touch, I say we put him in charge of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

His Midas touch won’t work unless we put Kevin White in charge of the Treasury and Todd Turner in charge of OMB.

Harrison Smith playing linebacker does a lot of good things on the field. Harrison Smith playing safety will be a force on the field.

Speaking of safeties, it was nice to see Ray Herring get some meaningful playing time. His steadfast commitment to the Irish and upbeat recruiting blog helped see many ND fans through darker days.

If Notre Dame football returns to national prominence, Herring and a handful of guys like him will be just as responsible as those who star on the field.

Astonishing stat of the game – Washington’s offense crossed midfield for the first time with 6:03 to play in the fourth quarter. I don’t suspect that the ND staff’s bye week self-scouting and adjustments account for all of the defense’s improvement.

I think showing up on time for the kickoff accounted for most of it.

I think Mike Denbrock’s stellar offensive line coaching accounted for most of it.

With the camera fixed on Willingham as the clock wound towards zero, faux Southerner Davie opined that he was thinking, “What am I going to say to my footbaw team?” I recommend, “Good bye.”

Except it will take him four rambling, incoherent sentences, and no one will be quite sure that he said it when he’s finished.

Yeah, he’ll probably say things like, “It is my desire to complete and finish the football season and do that in the manner that I have done it unwavering in my approach and commitment to our young men and the goals we have set for them.”

At last, (in my best Vinny Gambini voice) I’m finished with this guy.

In another five weeks, the “yutes” in the Washington locker room will be able to say the same thing.

Ah, the what? Uh… uh, what was that word?