With Notre Dame football moving to an ACC heavy schedule each year, some traditional rivalries have dissipated and been extinguished. However, other rivalries now what the potential to flourish. Take the Miami Hurricanes for instance. The Canes, currently #10 in country, visit South Bend on October 29th in a game that Notre Dame football fans might be looking at as a litmus test for saving their season.
We’ve mapped out what the Irish need to do in the back half of the season to qualify for a bowl and beating Miami would help their cause a lot.
In the modern era, the most meaningful Miami- Notre Dame football game was the 2010 Sun Bowl; won by the Fighting Irish. During the 1980s though, this was a big rivalry. How big? HUGE! as Bernie Sanders would say. The rivalry has been chronicled in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, or as I call it “ESPN for adults in the room.”
Yes, 30 for 30 is ESPN for the thinking person, and “The U.” is 30 for the 30 at the top of its game. Now comes a new 30 for 30 that will focus not just on Miami, but both sides in the “Catholics vs Convicts” rivalry between the Canes and the Irish.
Here’s a link to the preview trailer.
Here’s the promo hype via ESPN PR
“Catholics vs. Convicts” directed by Patrick Creadon
Saturday, December 10, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN
On October 15, 1988, Notre Dame hosted the University of Miami in what would become one of the greatest games in college football history. It was tradition vs. swagger, the No. 4-ranked Fighting Irish versus the No. 1-ranked Hurricanes, one coaching star, Lou Holtz, versus another, Jimmy Johnson. But the name still attached to the contest came from a t-shirt manufactured by a few Notre Dame students: “Catholics vs. Convicts.”
In this 30 for 30 documentary, director and narrator Patrick Creadon (Wordplay, I.O.U.S.A.) doesn’t just look back on the epic game. He explores the deeper narrative as a Notre Dame senior at the time, a close friend to the young men in the middle of the “Catholics vs. Convicts” controversy (Joe Fredrick and Pat Walsh) and a fellow classmate of the player behind center for the Fighting Irish (quarterback Tony Rice).
The coaches and players open up about the fight that started the game, the highly debatable calls that are still being talked about and the insensitive aspects of the irresistibly popular t-shirt. As compelling as the tale of Notre Dame’s dramatic victory is—even losing quarterback Steve Walsh calls it “a helluva ballgame”—the backstory is just as riveting.
I’m VERY much looking forward to this one. It’s just too bad we have to wait so long for it. The movie won’t be out in time for the two teams clashing near the end of this month.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.