Death by a thousand plays

If the anticipation leading up to Saturday doesn't kill us, the sheer spectacle of our new offense just might, regardless of success or failure. 

Regarding the former, perhaps fear is a better word than anticipation.  The questions are well documented; the doubt is palpable.  ND Nation would be foolish not to be losing sleep over this game.  We've been fooled into believing in the hope of new regimes more times than we've celebrated bowl wins in the recent past.  We've readied ourselves for offensive brilliance.  We've nodded our heads in acceptance of a switch to the 3-4.  At our best, we we've been guilty of having faith in the incompetent;  at our worst, we've consciously ignored what our instincts should have told us was arrogance masquerading as excellence.  In short:  we've believed, and we've been burned. 

If wondering whether that stops now isn't too much for us, we might actually make it to kickoff, and then the real cardiac stimulation will start.  As Notre Dame fans, demographically, a lot of us have been raised by conservatives, whether fiscal, moral, or both.  These conservatives did what came naturally to them and did their best to raise their own to think, act, vote, and spend, well... conservatively.  And you know what?  Many of us like our football that way too.  This whole thing may be tough for us.  To many, huddling before offensive plays just makes too much sense to go and throw out the window.  Grinding out the clock just feels so blue and gold.  There is going to be a moment on Saturday when we all feel like we woke up in someone else's bed.  When that time arrives, my advice to you all is to take a deep breath, partake in legal over the counter mild depressants in moderation, pretend you've been invited by a friend to check out an arena league game, and most importantly:

Focus on what you know.
If you're so flustered you can't remember, here are a few reminders:
1.  The team that scores the most points wins.  You can even picture Lou Holtz saying it if that helps.  Brian Kelly's teams score 30 points per game regularly, and most of them come early.  This point production generally doesn't have a ramp at the beginning of the season and isn't prejudiced toward crappy opponents.  Past performance is the best predictor of future performance, and Brian Kelly teams almost never get shut out and almost always have 20 points by halftime.

2.  Teams that are efficient in the red zone win games.  (The red zone is where you have a good chance of scoring points, to return to point number one.)  Brian Kelly's first focus every week is on red zone efficiency, and while we all know he's not alone in that department, all of his teams have had good stats there.  We're going to get there a lot, and we're going to convert... a lot.  And if we don't convert, we don't need to go crying about it, because we'll be back there before we know it.

3.  Defenses hate the spread.  Teams build their personnel schemes around substitution rhythm and the chance to get set, and we're going to take that rhythm away.  If our pace of play is uncomfortable or confusing to you, just imagine trying to figure out how to make sense of it (let alone stop it) from a defensive perspective at field level while gasping for air.

4.  Risk is necessary to achieve reward.  Ah yes, the dirty secret of conservatives.  We will make a ton of mistakes.  We will be penalized up and down the field.  Yes, these are hallmarks of Brian Kelly's scheme too.  Take another sip of the legal depressant and remind yourself of a great quote from the Shawshank Redemption:  "get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."  Over time, our mistakes will begin to feel less impactful in light of the fact that we're running so many more plays and scoring so many more times than we're used to.

The Irish may lose on Saturday.  I wouldn't count on it, but it won't be the end of the world either if it happens.  It will happen again this season, and may happen more than many of us would like.  The whole thing is going to look like a hot mess sometimes.  It will feel uncomfortable.  But we'll be livin', and we'll be serving up a whole new brand of death by a thousand plays.