Notre Dame vs. Rutgers, 2013 Pinstripe Bowl: Irish win grueling affair

Tyler Lockett’s listed weight. The Kansas State junior receiver might be, pound for pound, the best player in college football, and if he returns for his senior season (and one assumes he will), KSU fans have only his minimal pounds to thank for it.

Lockett is in no way of typical NFL size, and his name doesn’t exactly come up in mock-Draft discussions, but he might be the strongest combination of speed and route-running in college football right now.

Chris Fowler might do the best job of any sports television person out there. ESPN throws him on camera with thousands of screaming idiots -- some of whom are on set with him -- and he keeps everything running, makes jokes sometimes and makes College GameDay excellent. (He also does tennis, which is the most different thing from college football, so that’s impressive.)

Suffice it to say, we are glad he did not die today at the Pinstripe Bowl:

Box Score Hero:

Rankings Ramifications:

If you’re just now catching up on the Pinstripe Bowl, you could try watching a recording of the game (ha ha don’t do that) or looking at the box score (also NSFW), or you could just read some Nix.

Purple, as in the color Kelly’s face famously turns when things go awry for the Irish on the field. It’s a meme among fans and apparently players as well.

Brown was a deep reserve who hasn’t registered a tackle since 2012. Atkinson, meanwhile, racked up 555 yards on the season and averaged six yards per carry, but his playing time waned over the year in a crowded backfield.

The announcement was made only a few hours before kickoff, and Atkinson indicated in a now-deleted tweet that the decision happened at a recent meal:

Two under-achieving teams will meet at Yankee Stadium for the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, as Notre Dame and Rutgers square off this postseason.

Notre Dame started the season with a win over Temple, before losing a tough one at Michigan. The Irish were the only team to beat Michigan State, and joined Wisconsin and Stanford as the only teams to defeat Arizona State. However, the losses to the Wolverines and Pittsburgh (as well as defeats to Oklahoma and Stanford) knocked them out of any hopes at BCS contention.

It’s got a prime backdrop, custom hats, and a stadium that screams, “Notre Dame and Army in the 1930s” (in name, at least, if not location). And its climate-month combination makes the odds of snow football pretty high. The New Era Pinstripe Bowl has a lot of things going for it in trying to stand out among other bowls. Now it just needs better tie-ins.

The current tie (No. 4 from the ACC vs. No. 7 from the Big 12, or a stand-in) means that, of the eight teams who will soon have played in the Pinstripe Bowl, two entered the game at 8-4, four at 7-5, and two at 6-6. None were ranked. And in the 2013 F/+ rankings, one is among the 40 worst teams in FBS. Starting in 2014, it’ll at least pair two local conferences, in the ACC and Big Ten.

Notre Dame is just 2-9 ATS in its past 11 bowl games while Rutgers is 5-1-1 ATS past seven bowl games. And Rutgers won the 2011 Pinstripe Bowl, so they have some history here in New York.

“If you believe the computer projection, both of these streaks will continue, but we’re not sure a 29-23 final for Notre Dame is in the cards,” said handicapper Keith Spikes from Online Sports Betting.ca.

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Diaco has been named the new head coach at Connecticut, according to Football Scoop:

Diaco’s name first began to surface Wednesday night, after Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi turned the Huskies down. He replaces Paul Pasqualoni, who was fired after an 0-4 start to the 2013 season. According to Bruce Feldman, he is getting a long-term deal:

The initial lines for every bowl game have been released, giving us a rough watchability index of sorts. Notre Dame opened as the biggest favorite among all bowl teams; the Irish are expected to dispatch Rutgers by at least three scores. And those two BCS bowl matchups you saw and figured will probably stink? Vegas agrees. Baylor is a 16.5-point favorite over UCF, while Alabama is favored by 16 over Oklahoma.

Here are the opening odds for each bowl game (courtesy of Odds Shark), ordered from largest to smallest spread: