Logging in live here after a long day of travel, courtesy of Labor Day traffic and toll road construction on a holiday weekend. Ugh.
Just walked out of the opening pep rally outside of Dillon Hall, where the windy weather and occasional drizzle didn’t mute a crowd of at least 15,000 that welcomed the 2010 Fighting Irish.
Brian Kelly showed his flair for public speaking and had the students and crowd plenty excited when he introduced this year’s Irish. He also named Michael Floyd offensive game captain and Darrin Walls defensive game captain. Kelly cited both their work ethics this fall camp, and sounded just as confident in the ability of Walls as he is in the preseason All-American Floyd, a great sign for the Irish.
One other note of interest: The Irish usually enter the stadium through the tunnel for warm-ups, but they’ll be changing that this season, incorporating the student section into their ritual. The Irish will now enter the field through section 31, right through the heart of the student section.
Kelly mentioned that all it means is that the students will get one less hour of sleep, and start their tailgating a little bit earlier than normal.
The weather is far from perfect here, as winds howled for most of the afternoon and into the evening and should continue to gust tomorrow.
Check back here tomorrow for the Live Blog -- which you can follow while watching the game from home or on your computer as well.
T minus 20 hours...