Davie faces crowd noise, closed restaurant in Texas
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Sports Wirter
Bob Davie is not looking forward to the trip to College Station, Texas this Saturday.
The former Texas A&M defensive coordinator's new team is 0-2 and facing the 3-0 Aggies. It's going to be hot. It's going to be loud.
And to top it all off, his favorite restaurant closed.
"One of the small pleasures I was looking forward to — at least I could go to Tom's Barbeque. But now that's out of business, so I'm not nearly as excited."
Tom's was a hole-in-the-wall barbeque place that you never left hungry, according to Davie. They gave you everything you want — except a plate.
"They just put newspaper on your table and then come out and they put slaps of brisket and pickles and cheese and they just dump some sauce right on that newspaper," Davie said. "So you just sit there, dip that stuff in that sauce, you know what, it might have been a health sanitation deal that got them closed down."
The closing of Davie's favorite restaurant isn't even the worst aspect of the trip to College Station for the Irish. After coaching at Texas A&M for nine seasons, he understands how loud Kyle Field can get. His former boss at Texas A&M, R.C. Slocum, doesn't even think Nebraska's Memorial Stadium is a loud stadium.
"So, you can imagine what it's going to be like in College Station, if R.C. didn't think Nebraska was a loud place to play," Davie said.
Davie's players are having a hard time believing that Texas A&M will be the loudest stadium they ever experience. Tony Fisher said he doesn't think any crowd could be louder than what Notre Dame has experienced before —especially at Purdue two years ago when the crowd noise caused some players to think an audible had been called on the last play of the Irish loss.
"He said they will be the most hostile crowd we have ever played against," Fisher said. "Even more than it was at Nebraska or Tennessee. We just expect the crowd to play a big role in the game."
The Irish are again using giant sound speakers to make noise this week during practice and are simplifying the checks at the line, according to Fisher.
"Our quarterbacks have to make less reads," he said.
The Irish are also working on silent snap counts in practice this week.
"You're kidding yourself if you think you are going to get up there and change things at the line of scrimmage," Davie said. "You can forget about that in that stadium. You are probably kidding yourself if you think you are going to hear the snap count; so you have to work on some kind of silent snap counts where everybody is going off the football. It's that kind of game."
Notes:
u Former Irish assistant coach Urban Meyer has yet to lose a game as the new head coach of Bowling Green. Meyer's team is 2-0.
"He's a great coach and a great guy," Davie said. "I could not be happier for him."
u Davie left the pep rally Friday early to watch his daughter in her high school homecoming court. Although Audra Davie didn't win, she has a very proud father.
"She didn't win, but she did great," Davie said with his biggest smile of the press conference.
All Sports Stories for Wednesday, September 26, 2001
