God Is Good And So Was Gordon's Kick

Saturday 11/14/26

Boston College plays Notre Dame today in South Bend. I saw a flash of a report that there was a delay, or some delays, at the airport, but BC got to Indiana on schedule, and I thought, well, maybe it'd be better if they couldn't have made it?

These BC-Notre Dame games used to be a fairly big thing to the few of us who are Eagles fans. These days, it's more like the eagle is ushered into the slaughter house and processed. I guess if you were the most sanguine of BC fans you could say that the Irish just had their huge win over Miami and could be looking ahead...trap game!

What would falling prey to the trap game thing really be here, though? Only beating BC by 30? Still, the game must be played, and you never know. Okay, so you do know, but you might be able to watch a half dozen plays and nurse your delusions for a minute or two.

My mom likes to tell the story about what happened when BC beat Notre Dame 41-39 in November 1993. The priest at the church they went to was a huge Fighting Irish fan. He'd work Notre Dame propaganda into his homilies.

David Gordon made his improbable game-winning kick, knocking off the number one team in the country, which had just won the so-called Game of the Century the week before against Florida State, with this essentially costing them the National Championship, and my dad had everyone--himself, my mom, my sisters--put on BC gear and head to church for Saturday evening mass instead of going on Sunday.

My dad could be funny like that. He was no bountiful jokester, but he'd pick the occasional moment and do it his way.

Come the next fall at BC, upperclassmen were selling these shoddy T-shirts in the freshman dorms that said things like, God Is Good And So Was Gordon's Kick. The freshmen hadn't even been there, of course, but I'm sure these guys made a pile because you had to have one of those shirts.

You look at that BC team now and you do have to wonder how Notre Dame overlooked them. They had a lot of talent. A lot of future NFL players on both sides of the ball, and solid NFL players. Pete Mitchell, Stephen Boyd, Glenn Foley, Pete Kendall. Mike Mamula had a monster game for BC. The game of his life, really.

Gordon's successful field goal was so unlikely. He wasn't a reliable place kicker. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I bet he was somewhere in the upper fifties in terms of his percentage on the season, and that was a long field goal attempt for him.

Adam Vinatieri's Snow Bowl kick against the Raiders in the 2001 playoffs reminded me of Gordon's with its trajectory. Low, on the line, drift-y, a bit knuckleball-ish. That was part of Vinatieri's strategy to make the ball go through those elements, whereas I think Gordon just tried his best and took his chances.

Both were that type of kick where you're watching it go through the air and it just doesn't look like something that is going to be successful, because it doesn't resemble basically any of the successful kicks you've seen. Then the officials put their arms and you do this double take because it seems too improbable and good to be true, what with visual precedent and all.

Even if you're not a BC fan, the game is worth watching. It's one of the most exciting sporting events I've ever seen. Notre Dame croaked BC the year before 54-7. You have to realize, too, what a dick Lou Holtz had been. Pulling out the trick plays to run up the score in that beat down from 1992. It was a humiliating loss. BC came in thinking they had a legit shot that day.

And lest we forget: the guy who became no stranger to upsets on an even bigger stage in Tom Coughlin coached his ass off in that 1993 win for the maroon and gold. BC fans like to say, "At least we'll always have '93," which is at least something.