past seven years. They expect parades.If the brain of the Cubs | Forum

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Nike Air Max 90 Blue . -- About the only think Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly can say for certain about the quarterback position on the eve of practice starting is he doesnt expect DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire to play at the same time.He wasnt willing to rule out much more than that Friday as he fielded repeated questions about different scenarios on the eve of practice beginning Saturday in Culver, 30 miles south of campus.I have not taken anything off the table, honestly, Kelly said. If you go down the roster ... and look at the playmakers on offense, two of them are on the quarterback side. So I have to look at all of those, and factor every one of those in.Its not the answer Kizer or Zaire want to hear, but both realize it is the reality they are facing. Each is focused only on being the starter.This is what I came here to do, to compete and try to be the Notre Dame quarterback, Kizer said. Im pretty happy with where I stand. Now its time to go out there and prove it.Kizer, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound right-hander, led the Irish to nine victories, completing 211 of 335 passes for 2,884 yards with 21 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.Zaire, a 6-foot, 225-pound left-hander, won the starting job last year and completed 19 of 22 passes for 313 yards and three touchdowns in a season-opening 38-3 win over Texas, with his 86.4 percent completion rate ranking second in school history for a single game. But he broke his right ankle a week later against Virginia and watched as Kizer led the Irish to a 10-3 finish and a No. 11 ranking.Zaire said hes not focusing on being the best quarterback at Notre Dame; hes working to be the best quarterback in college football.Thats what Im focused on and I know thats going to translate into wins for the team, he said.Kelly, entering his seventh season as coach of the Irish, said he doesnt have a timetable for picking a starter before the Sept. 4 opener at Texas. He said depth at quarterback is what leads him to believe the Irish can vie for a playoff spot this season despite losing experience at receiver and along the offensive line.I think in college football any time you have a quarterback -- quarterbacks, were full with quarterbacks -- that gives you a fighting chance right out of the gate, he said.Kelly isnt worried that letting the competition continue could hurt the offense, saying the pair arent that different and he knows what he wants the offense to look like.They have some strengths and weaknesses within the offense that well tweak just a little bit, but theres no overhaul of the offense if one is in vs. the other. Theres just some play selections that would be different, he said. So we can still lay down our entire installation seamlessly.Game notes Kelly said he expects sophomore quarterback Brandon Wimbush to sit out this season and compete for a starting spot next season. ... Kelly also announced that defensive lineman Grant Blankenship, who was suspended from the team in April for violating unspecified team rules is no longer with the team and seeking a transfer. Nike Air Max 90 White . JOHNS, N. Cheap Nike Air Max 90 Mens . Peter Gammons, an analyst for Major League Baseballs network and website, drew the ire of hockey fans on Sunday when he criticized the two NHL teams on Twitter for their physical game the night before. http://www.airmax90outletonline.com/ . The judges scored it 48-47, 48-47, 49-46 for Jones (19-1). It was the champions closest call. Despite the loss, it was a remarkable show by the confident Swedish challenger, who had the best of the early rounds and then hung on in the fourth and fifth. CHICAGO -- What happens when a lovable loser winds up a winner?If the Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time since 1908, what happens to fans who have waited for next year their entire lives, the ones sporting T-shirts that read, Just win before I die? What happens when someday arrives?It will be better than the tradition of losing thats been passed down, said Jim Beaupre, a 66-year-old retired teacher who grew up near Wrigley Field, his eyes welling with tears as he showed the venerable ballpark to his 4-year-old grand-nephew. It will be the curse is broken, the bad old days are gone.Others say victory will be a reward for sticking with a team that was so bad for so long.Theres a sense that we paid our dues, weve watched utterly meaningless games in the dead of August ... we tilted our hats in the right way, worn our lucky shirts, stared at the TV at just the right angle, sat in our lucky chair and done all of that for decades and its finally paying off, said Steve Rhodes, whose Chicago-oriented website, the Beachwood Reporter , once posted a song, Dont Start Believin, to remind fans about the danger of hope.At the same time, there is at least a little worry that winning a World Series means losing something developed for more than a century, bolstered by heartbreak, failure and, yes, resilience.We could totally change our identity in the next week or so, said Kiljoong Kim, 45, of Chicago. We all really want it, but there is no doubt that we are all going to miss what we used to be.Dr. Stephen Schueller, a clinical psychologist at Northwestern University who specializes in happiness and well-being, agrees.I do think there is some concern (that) if they win it, it is going to break this story we tell ourselves as Cubs fans, he said.What that will look like is anyones guess, though it could turn Cubs fans -- the cuddly puppies of fandom -- into something else.Fans could become unbearable, Rhodes lamented.Al Yellon said one need only look eastward to see what could become of Cubs fans, how the friendly confines could become a decidedly different park.I look at the Red Sox fans, and when they suddenly won (in 2004 after 86 years), from the ouutside it looked like they became kind of insufferable, said Yellon, whose Cubs fan site is called bleedcubbieblue. Nike Shoes Air Max 90 Womens. com .Rhodes and Yellon may be onto something. Scientifically speaking, there may be something different about the brain of a fan who has been subjected to repeated doses of optimism every spring training and the despair of the regular season and the certainty that next year will be THE year, according to one expert who has written extensively about brains in general and the brains of Cubs fans in particular.Such fans turn out to be better decision-makers and deal better with divergent thought, as opposed to unreflective fans of winning teams, wrote Dr. Jordan Grafman, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern and a lifelong Cubs fan.Grafman said Cubs fans shouldnt worry about losing those skills just yet, even if they outlast the Indians in a World Series that Cleveland led 2-1 heading into Saturday nights Game 4.One exposure (to winning) is not going to do the trick, he told The Associated Press.On a recent bike ride over to Wrigley with his 2-year-old son, Matt Monsueto, 39, said he is happy at the prospect of his boy not having to endure the annual heartbreak that has for so long been part of the lives of Cubs fans.And yet he wonders if success might change things for future generations of Cubs fans, make them less patient and more demanding.My two daughters are Blackhawks fans, Monsueto said of the hockey team that went nearly a half century without winning the Stanley Cup before winning three over the past seven years. They expect parades.If the brain of the Cubs is in no danger of changing anytime soon, much of what made the Cubs fandom so lovable to the rest of the country already has. The guys who dragged lawn chairs to the rooftops to watch the games have been replaced by corporate gatherings. The bleacher seats that were a few bucks are now far, far more.All that magical stuff is gone, Rhodes said. Theres a new generation of fans who have invaded my piece of heaven. ' ' '