Today we travel back in time to Christmas Eve 2008 for a wondrous event that ended the longest bowl losing streak in NCAA history. Huzzah to the Weis era!

If you’re like me this game was broadcast right after dinner on the East Coast which meant it inevitably fell during prime present opening time with the family. Imagine trying to coordinate White Elephant among 20 people while the kid in his mid-20’s sits near the television with the volume on low barely paying attention to the family in front of him. At least it spared me from watching another marathon of “A Christmas Story” I am scarred and can’t stand that movie any longer.

At any rate, that 9-game bowl losing streak and Weis’ ailing knees after he got destroyed from a bad angle by one of his players were the two big pre-game talking points in the lead up to this Hawaii game. The injury had put Weis up in the booth–which all things considered–brings up an interesting debate whether he should’ve been the first coach in history to coach all games from the box. It pretty much fit his personality in all ways.

Of course, this game was memorable pretty much for one thing and one thing only: The near perfect game from Jimmy Clausen. Before we get to that though, just a couple of points that stuck out to me following a re-watch.

The official record shows either 43,487 or 45,718 in attendance which were both laughably inaccurate. The Aloha Stadium capacity is 50,000 and the crowd shot evidence makes it look as though there isn’t a soul over 20,000 in the seats. In other words, this might have been the smallest crowd to watch the Irish that I can remember.

There are a lot of old familiar faces in this one and every time I re-watch these old games I just can’t help but shake my head at how easy it was to tackle Armando Allen. He had so many tools but had maybe the worst balance from an offensive skill player this century. He even takes a kickoff back for a touchdown in this game, and while attempting a very simple and quick juke past the kicker, nearly stumbles and falls flat on his face.

Speaking of which, Allen led this team in rushing with 585 yards. Too many praised Weis’ genius as a play-caller (deserved in many ways) but he could not develop any semblance of a run game. This game was a brutal example of that failure. Even with Clausen throwing darts, when you’d think there’d be occasional room to run, the offense in this game was at a whopping 27 rushing yards by halftime. Is it wrong to believe things are different a decade later and this would be a huge talking point while the quarterback performance would be minimized?

For his part, Clausen finished 22 of 26 for 401 yards and 5 touchdowns. His 4 incompletions are below:

It was very close to a perfect game, technically 4 drops in total.

The amazing thing is Clausen really didn’t have to do a whole lot, or as much as you’d expect with such gaudy numbers. I’d say about half of his completions were screens or short dump-offs. It’s just the 6 or 7 amazing throws accounted for about 80% of the highlights, and truthfully they were some of the finest throws in the Clausen canon.

What’s even more crazy, Clausen had 300 yards at halftime and played virtually no snaps in the 4th quarter. This game was truly meaningless in the grand scheme but I would’ve been okay with more stat padding from Clausen, Tate, and Floyd.

This game also featured one of my biggest pet-peeves with football…the dreaded referee determined to squash any fun after a touchdown.

Sure, Golden Tate had a reputation for some antics after torching a secondary. My point is, let him earn a flag if he earns a flag. At no point in the history of officiating has it been deemed acceptable for referees to act like baby sitters. Look at how fast this ref runs! Is there anything more silly on a football field?

Don’t believe me (of course you do) about the run game? The end of the first half is instructive. The Irish had the ball on the Hawaii 5-yard line with 90 seconds remaining. On first down, a Robert Hughes sweep to the left nets -7 yards. On second down an Allen jet sweep nets -6 yards. The offense lets the clock wind down dangerously close to zero–figuring they will get one more play in before settling for a field goal–and instead Clausen hits Tate for a looping-arc touchdown pass that basically put the game away going into the break.

This series basically summed up the peak 2008 offense and Hawaii head coach Greg McMackin’s face did not change one bit all game.