With it being the last home game of the season, I’m going to spotlight some of Notre Dame’s seniors this week in the blog. Here are some comments from tackle Paul Duncan.
On his first game (vs. Pittsburgh in 2005): “I was really anxious to get out there and really play. I was just excited. There’s so many emotions going in, it’s hard to pick out one thing. I was just thinking about that, going out there, running in, I was expecting a high school stadium. I was expecting to be able to hear my family screaming, and obviously, you’re not going to hear that out there.”
On his last home game: “It hits home that the end of the season’s right here. Not that it’s not real before, but it’s like, ‘All right, here it is, let’s go.’ It seems weird. I can remember coming up here my freshman summer, going through all the stuff, doing all that. There’s ups and downs all along the way. It’s just crazy to believe that the end is right here. … You never want to think about the last time you play in your home stadium as a loss. That’s never an appealing thought to anybody. A lot of guys are saying it’s about all the seniors and fifth-year guys and coming out here and doing it for us, so that means a lot that guys respect us that way.”
On his legacy: “Everybody wants to be remembered. It’s always a nice feeling. But it’s hard to look at the big picture while you’re here. Everything breaks down to such a week-by-week deal, you look at each game, prepare for each game. Then Monday comes around and it’s like, ‘Next game, here we go. Next opponent, next preparation, next up.”
On coach Charlie Weis: “You have to come in here and do your job, and I think he’s doing a good job at just coming in here and focusing on us and the team and what we need to do this week, next week and all the previous weeks, too. When he comes in and talks to us and all that, right now it’s about UConn, what we have to do for this week.”