The Official Notre Dame Football Thread

[Biggskip]

Originally Posted by HORNS

In what way? Facilities? The obsessiveness of the fanbase?

Notre Dame has been mediocre for a long time to make that statement with a straight face.

Those academic standards have been irrelevant for as long as Notre Dame's irrelevance in the national picture.

Originally Posted by Texasmade

Those academic standards didn't stop them in the 1980's from being competitive.

Re: Academic standards, see this (see the sidebar about 1/3 way down on LHS). You'll see that their rates are at or near twice that of many of the institutions that are competing for the National Title (TX, OK, USC, etc.).

Here's something that a year older with largely the same results. And this is at Notre Dame not SW Louisiana State Univ. U.S. News and World Report (not the best source, but it'll do) has them ranked 20th in the Country.

As for the program itself, they probably shouldn't be ranked in the top 15 again until they have gone to and won two or three bowl games in a row. That said, up until the last couple of years they routinely play a very difficult schedule, including annual meetings with USC, BC, and MI, and come out with a respectable record. This as opposed to the big dogs in the Big "12" who put together a string a patsies to play until the Conference Title game (which in itself has been TX/OK vs. another patsy).

 

[MrG]

This thread is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with Notre Dame football.

I mean, seriously, an entire thread (started in freakin' July) dedicated to one football team?

 

[Dakota rube]

Originally Posted by MrG

This thread is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with Notre Dame football.

I mean, seriously, an entire thread (started in freakin' July) dedicated to one football team?

You can't spell Notre Dame football without M - E

 

[ohm]

I like college football. ND is not good for college football. They play a few decent schools, mostly terrible schools, get overrated and go to a much better bowl game then they should because of their ability to fill seats and then get thrashed by the second team out of the ivy league (I kid, it's usually the fourth place team from a big conference). ND fans can't recognize that their team hasn't been a serious contender for the title in twenty years and when you combine that with Rudy you end up with a team that wins against the service academies and Michigan State (ok, sometimes they beat Michigan State) and has fans and media members angling for a BCS bid. ND consistently pulls in top recruiting classes and does jack with them. And then there's the racism. Not that everyone who loves ND is racist, but it looks a little funky when you hire a black coach and then a white coach and the two do almost exactly the same job and the black coach gets canned and the white coach gets a ten year extension worth eleventy billion dollars (and then gets canned for being a bad coach and a terrible person). Also, someone punched the star qb because he was playing poorly.

 

[Biggskip]

Originally Posted by ohm

but it looks a little funky when you hire a black coach and then a white coach and the two do almost exactly the same job and the black coach gets canned and the white coach gets a ten year extension worth eleventy billion dollars (and then gets canned for being a bad coach and a terrible person).

Oooo! And don't forget that they fired a white coach and hired an even whiter coach.

 

[MrG]

Originally Posted by Dakota rube

You can't spell Notre Dame football without M - E

Originally Posted by ohm

...And then there's the racism. Not that everyone who loves ND is racist, but it looks a little funky when you hire a black coach and then a white coach and the two do almost exactly the same job and the black coach gets canned and the white coach gets a ten year extension worth eleventy billion dollars (and then gets canned for being a bad coach and a terrible person).
...

This bothered me, too, and I'm usually the type of person who rolls their eyes at "that's racist!!!eleventy11!" rhetoric. I hate to think it's actually a manifestation of racism in the upper levels of Notre Dame athletics and boosters, but that whole situation stunk to me.

 

[magogian12345]

Originally Posted by ohm

And then there's the racism. Not that everyone who loves ND is racist, but it looks a little funky when you hire a black coach and then a white coach and the two do almost exactly the same job and the black coach gets canned and the white coach gets a ten year extension worth eleventy billion dollars (and then gets canned for being a bad coach and a terrible person).


That is such crap. Ty had one good season. After two crappy seasons, he was fired. Weis had two good seasons, which led to his extension. He had three crappy seaons and then was fired. One reason Weis was only fired until after 3 bad seaons was that in '07 and '08 almost all our skill players were freshman and sophmores. So, he was cut a lot of slack. When the team didn't perform in '09, it was over. Also, Weis consistently recruited very well, so there was always the potential for greatness. Ty only had one good recruiting season.

 

[StephenHero]

Originally Posted by ohm

And then there's the racism. Not that everyone who loves ND is racist, but it looks a little funky when you hire a black coach and then a white coach and the two do almost exactly the same job and the black coach gets canned and the white coach gets a ten year extension worth eleventy billion dollars (and then gets canned for being a bad coach and a terrible person). Also, someone punched the star qb because he was playing poorly.

This is so lazy and

. So they get no credit for hiring a black coach in the first place, but then because they fire him for going 11-12 in his final two seasons they're racist? He lost five games by more than 30 points. 30 POINTS! The man is 76-88-1 over his career. He's proven to be a terrible coach. His 11-37 stint at Washington should have ended that issue. But more importantly, do you honestly think Notre Dame gives a **** what color their coach is? I can assure you they don't. They're in the business of winning first and foremost. Using their head coaching position to advance a racial agenda is somewhere below the preferred flavor of sideline Gatorade in the hierarchy of issues important to Notre Dame brass. They retained Weis for longer because 1) they were already on their sixth coach in the past nine seasons 2) he was recruiting much better talent than Willingham 3) he took over a program with less talent than Willingham took over and 4) he was installing a new pro style offense and he needed players specifically suited to fit the system

 

[guster]

Maybe there should not be a thread for 1 team but in these forums there have been plenty examples of very narrow threads. Why not skip over it if not interested?

They have many supporters and plenty of people that tune in to root against them. They get good ratings, especially compared to alternatives that NBC has. Most importantly, they attract good advertiser dollars for the network. I don't think you have to be a fan of Notre Dame or the Yankees, Celtics/Lakers or Cowboys to understand wht thos teams are on TV so often.

As far as ND acedemics: there is a big difference between ND now, ND 10 years ago and ND in the 70's and 80's. ND got a new President in the 80's and he dramatically changed the acedemic requirements for the football team. They were always higher than most but they got much tougher. It has been written that some of the stars from their last National Championship team like (Tony Rice, Chris Zorich) would not be admitted a few years latyer to ND.

Things have slightly relaxed under the latest President- appointed 5 years ago. Interestingly, Malloy - the President that really toughened football admission standards publicly stated that he would not have gotten rid of Willingham. The incoming President allowed the AD to do that.

I don't buy the racist angle at all. WIllinghgam was regraded as lazy when it comes to recruiting. There recruiting kept getting worse and the Atheltic Department was very alarmed with what was happening in his last year. Read the blogs of the recruiting gurus for their perspective. They felt they needed an immediate change. And look at Willingham's record of recruiting, particulary for interior lineman. He left the Stanford proram in terrible shape as far as the interior. He was awful at ND and we can see his terrible overall record at Washington. There was also a strong feeling that ND teams got worse as games progresses under Ty. So his weaknesses were recruiting and game caoching. Not a combination that keeps you on any sideline for too long.

You can argue that the Administration made a poor choice with Weis. They certainly look like they did with Willingham and even Davie. It has been written that they put all their eggs in the Urban Meyer basket and did not do a good job with a backup plan. I think the AD arguement is they had to do something quickly because recruiting for that year was in terrible shape and needed a head coach. So why hire a guy that has a Super Bowl contending coache's job?

It will be interesting to see what happens with Kelly. The current team certainly looks like it has plenty of holes. Yes, an inexperieced QB. More importantly, the defense was poor last year. Kelly will use a new 3-4 defense but I doubt that will make up for the lack of talent and depth at the D-line position. Weiss did a horrible job recruiting for the D-line. It looks like he was making some inroads with the o-line after a few years of poor performance. (They blamed Ty's weakness there again, although Weis can't list that as a strength either!). We will see what he can do.

Is ND a College Football elite team? Cretainly not from a winning standpoint. They have tough acedemic standards and they graduate kids. Their kids have a high rate of getting good jobs after graduation, although that is harder to track vs other schools. Their record over the last 15 years has been of a good program. Certainly not the playing level of USC, Florida or some of the other powerhouses today. But I still like to root for the ND's, the Northwesterns, the Stanfords and other strong acedemic schools, even if they don't win many championships in College Football or Basketball.

 

[magogian12345]

Good comments. Anyway, back to more fun topics.

Anyone excited to see a healthy Michael Floyd?

 

[embowafa]

It has been 8 years, 273 days since Notre Dame last beat USC.

Carry on.

 

[guster]

Actually, I think the offical record is not that long. Of course the Irish are helped by USC having to forfeit a bunch of those wins when they were caught cheating. Of course now they have Lane Kiffen in charge so that will soon be a clean prog......err., uhh....never mind.

Seriously, it probably will still be a while before they can beat USC again. Even with the defections, that team is loaded with talent.

Originally Posted by embowafa

It has been 8 years, 273 days since Notre Dame last beat USC.

Carry on.

 

[MrG]

Originally Posted by guster

Actually, I think the offical record is not that long. Of course the Irish are helped by USC having to forfeit a bunch of those wins when they were caught cheating. Of course now they have Lane Kiffen in charge so that will soon be a clean prog......err., uhh....never mind.

Seriously, it probably will still be a while before they can beat USC again. Even with the defections, that team is loaded with talent.

He's right. It's been that long.

Also, Notre Dame doesn't gain anything from USC's punishment. USC's wins were vacated, not forfeited.

 

[embowafa]

Originally Posted by guster

Actually, I think the offical record is not that long. Of course the Irish are helped by USC having to forfeit a bunch of those wins when they were caught cheating. Of course now they have Lane Kiffen in charge so that will soon be a clean prog......err., uhh....never mind. Seriously, it probably will still be a while before they can beat USC again. Even with the defections, that team is loaded with talent.
Nope! It's that long. October, 2001. They only forfeited once...buut, I was at that game in 05...pretty sure this still happened, regardless of what the bullshit NCAA says:
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[magogian12345]

That win was an appropriate USC victory. An illegal push by a player illegally enticed to USC.