The Fate of Notre Dame

The Fate of Notre Dame

Sometimes it is interesting to see how things play out with teams of controversy. Case in point: Notre Dame Football.

There are many fans of the Irish, but I have a hard time pulling for a school that seems to embody the parts of college sports that the media are afraid to talk about. Most novice fans forget that Notre Dame is supposed to be a religious school, but if you asked the average person that, they would be very surprised.

So in that “spirit” of education, I always thought the business of sports should reflect the school, and the foundation of the school…but I don’t believe it to be so. Personally speaking, I think Notre Dame Football is just as biased as the worst of Division I schools, and the football world saw this several years ago when this school hired Tyrone Willingham.

I personally think the process of how they shamelessly ran him out is an invisible cord to the REAL problems of our country, one we are too cowardly to talk about. But in any case, they fired Willingham and brought in Charlie Weis. In a few sub-par seasons, and less than what Willingham gave them, the Notre Dame alumni decided that he DESERVED a raise…

For WHAT?

But it didn’t matter, he still got one. And Notre Dame tried to soften their schedule to make their record look better, perhaps to fool the BCS that they were worthy of being in a big bowl, even if they did not play any real tough games.

That seemed to be the plan, wasn’t it?

So at the beginning of the college football year, we had to suffer through Lou Holtz’s prediction of what he felt his former team would do. With a smile on his lips and a LIE in his heart, this cat says on NATIONAL television that he believed Notre Dame was going to go 12-0 and compete for a national title.

How can anybody LIE about a religious school like that? I mean, I am not perfect in any stretch of the imagination, and I know every school is guilty in some aspect of some under-the-table stuff, but come on!

But he never took that back, this cat actually sat there and said Notre Dame was going 12-0. Oh wait, now I remember… they were going to honor him during the Michigan/Notre Dame game with a statue…so naturally he had to brown nose the university he used to coach for…

In other words, kiss butt.

I thought Lou Holtz had more pride than that. But that was the idea, that Notre Dame might finish 12-0. I remember watching his lie on ESPN and wondering why Mark May or Lee Corso didn’t reach over there and feel his forehead. The man was obviously sick.

But I looked at the schedule myself. At the beginning of the year, I felt that it was possible that Notre Dame could win 10 games, not because they were that good, but because the schedule was that soft. This was their design, to play weaker teams, sprinkle a tough team here or there to validate the record, and whine about deserving to be in the BCS hunt.

But you have to let the year play out.

Now, let me pause here to some of you who may be die-hard Notre Dame fans. I say to you that I am a very big sports fan, and I love college football. I also know that we all have teams we favor over all others. And I know that even as I can talk about Notre Dame, no Division I college football team is immune from criticism. NO team operates so cleanly that they are pure. I could just as easily jumped on Southern Mississippi, Nebraska, Kansas State, Clemson and others. But today I am just talking about the Irish. I don’t have a problem with the school per se or the basketball team, which I have watched many times, but I just don’t agree at all how terrible they run the football program, when this is supposed to be a “religious” institution.

You will know them by their fruit…do credible colleges and universities hire a man known for graduating his players, and then fire him before his contract is up? Do credible colleges and universities play “damage control” by hiring an African American former player to help recruit, knowing the backlash that was coming upon them? Do credible colleges and universities extend a man’s contract who has done nothing more for the university than the coach they fired?

So here we are, looking to see how great this Notre Dame team will be. The win the first game vs. San Diego State 21-13...so what. The second game was against a problematic Michigan, who had that unearthly embarrassing loss to App State last year. I actually thought Michigan could beat Notre Dame this year, but Michigan forgot how to hold on to the ball, and lost 35-17. So now there are whispers that maybe the Irish is pretty good this year.

But then they had to play away from home against Michigan State….and lost 23-7. So now Lou Holtz’s prediction was now in the gutter about Notre Dame going undefeated. But the Irish had two more home games, beating Purdue 38-21 and Stanford 28-21. At the moment they were 4-1, with all wins coming at home.

Then came the unexpected game…UNC. Nobody expected the Tarheels to be better than last year, as they were now ranked for the first time since cavemen walked the earth. An away game for Notre Dame against a quality team spelled their second loss, losing 29-24. Now it was getting serious because if Notre Dame kept losing, they could not even whine about getting a BCS bowl. The National Championship was out, and now a BCS bowl might be out as well.

The Irish gets their first win on the road against lowly Washington…a cruel spit in the face for the man that helped build Notre Dame until they kicked him out, by a score of 33-7. But then came some reality in their first home loss of the season, losing to a surprising Pittsburgh in overtime 36-33.

So now Notre Dame sits at 5-3, being off the radar for every top 25 poll in the nation except those that slurp the Irish. How they can get any votes is beyond me, but they got some.

And that brings us to yesterday, when Notre Dame loses another away game to Boston College 17-0, dropping their record to 5-4. And now with 3 games left, the Irish must now await their fate. No National Championship to shoot for, no BCS bowl to shoot for, and now the Irish must fight just to QUALIFY for a bowl.

Such a big drop from the perfect record Lou Holtz tried to prophesy.

Now Notre Dame has to scramble to win 6 games and qualify…and the next game is an away game vs. Navy. Notre Dame has not done so well when they leave their friendly confines, winning only one game on the road (Washington).

And yet, we examine your wins…San Diego State, currently 1-9. Second win against a 3-7 Michigan team. Third win vs. a 3-7 Purdue team. Fourth win vs. a 5-5 Stanford team and your fifth win vs. a 0-9 Washington team.

Total record of your wins, 12-37. Or an average of 2-7. These are the wins you picked up, but when it came to competitive games, you faltered. And yet this was the design, the “smoke and mirrors” that you created, that if you run the table on these teams, you would be deserving of such an honor as the National Championship.

No Notre Dame, this does not make you champions…you have to EARN it like everybody else.

So now you must travel TO Navy, to do something you are not good at doing, winning on the road and winning against a team with a decent record. And we are not quite sure what team we shall see in Navy; the team that lost to DUKE or the team that beat ranked Wake Forest. On paper, it seems that Notre Dame is doomed to lose, but we have learned too many times that this does not make it so. But to be sure, the Irish has their work cut out for them.

And should you lose that, you get the home cooking by having a 2-7 Syracuse visit you, so it appears that you may well get your wish of post season play, although most won’t glance your way in the uber-soft schedule you created for yourself. If the goal was to create a soft schedule to get to the post season, mission accomplished.

But your final game is against USC, a team that has been crying for a chance to get in the National Championship…and you will be an example to them. Southern Cal desires nothing more than to get in the BCS, and if that means hanging 50 points on you, so be it…and it just might be deserved.

It just might be justice that one of the icons of college football is stepped on like a common bug, as one team reaches up for glory, while the other shamelessly attempts to create false glory by putting old garments on new clothes. Notre Dame football could have scheduled almost any team in the country but opted to find the softest schedule they could while still trying to impress voters. That didn’t work out at all, losing 4 games to this point, and finding out that maybe, just MAYBE the rich alumni of Notre Dame’s ego can’t buy winning seasons.

I don’t blame the students of ND, it’s not their fault. I don’t blame the players of ND, it’s not their fault. I can’t even blame the coaches, it’s not their fault. I blame the university, from top to bottom. This is the fate of a team that listens more to rich alumni who apparently make decisions with their wallet rather than their faith…

And I thought this was a religious school…oh well, somebody better pray that Notre Dame wins 6 games, or else it’s another failed season. Something that may be an indication of things to come for this school.