Rakes Of Mallow

Welcome to the new Rakes Of Mallow and SB Nation

clockwerks — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:19:43 -0000

Hey Rakes Of Mallow,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

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What Has Changed

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What's New

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Hey Jeff! Does Lake Superior State Have a Basketball/Football Coach?

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:34:56 -0000

And of course there's a story behind that headline. Anybody who was at ND in the fall of 1981 will remember Gerry Faust's first game, a defeat of LSU leading to our only # 1 ranking for a long while. We didn't know it at the time, but we'd just witnessed the zenith of Gerry Faust's college coaching career. We were fans then, and young.

Anyway, the day after that game, someone hung a banner outside Alumni Hall, reading, "Hey Gerry! Does Moeller Have a Basketball Coach?" Less well known is the fact that it was hung on the side of Alumni facing the Law School, and in particular the side on which Digger's wife had her office; I have it on good authority that she came tearing into the dorm, demanding the banner be removed, and telling all who would hear that that was the kind of thing that broke up families. The Phelps', I think, was never a model marriage.

But I digress. The sentiment could well be applied today as the Irish prepare for their first-ever NCAA hockey championship game. Because, simply, hiring Jeff Jackson was perhaps the smartest thing ND has done in the athletic arena in recent memory.

As I see it, the Holy Grail of coaching hires is to get someone who can bring you to the next level or, if you're at the next level, won't drop you a level. In football, and things like fencing, that's usually meant, "Someone who will keep you at the top." In other sports, that's usually meant someone who will take a program that's plateaued and elevate it to a new level of competitiveness.

We've had trouble in that area, as everyone knows. True, in some of the so-called lesser sports we've met with some success (I think of things like baseball, men's and women's soccer). But mostly what you hear about are the spectacular missteps - the he's-hired-no-he's-not dance the administration did with Rick Majerus, the game of one-two-three O'Leary after finally dumping Davie, leading to the less-than-happy Willingham regime.

Even when things haven't blown up, they haven't been totally successful. Basketball is a case in point. Many of us concluded a long time ago that Digger was on autopilot, that he'd contented himself with winning his 20 games a year and getting his NCAA bid and bowing out somewhere in the mid-rounds. His one Final Four looked more and more like the fluke it was. Eventually the University agreed, but just wasn't able to close the deal for that coach who would bring us closer to the brass ring. John McLeod might have seemed like a good idea at the time, although those pro coach-to-college moves always seem to look better on paper than in real life. Then there was Matt Doherty, who inspired hope until he decamped for Chapel Hill - and look how well that turned out for him. Finally, we settled on Mike Brey, for whom the job was definitely a step up after his success at Delaware.

The jury's still out in my mind on Brey. So far, he hasn't managed to out-Digger Digger as near as I can tell: our men's basketball team can reliably be counted on not to win more than one game in either the Big East Tournament or the NCAA. But, on the other hand, this isn't Digger's day. College basketball dynasties are a thing of the past, and Brey (or any coach) can be one or two exceptional players away from fielding a dominant team - and losing those players the following year. Given the volatile nature of college basketball, I'm not quite willing to say that Mike Brey can't take us to the Final Four. I'm just saying that so far he hasn't come close, and you wonder just how long we wait before we move on to someone who might get us there.

(Update: Okay, when I said he "hasn't come close," I forgot that we did, in fact, make the Sweet 16 in 2003, which is pretty good. Emphasis on "pretty." But that's as close as we've come to a Final Four in the Brey era that I can remember.)

Football - well, enough pixels have been spilled on that one. I think everyone wants Charlie Weis to succeed (in a way that, as I've said before, they didn't want Willingham to succeed, not that Ty didn't oblige them in that). Hell, I want Weis to succeed. I sure as hell don't want to sit through another 3-9 season, nor do I want to settle for 6-6 or 7-5 and call it "improvement." But Charlie's on a much shorter leash than Mike Brey - if he doesn't have us in the national championship hunt, and soon, we're going to be looking for yet another head football coach, one who can take us back to that top level, if he exists, if he can work under the constraints of our program, and if he wants to work for this administration.

As it is, though, Jeff Jackson is the Holy Grail Coach. He's already gotten us a conference championship, and he's gotten us into our first championship game, and all in relatively short order. Because he knew the way, having won championships at Lake Superior State. I'm having a little trouble coming up with Jeff Jackson's equivalents in football or basketball - don't laugh, as you age your analogy gland will start failing on you too - but I'm pretty sure we've never interviewed them.

At the risk of jinxing the Irish Icers (Icerish?), though, I'm positively giddy at the thought that on Saturday night, the hockey team can do two things the football team hasn't managed in recent memory: win a national championship, and beat Boston Effing College. And if we do win, Jeff Jackson will have cemented his legacy in the pantheon of Irish coaches - the Ara of Irish Hockey if you will. (Okay, so maybe the analogy gland still works a little bit.)

Poll

How will the Irish do in the NCAA Hockey Championship Game?

Cutcliffe to Duke?

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:37:22 -0000

Seriously?

Cutliffe is gonna go coach duke according to ESPN. Also, Kirk Herbstreit heard from Les Miles's gardner that Senor Miles is now leading towards going to Michigan to coach Women's Lacrosse.

The site is making me add more lines to post my diary.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

Momentum

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:40:56 -0000

Well, we managed to go out on a "positive" note, winning our last two games for the first time since 1992. Being a glass-half-empty kind of a guy, though, I'm not as enthused about the finish as some might be (bearing in mind that it doesn't seem that anyone is exactly doing cartwheels over the finish).

As I've said before, strong finishes have not been our long suit over the last several years - the Davie, Willingham, and Weis teams seemed to just run out of gas near season's end. This year's schedule (for which we were roundly derided pre-season) should have been an antidote to that, closing with relatively weak teams calculated to let us ride four easy victories into whatever bowl we thought we'd get into.

Instead, we only went .500 over that four-game stretch (after going .143 for the eight-game stretch that preceded it). I'm not sure that counts as a "strong finish" in anyone's book, hence the scare quotes around "positive" in that first graf.

Once it became obvious that this season was headed toward an Amtrak-level derailment, my only hope was that we would at least show some improvement as the season progressed. Recall that one of the reasons Kevin White gave for ashcanning Willingham was that the program did not "create the positive momentum necessary in our efforts to return the Notre Dame program to the elite level of the college football world." Mind you, he was talking about season-to-season momentum, and the two blah seasons following Willingham's honeymoon campaign certainly bore out that assessment.

(Incidentally, as I write this it doesn't look like Charlie Weis is going anywhere, but I have yet to see the outcry of "racism" that I feared and predicted in an earlier diary. It may be too soon to tell, but I think Willingham's record at Washington has probably dampened any such accusations. If Willingham had been fired by ND and then proceeded to tear up the Pac-10, the racism allegation might have had legs. As it is, Willingham has done his level best to prove that his firing was likely less about the color of his skin and more about the fact that he's just not a very good coach. I mean, two 21-point leads blown? He's in the basement of the Pac 10. I think Jenkins and McCartan ought to send the guy a nice fruit basket - okay, maybe a fruitcake - at the very least, for making them look a tad bit smarter than they actually are.)

But momentum isn't limited to a trajectory over the course of several seasons. You want to see it during a season too, by which I mean, you expect the team to be playing better at season's end than they were at the beginning. And I have to say, I just haven't seen it this year. True, we scored three (really four) offensive touchdowns at Stanford, which it took us what, four or five games to score at the beginning of the year? But that was against a 3-7 team. In fact, our final three opponents clocked in at a combined 14-22 for the year, compared to 23-13 for our first three opponents. It's hardly a comparison, really. And the dumb penalties and turnovers were still as prevalent as ever during the Stanford game. Those things you expect from a young team at the beginning of a season, but they're exactly the kind of things you also expect to diminish as the players gain experience over the course of the year. Didn't happen to any appreciable degree that I can see.

Frankly, I had great hopes for the USC game. Really, I did. We'd only won the one game at that point, and we weren't looking great, but there had been momentary flashes of, if not greatness, at least competence. Plus, SC was looking vulnerable, with their near-loss at Washington and actual loss - at home no less - to Stanford. If, I reasoned, the Irish team that played the second half at Purdue showed up for four quarters, and the SC team that lost to Stanford showed up, we might have us a ball game, if not a potential upset. Even a close loss like the 2005 game would have been a turning point for our program, I think.

Instead, we let SC drop the worst loss on us in the history of the series, didn't put Point One on the board, and the season just went more to hell until we got to the two weakest teams on the schedule. I don't hear a lot of people calling that positive momentum, and neither do I.

This isn't to say there weren't some bright spots to the season. The defense generally looked good, when they weren't dog-tired from being on the field too long, and as MSNBC's Eric Hansen noted, our pass-efficiency defense scored major improvements. Pass defense has been our Achilles heel for a long time, so that's an accomplishment. Clausen showed he can take a hit - nay, several hits - and with some maturity and an O-line that gives him some protection, he might develop into a good QB.

Overall, though, I'd have to say that the 2007 season disappointed in almost every conceivable fashion. Weis has already mea-ed his culpas, although I'm interested to see whether, and how, Jenkins tries to apply lipstick to this particular pig, especially now that his "pay double to get a ticket application" policy is going into effect. But, again, my breath I'm not holding.

I dunno. It's been such a screwy season overall, maybe we can get everybody to agree to pull a Bobby Ewing this year - just pretend this season was all a bad dream, and get on with the college football world the way it's supposed to be, with no team in the championship game with more than one loss, and Notre Dame winning more than three. It could work. Although I don't volunteer to be the one who finds Charlie Weis in the shower (shudder).

Poll

How do you rate this season's trajectory, from start to finish?

Like the Desert Misses the Rain

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:08:39 -0000

Where have you gone?

Robert Gilleran,

I miss you. Your lists were a little out there, but please sir, return to us. I need that little dose of unrelenting support for the Irish every day.

Help me, good sir.

Poll

Do you miss Robert Gilleran's Comments

History's Greatest Monster??

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:41:56 -0000

(h/t to "The Simpsons," who described Jimmy Carter as such in the episode "Marge in Chains")

Wow. 1-9. A couple weeks ago I said it was "at least possible" that we'd finish 3-9. Oh, I was young then, full of bright hope for the future. Now 3-9 has moved from "at least possible" to "mortal lock," and 2-10 is now "possible," with 1-11 being "at least possible" (personally, I don't see us losing to Duke, but the teams are looking evenly matched, the only difference being that we've been beaten by a generally higher class of opponent).

As I've prowled around the ND blogosphere, however, I'm noting an interesting trend. It's by no means universal, but there are a lot of people who place the blame for this season solely and squarely on Tyrone Willingham. That's right. Almost three years after he coached his last game at ND, he's being blamed for our Worst Season Ever (geez, another "Simpsons" reference - will they never end?).

I mean, damn. If the guy is so powerful he can cause a team to lose that long after he leaves, you'd think he'd be doing better in his new job. He should be concentrating on winning games at Washington, not losing games at ND, but there you are. Some people just have their priorities straighter than others, I guess.

In other news, rumor has it that the missing frames 208-211 of the Zapruder film clearly show a young Tyrone Willingham behind the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza with a high-powered rifle. There's also talk that he provided the faulty intelligence on WMD's that led us into the war in Iraq.

Okay, enough of Facetiousness Theatre. Seriously, though, I don't recall anyone blaming Bob Davie for Willingham's lackluster second and third seasons, any more than I recall anyone giving Willingham credit for recruiting Quinn and Samardzjia, the backbone of Weis's first two teams. Yes, yes, I get it that Willingham's recruiting was not stellar, especially in his last season. And if we were 7-5 or 6-6 or 5-7 I'd be more inclined to put more of the blame on the bare cupboard he left - hey, look what Weis had to rebuild with, we're lucky we won five or six games. But 1-9? No amount of bad recruiting alone can explain that. Plus, remember, maybe half the players out there now were recruited by Willingham, and none of them is currently being coached by him. So we can assign some of the blame to Tyrone Willingham, but certainly not all of it.

Why this vilification? What did Tyrone Willingham do to any of us other than be a mediocre football coach and below-average recruiter?

Frankly, I think that for a variety of reasons Willingham was never really embraced by ND Nation. To start with, he was always the second choice. George O'Leary, a good Irishman, was hired to replace Bob Davie. We all know what happened there. So we went to Willingham, who took the job after being turned down once, but everyone knew he wasn't really the guy we wanted. Whereas, while it was widely rumored that Jenkins wanted Urban Meyer to take over for Willingham, Meyer took himself out of the running before an offer could be extended, and so Charlie Weis came out as our first choice, even if he really wasn't.

Also, Willingham didn't fit the stereotype (you should excuse the expression) of an ND football coach or, indeed, a football coach. Where Weis is big, beefy, crew-cut, tough-talking, New Jersey, Willingham was thin, soft-spoken, corporate, near-emotionless. Looking at Willingham on the sideline, you'd almost never know how the game was going. Not true of Weis (nor, I suspect, of O'Leary). Plus, there's the alumni factor with Weis - he gets ND in a way one suspects Tyrone Willingham never did. Also, Charlie has the charity for his challenged daughter, giving him that touch of tragic backstory that so stirs the Irish soul (see also, e.g., Ara Parseghian). Finally, whether wittingly or unwittingly, Weis (or his agent, or both) has cultivated the image that he's wanted elsewhere, that he could walk out of ND and back to the NFL at any moment. Nobody's as popular as someone else's date, right?

But let's face it, if you called Central Casting and asked them to send over a head college football coach, they'd send someone who looked like Charlie Weis or George O'Leary before they'd send you Tyrone Willingham. Ask for a tax lawyer or a college English professor (and specify African-American) and you'd get Willingham.

Of course, none of this would've mattered if Willingham had won 11 games in each of his last two seasons. But his personality was such that ND fans weren't inclined to rally behind him after two utterly mediocre campaigns. In a way, this isn't fair - Willingham is who he is, and one shouldn't have expected him to change his personality to suit the fans. Certainly, his demeanor off the field reflected nothing but credit on his employer (which is more than could be said for his predecessor, in my view). One has to wonder if, had we kept George O'Leary and he had turned in the same record as Willingham, we'd have been as quick to fire him, or as quick to blame him in the current circumstances.

(And no, I'm not discounting the race factor here, although I don't think it was anything so overt and obvious as, "we don't like him `cause he's black." But I think the overall consensus about Willingham was that he just wasn't one of us, and not being "one of us" has been code for racism for as long as there have been races. Certainly, it'll be played that way in some quarters if/when Weis is not let go. Again, though, had Willingham been more successful on the field, he would have been embraced whether he was black, green, or purple-and-orange plaid. I'm just saying that in some subtle way, the fact that he had the restrained personality he had, coupled with the novelty of being the first black head coach at ND, probably didn't help people warm to him when times were tough.)

But really. Can we at least stop beating up on the guy? It was three years ago. We have to move on. We need to address the problems now, here, today, that Tyrone Willingham can't solve. Moreover, we don't want to get into the habit of assigning blame to previous coaches, especially as his players continue to graduate. We're going to lose that scapegoat soon enough.

Random stupid thought:

- Is anyone as thoroughly sick of the Xerox "mute button" commercial as I am? Gawd, is it bad. It's not funny, it doesn't really promote the product. I have no idea why they made this. Okay, Beth Littleford is a babe and has been since her "Daily Show" days, but still. Enough with that ad.

I did like the "numismatist" ad, though, although one can see that it'll be played to death. But the "mute button" was a loser from the first airing.

The RoM 2005 Fighting Irish Replay!

Philip Fitzsimmons — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:22:39 -0000

I am going to give all RoM readers a chance to take their minds off 2007 and remember 2005,Charlie's 1st year at ND as I do a replay of the 2005 Fighting Irish season using a simulation game called Quick Play Football that I downloaded at http://www.tabletop-sports.com . This game offers a quick and fast scores and only takes a few minutes,and you'll learn more at that site. Anyway,I am here to replay the great 2005 season to see if the Irish can do better than 9-3,and would win a bowl game and win the National Championship. Here is the 2005 Irish schedule:

9/3 @Pitt
9/10 @Michigan
9/17 Michigan State
9/24 Washington
10/1 @Purdue
10/15 USC
10/22 BYU
11/5 Tennessee
11/12 Navy
11/19 Syracuse
11/26 @Stanford

Let's all hope that the Irish can do well in this replay compared to what they did in real life!

"Tomorrow we start tearing down the college."

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:13:39 -0000

It was a weird sensation. As I watched the Navy game, I just couldn't work up the usual enthusiasm/angst. Ordinarily, I'm a basket case watching a close ND game. Saturday, I achieved an almost Zen-like state. Only seven steps more down the eightfold path and I'll be an ascended master, or something.

Seriously, though, I was glad when we scored and made good plays, but I wasn't devastated when we didn't. I haven't felt this way since the 2001 season, the Bob Davie Farewell Tour: when we won, great; when we lost, it was one more nail in the coffin of the man I consider to be the worst ND coach, on and off the field, of the last four decades (the reasons for this would be a whole `nother diary, so I'll pass on that for now).

But it's not like I bear any particular malice toward Charlie Weis. Yeah, I've heard the rumors that he's mercurial and can be abusive to his players (and, gosh, that never happens in football), and his record this year speaks for itself, but he seems like an okay guy. Lord knows I have no problem with the players; generally, I'm against being too harsh on guys who aren't being paid for their efforts, and who are probably doing the best jobs they can. And I certainly feel for the students, especially the seniors, who seem to be taking this pretty hard. CW and your classmates, and I say this with no trace of sarcasm or irony, I feel your pain. Hell, my senior year was Gerry Faust's first season - a 5-6 campaign following a 9-2-1 year. 5-6, and we were # 1 in the polls for one week. We thought it was a tragedy; I'm betting this year's seniors are thinking that sounds pretty good right about now.

No, as you may have gleaned from my previous diary, the reason I'm beyond caring how badly we do this season comes largely from my desire to watch Father John Jenkins and Patrick McCartan and the rest of the unholy cabal that put us in this position in the first place squirm, and spin, and try to justify their bad decisions. More: I want to see how they put this right, if they can.

Not that I have that kind of faith in those bozos. I've been watching the circus sideshow that has been ND athletic hiring for the last decade or so (starting with the we-hired-him/no-we-didn't dance with Rick Majerus), and have been listening to the my-school-right-or-wrong apologists for the last three years, and I'm not impressed. Basically, what seems to be happening is that football has become the be-all and end-all of every major decision by the University - at least, the ones that get national press coverage. It's not just the money, the NBC contract, the crass inflation of the alumni donation minimums so we can get ticket applications to see a 1-8 team stumble around the field. It's the fact that I've heard other alumni tell me how important the football is, how not just donations but applications to the school fall when we have a bad season. How football is so all-fired important to Notre Dame on every level.

I'm not saying that's not true. I'm saying it's pretty goddamn sad.

Ted Hesburgh would never, not in the million years or so that he was university president, have let the football tail wag the ND dog like it does now. Ted Hesburgh's legacy - well, one of his many legacies - was to turn Notre Dame from a small parochial school with a great football team into a national university with a football team. But ever since Jenkins's rumored grand-mal hissy fit following the 2004 USC loss, it seems that he has been trying to emulate one of two characters: former University of Oklahoma president George Cross, who famously remarked that he wanted to build a university the football team can be proud of; or the fictional Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, played by Groucho Marx in the movie Horsefeathers, who had the following exchange with two other professors:

''Where would this college be without football? Have we got a stadium?''
''Yes.''
''Have we got a college?''
''Yes.''
''Well, we can't support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.''

It's been said over and over that character is revealed during hard times. Well, times are hard in the ND football program, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of character is revealed, especially at the university's upper echelons. But I'm not concerned with this in an academic way; I'm not the Character Police over here. How we handle this season, how we handle Coach Weis, will have a real impact on the future of ND football, if for no other reason than it will decide whom we can get to replace Weis, whether this year or down the road.

It's been speculated that one of the reasons Jenkins was so quick to pull the trigger on Tyrone Willingham was that he thought he could nab Urban Meyer as our next coach. Meyer had coached at ND before, he was coming off great success at Utah, all the stars seemed aligned. Yet he passed on us on his way to Florida. It's not hard to see why. If one reasons that, at both schools, you have at most three years to achieve a measure of success, you go to the school that gives you the best chance of doing that in that time frame. I think the results speak for themselves. Given the choice between two schools, one that's a proven football factory, one that wants to become one, choose the one with the track record.

Another rumor about Willingham's demise is that he wouldn't get rid of certain assistant coaches that the university administration wanted gone. I don't know if it's true, but the rumor's out there, and it's again calculated to keep an experienced college head coach away from ND. Nobody likes to be micromanaged, least of all a head football coach.

Of course, there may be absolutely nothing to that rumor but, again, we broke tradition by firing Willingham after three years instead of the usual five. There had to be some reason for it, and if the administration wasn't being upfront about the real reason, it had to lead to some speculation among potential job applicants. What is undeniably true is that virtually no one with major college head coaching experience wanted the job. And that, I think, is ultimately what we need. We need the football equivalent of ND hockey coach Jeff Jackson: somebody who's won a championship at the major college level, and who can do it without compromising ethical or academic standards. Whether such a man exists is one thing. Whether we can interest him in the job is another. But it's never going to happen with the reek of desperation pouring out of the administration building.

And desperation is just not warranted. Okay, we're having a bad year. A disastrous, horrible, pig-fornicator of a year, yes, but a bad year. News flash: They happen. A few years ago Penn State alumni were trying to move JoePa into a condo in Leisure World. They got over it. Nebraska is only ten years removed from its last national championship, and Kansas dropped 79 points on them last Saturday. Bad streaks happen, too. Many have bemoaned our six-game losing streak to USC. Few recall that, from 1983-1996, USC couldn't buy a victory over us. They were 0-12-1 against ND over a 13-year stretch. They seem to have bounced back.

If we can all get off our high-four-horsemen for a minute, if we can leave our tradition at the door and assume that nobody's going to coach here just because We Are ND, we can still agree that Notre Dame has the basic ingredients of an elite football program. We have state-of-the-art facilities and a national TV contract (for now, at least). We can offer athletes who want it a 90+ percent chance to graduate with a diploma that's got to be worth more than one from Florida or Nebraska (no offense to my Gator-alumni friends). Yes, we have parietals and academic standards and lousy weather, but despite those things we seem to be able to snag our fair share of blue-chip recruits. What we need is university leadership that keeps this all in perspective, that announces to the college football world by its actions that it wants an experienced coach who can win while maintaining our standards, and will give that man the time to develop a program, and not go into crisis mode when we have a bad year. Face it, any school can be a football factory. Any school can promise you that you're only as good as your last season, and that alumni will scream for your head if it's a bad one. Show a potential head coach that the administration will stand behind him, for a reasonable period at least, and you stand a better chance of hiring a good one.

I don't know if Charlie Weis is ultimately the answer. As I said before, I'm willing to wait two more years to find out, even though we'll catch some merciless abuse for not firing him this year, thanks to the genius decisions of 2002 (see my previous diary). But if it works out that Weis is not the Savior of ND Football, I'd like a chance to hire that man when the day comes, not just settle for some alumnus who coached some Division II ball, or some NFL assistant who's used to dealing with pro veterans as opposed to green kids out of high school.

Failing to win football games doesn't make you a loser. Panicking like a bunch of mewling infants because you fail to win football games does. Something I'd like the university administration to think about.

Regardless of this year's 1-8 disaster,...

Philip Fitzsimmons — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:35:56 -0000

I will still follow the Irish forever! Last week I just ordered a game called Adams Football,and I am going to replay the 2006 Fightin' Irish season,and I think I can coach Notre Dame to a bowl victory (even the BCS championship) when I get my game. I am going to post my replays at http://forums.delphiforums.com/adamgames and I will also have a blog about my 2006 Irish replay. Hopefully,if I get the '07 Adams Football game,the Irish will be better than this 1-8 team! I'll keep you updated when my game comes in!

Congratulations Ryan Grant

BlackOps — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:21:34 -0000

22 carries, 104 yards in a win for the Packers last week versus the Broncos.

Would anybody have ever guessed that this guy would have a game even close to this in the NFL?

Don't give up Darius Walker... Don't give up anyone. It's nice to see that a guy can go undrafted and still have something to be very proud of other than simply playing in college or being signed to an NFL team. He performed.

The Man Responsible

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:48:49 -0000

As I write this, Notre Dame's football season is a train wreck. After the first 0-5 start in the program's history, we stand at 1-7, for the first time since the early 1960s. Our program is nothing so much as a high-voltage schadenfreude generator for ESPN and the rest of college sports punditry. Fans have been reduced to celebrating each first down and completed pass as if they were Fiesta Bowl wins. If the season continues down this path, the University administration will face some hard decisions. And I, as one alumnus, am calling on the man responsible to do the honorable thing.

Father Jenkins, you should resign.

Sure, you thought I was going to call for Charlie Weis's resignation. Coach Weis, I'm sure, would agree that this season has been (to put it mildly) a disappointment. However, in his defense, he took a job that virtually everyone with major college head coaching experience broke land-speed records running away from, after the unceremonious dumping of Coach Willingham in 2002. Weis coached the Irish to two winning (although, as discussed below, probably oversold) seasons. And, at the risk of sounding pollyannish, there are fleeting signs that this team, if it gets over the freshman yips and begins to gel, could turn out to be pretty good, eventually. I also think Weis, like any coach, should only be judged after he's had a chance to field a team that's composed solely of his recruits.

But I thought that of Coach Willingham, too, his own shortcomings notwithstanding. And while the decision to kick him to the curb was a PR disaster of breathtaking proportions, it was as nothing compared to the end of this season, when it comes time to decide Coach Weis's fate. Because of that disastrous decision three years ago, the Board of Trustees and Father Jenkins have set up Notre Dame for an even bigger black eye. And although I want to see the football team win, I can live with a bad season. What I won't tolerate is an administration that seems bent on sullying my alma mater's reputation and, to be honest if somewhat crass, reducing the value of my two ND diplomas. In marketing terms, they've harmed the brand, and are poised to harm it more.

Breaking tradition by firing Coach Willingham after only three seasons, rather than five, was bad enough, sparking cries of "football factory." Choosing to break that tradition with ND's first African-American head coach (after accepting numerous plaudits for hiring Willingham in the first place) added a layer of perceived racism. Those defending the decision cite various rumored but unconfirmed reasons for it (e.g., the "he wouldn't fire an assistant coach" rumor, the "heading off a student protest of our first black coach" rumor). I won't address those, nor will I dignify the claims of some of Father Jenkins's apologists who've attempted to parse Coach Willingham's contract for any number of benchmarks that he supposedly didn't achieve. Certainly, Tyrone Willingham had his faults as a recruiter and a coach (although, I would argue, nowhere near as many as his predecessor, Bob Davie, who got a contract extension in his third year rather than the boot). My criticism of the Willingham firing is based solely on those reasons actually announced by the school at the time of the firing, by which the rest of the world judged the decision.

At that time, Father Jenkins stated that success as a Notre Dame head football coach consists of "acting with integrity, giving our students a superb education and excelling on the field," adding that, "Success in only one or two of these areas is not the success we seek. Just as we would not tolerate a program which failed to graduate its students or to act with integrity, so we should not be content with one that fails to succeed on the field." It's difficult to argue with those metrics; any school should demand those things of its coaches, and indisputably there are schools that settle for only two or even one of those factors - usually the last.

But the Jenkins Doctrine added a fourth, implicit criterion: we want all of those things, and we want them now. Coach Willingham didn't win enough games fast enough, thus his early exit.

The need for this undue haste, naturally, came down to dollars. Father Jenkins had a television contract to protect, not to mention merchandising rights, ticket sales, and alumni donations (particularly from those yahoos whose donations correlate with the number of wins). And it seemed at first that he got what he wanted when he hired Coach Weis, who followed 5-7 and 6-6 campaigns with 9-3 and 10-3 seasons.

Mind you, some of us weren't as impressed with the 2005 and 2006 seasons as the record might indicate. Close examination reveals a squad that beat the weak teams, struggled against the mediocre teams (a come-from-behind victory over North Carolina? At home??) and, with one exception (the 2005 USC game), was fed its lunch by every elite team it faced, including and especially in post-season bowls. Won-loss records aside, the 2005-06 Irish did not herald ND's return to college football's elite.

Which didn't stop Father Jenkins from spinning it that way. Indeed, he seized the opportunity to double the minimum alumni donation needed to qualify for a football ticket application, and to increase the recognition society amounts by 50 percent. We're back, was the message, and if you want to see the newly resurgent Irish it's gonna cost ya.

(As of this writing, there's no sign that the University is backing down from this. Just last week I received the slick come-on for Sorin Society membership and, yes, the minimum is now up to a large-and-a-half from the previous grand.)

I'm guessing that Father Jenkins will be looking in vain for those increased donations. That's what happens when you count your victories before the games are played. And that's what happens when you kowtow to big-money donors who care less about graduation rates than they do about bowl victories. Because that's what happens at, well, football factories.

But the bar has been set: The head football coach has to behave ethically, graduate players, and win, and do it in three years or else. Which brings us to the end of this season. If the team finishes 3-9 - and we must admit it's at least possible - then Coach Weis's three-year record will be 22-15, only one game better than Willingham's 21-16. As I suggested in the first graf, this leads to some seriously unattractive options. We can fire Coach Weis, at no small expense, and cement our reputation as a would-be football factory (not to mention the large and looming question of whom we would get to replace him). We can keep him on, spinning the decision in a vain attempt to keep from appearing to be stone racists. "Weis is a better recruiter," some would say. Doesn't fly. If, as Kevin White said of Willingham, the performance from Sunday to Friday exceeded expectations, but we fired him because of the results on Saturdays, why is it not fair to say of Weis that the performance from December to August exceeded expectations, but he fell down from September through November? "Two good seasons and one horrible one trumps one good season and two mediocre ones," is another spin option. Again, no sale. Willingham's 5-7 and 6-6 seasons were nothing to write home about, but the team wasn't the laughingstock it is now. And neither Willingham nor Weis has beaten USC. Reportedly (and yes, I know, this is rumor) Jenkins was more than upset after Willingham lost to USC in 2004 by 31 points, in Los Angeles (never mind that a few weeks later, Number 2 Oklahoma lost to USC by 36 points, on a neutral field). And if it is true that a 41-10 loss to Southern Cal on the road could get Jenkins's collar in a wad, what happens after a 38-point shutout at home?

The fact is, absent some kind of miraculous turnaround in the next four games, some definitive running of the table (after all, the one thing you couldn't say of the 2002-06 Irish is that they finished strong), it won't be a question of whether Weis or Willingham was the worse coach. It'll only be true that they were bad in different ways. Which leaves no principled basis for treating them differently at the three-year mark, and leads to a potential PR dilemma of near-Biblical proportions.

There is a third option. Father Jenkins can admit he was wrong three years ago, and say what he should have said then: Yes, we want to win. We don't have a football team just to watch them lose. But there are more important things than winning football games, and we're committed to giving our coaches a fair chance before deciding whether to keep them. We should have done that with Coach Willingham, and we will do that with Coach Weis and his successors. Check back with us in two years and we'll let you know whether Charlie Weis stays or goes; in the meantime, we're behind our coach.

Personally, I'm skeptical that Father Jenkins possesses that kind of candor and humility. But as an alumnus, I hope he does, and as future alumni the current students should too. As students, naturally you're focused on the state of the team now, for school pride, bragging rights with your high school friends, etc. But you'll hopefully be alumni for longer than you're students, and you should care about what happens then, too. Notre Dame has never lacked for detractors, and you're going to be dealing with them for the rest of your lives. When the days come (and believe me, they will) that some co-worker wants to give you abuse because you went to ND, you want to be able to hold your head high and defend your school, rather than apologize for it. When the day comes that your resume is in a stack with applicants from Princeton, Duke, Stanford, and Amherst, the last thing you'll want is for the hiring person to look at your CV and scoff, "football factory," before tossing it aside. Those are the days you'll wish the University administration worried less about how badly USC beat us on the field, and more about the University's reputation off the field.

(Author's Note: This was originally conceived as a guest column for The Observer , and was submitted to it. However, even after killing poodles right and left and trimming it to a lean 1200 words, it was still twice as long as the average Observer column, which is probably one of the reasons they didn't run it. Fair enough. So I've re-expanded it a bit for posting here, but I wanted to explain why it seems to be pitched mostly to students. I myself am a current alumnus/former student.)

Bad news for Conquest Chronicle readers...

Philip Fitzsimmons — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:02:03 -0000

I know all of you Trojan fans and members of Conquest Chronicle are still gloating over your 38-0 murdering of Our Sons of Erin,but you know what,you strong,tanned SoCal primadonnas? We still own you! Want proof? The Irish and Trojerks have played 79 games in this historic series. And even though we have lost 6 in a row to the Trojerks,I am proud to tell everyone at Rakes of Mallow that WE STILL LEAD THE ALL TIME SERIES AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY OF SPOILED CHILDREN!
Conquest Chronicle readers,read this and weep. And Rakes of Mallow readers,celebrate with me:
AFTER 79 BATTLES OF THE JEWELED SHILLALEIGH,THE SCORE IS:
Our Notre Dame Fighting Irish:42 wins
The University of Spoiled Children Trojerks:32 wins
5 games settled for a draw.
So,Irish fans,even though we have lost 6 straight against USC,we can still keep our heads up high when we play the Trojerks next year because we lead the all-time series with 'SC 42-32-5! Kiss my Fighting Irish arse,Trojerk fans! See you in L.A. in November,2008!

Even the Green Jerseys can't help this bunch

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:00:00 -0000

This bunch of leprechauns disguised as football players should be green...with envy for schools that can actually play the game. Green-faced ill over how pathetic this version of the Fighting (Sparring?) Irish. They may not beat So Cal again this millenium. Not as long as Charlie Weis is your coach! He acts like he just doesn't care. It looks like his fat paychecks are adequately filling his equally fat belly. It is so pleasurable to see all you pompous ND lovers eat some crow. You should have known your team would stink again this year. It would be even funnier to see you go oh-for-2007! You just gotta love it!

Those Uniforms Were Divine

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:39:53 -0000

Has the "luck-o-the-Irish found a new home?" You decide. A view from the west coast...

Notre Dame is 0-5, and each week reaches new depths for woe. At least for the ND faithful. And with that thought, I turn to an epiphany that rivals Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

Notre Dame has long been renowned by its uncanny ability to win when it shouldn't have. Luck-o-the-Irish? God? Those of us who count ourselves among the unwashed masses of ND haters - and who take unmitigated glee in their current misfortune - can rattle off numerous instances where fortune, if not divine providence, seemed to smile upon ND. Locals recall Notre Dame's win when last they visited Husky Stadium. Captain Husky may have taken enormous flak for dressing up like the Pope that day (his finest moment ever, in my opinion), but his message wasn't far off.

This year, the big guy in the sky with the white beard seems to have deserted South Bend. The reason for God's disappearance is a mystery. Perhaps it was the Ty Willingham - Urban Meyer affair three years ago. Maybe Charlie Weis is an godless heathen. Maybe God's taken a holiday. Who knows for sure. But if God was still with the Irish, they would have somehow, some way, pulled out a win over Purdue this weekend.

All the heavenly signs pointed in that direction. Their starting quarterback, Jimmy Klausen, got injured and was out of the game. Their second stringer, Demetrius Jones, was transferring from the school. That left third stringer, Evan Sharpley. Sharpley promptly rallied the Irish and brought them within a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Sounds like a movie (and you'd be right: check out Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty). You couldn't have asked for a better script. Had ND finally had enough of playing the role of the biblical long-suffering Job? Were they now poised to reassert their divine (if not Hollywood) grace? Celebrate! Dancing in the streets! Kill the fatted calf!

But no, Purdue slaps on a clock-eating sustained drive to close out the win. Game over, never mind, don't forget to turn out the lights and lock the door when you leave.

Now, let's turn to the Dawggies. Those who attended last Saturday night's game v. USC could not help but recognize an immediate resemblance between the Huskies' 1960 throwback uniforms and ND's navy blue and gold. Only the rounded style of the numbers on Husky uniforms provided any real distinction.

And what happened in that game? USC - the consensus football powerhouse of the land - did everything they possibly could do to hand that game to UW on a silver platter. Penalties? A whopping sixteen for over 160 yards. That's a flag every fifth play! Turnovers? Three. Blocked punt? Been there, done that. Dropped passes on sure big gains or even TDs? Too numerous to count.

The votes are in and the conclusion is as unanimous as it is self-evident.

God got a shave, donned a fleece vest, slipped into his Birkenstocks and took the last train for the coast. He's in Seattle, kickin' back at Husky Stadium with his feet soaking in Lake Washington. Even if the Dawgs are too inept to benefit from the gift. (Note to self, consider attending church before the next home game). If Notre Dame fans want to pull their team out of the doldrums, they had better stop blaming Tyrone Willingham's recruiting four, five or six years ago and find out what's up with God... and beg him to return to South Bend.

And Tyrone? You keep those uniforms, buddy. They're gonna come in handy.

Random Thoughts on the MSU Game

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:50:54 -0000

I usually make it to one game a year at this point, and at the last minute, MSU became that game. I find the games against MSU and Purdue to be incredibly annoying, especially since it seems like the Irish always lose, but alas, who cares about my feelings.

Random Thoughts:

- It might have been better in the student section and beneath the press box, but that was a pretty miserable three hours in terms of the weather. I'm convinced that South Bend is hotter in September than it is in July or August. Myself and many of my pale as hell Irish and Slav descended friends will likely need hospitalization after the exposure to the Sahara like blast furnace. I expected boils when I woke up this morning.

While the performance of the ND fanbase, non-student section, is often descried as passive, quiet, lame, etc. I thought there was some solid energy in the stadium yesterday. Many people, myself included, even somewhat stood on 3rd and 4th downs. Well, small victories. The mood was somewhere between secret optimism, desperation and resignation that a loss was inevitable.
After the game I felt the defense has actually not played half-bad, despite the point total. Now, after looking at the box score, I'm not so sure. Up the gut the run D was solid, but again, the vulnerability to the outside run continued. I think this unit is essentially still impossible to evaluate. Nevertheless, I get a positive vibe. With last year's O and this year's D, I think the USC or UM games might have had a different outcome, not that that means a damn.
Loved the "F this, lets just run" gameplan, which more or less "worked" until about mid 3rd quarter when ND stalled twice, each time after initial solid runs from JA. That was the Aldrige many of us had been waiting to see since last year.
Please, no more short-yardage dives from Asaph, please. Please. Can we put this in the Travis Thomas section of the discarded ideas playbook and be done with it?
MSU's opening TD drive in the 2nd half featured conversions of 3rd and 9 and then 3rd and 17. Ballgame.
I'm a somewhat ironic, somewhat sincere supporter of Sharpely, but what was the point of bringing him in? Yea, Jimmy seemed to be holding the ball too long, but we might as well keep giving him reps at game speed.
I know the production sucks, but can I get a deep ball, just once?

As a front line veteran of the Davie and Willingham years (I was at ND from '98 to '04) yesterday's game was right out of my glory years, I kept waiting for Joey Getherall to start fielding punts instead of Zibby, and to see Matt Shelton lining up at wideout. Its a tough time to be an Irish fan, making saturdays borderline TV boycott days: I couldn't find a sports radio program last night that wasn't piling on the Irish, and I expect no better from ESPN and every worthwhile CFB site this weekend. It kills me that ND can never actually be irrelevant, every loss has to be a verdict on the failures/arrogance/racism etc. of the entire University...

At least North Dining Hall didn't let me down.

Clausen Named Starter Vs. PSU

brentbrookhouse — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:32:29 -0000

Charlie Weis named Jimmy Clausen the starter for next Saturday against Penn State.

Taken from ESPN.com

'I think he gives us the best chance of winning,' coach Charlie Weis said Tuesday.

Clausen was rated by many as the top high school recruit last year. Weis said Sunday that Clausen could not have started the opener because he was recovering from arthroscopic surgery to have a bone spur removed from his throwing elbow. Weis said Clausen wasn't fully healthy until last week.

"I think he's ready to run the offense. If I didn't think he was ready I wouldn't do this," Weis said. "I'm not going to play musical chairs with our quarterbacks."

Weis said Clausen was the top quarterback after spring practices, but was limited when practice began Aug. 6. He was recovering from the removal of a bone spur from his throwing elbow.

"I'm not going to play a quarterback who can't do everything, so I didn't," Weis said.

This is totally the right move in my mind and I honestly believe that ND gets a win Saturday.

I'm outraged, no Michigan?

BlackOps — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:56:48 -0000

I heard earlier, and I'm not sure if it was previously posted on here, that Notre Dame and Michigan are dropping their game for two seasons. Notre Dame is going to pick up Oklahoma for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

If I get into Notre Dame (and I damn well will be there one day, maybe not at first, but I'm getting there), that means no Michigan for my sophomore and junior year!

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

I may be different than you guys, but I was taught to HATE MICHIGAN! My dad went to Ohio State and my mom at ND, but my mom was the one who taught me to hate Michigan. This seems to make these two football seasons empty for me, because there is little chance to beat Michigan! Well, there's still the OSU/Michigan game for me. But you? Alright, sure, you all would probably rather beat USC than Michigan, but this is my chance to complain. I look forward every year to beating Michigan. It's what really gets me into football early. I need this game.

End rant.

We Are!!!....Not Thrilled With That...

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:54:57 -0000

I'm going to try and be as level headed as possible here. I hope this doesn't get me lumped it with the rest of my "delusional" friends.

"But Notre Dame fans, while being rather smug about all things related to their university, seem to take a disproportionate amount of crap compared to other fans who are far more out there."

Well when your university refuses to join a conferance, and pulls in loads of money on a personel TV contract, what do you expect? Your blue and gold pedestal that you place yourselves on is much higher than our blue and white one. No matter HOW down to earth domer bloggers are, it doesn't make up for the arrogance the school itself displays.

"Notre Dame fans obviously think quite highly of their program, despite the bowl losing streak and general ugliness that pops up from time to time, and while most of us will admit things haven't been consistently great for a while, we always get appropriately called out for it when we do stray too far into the land of fantasy."

That comes with the territory. When you shove Touchdown Jesus down our throats on NBC every Sat., naturally, people are going to hate your school.

"Penn State fans somehow get a bye when constantly talking about their tradition, which is nearly as dated as Notre Dame's. Since the turn of the millennium, Penn State has finished better than fourth in the Big Ten once (2005), while also collecting 9th (2004), 10th (2003), 6th (2001) and 7th (2000) place finishes along the way."

Fair enough, but this isn't 2004, 2003, 2001, or 2000. This is 2007, and the stuggles those years aren't going to temper what I think of the team this year, and aren't going to diminish the great tradtion our school has. I won't assail your tradition, just don't assail ours.

"It's important to note their Big Ten finishes since the Nittany Lions have played a non-conference schedule worthy of laughter and delicious cupcakes the last few years, including this season where their non-Irish games include Florida Internation (rated 119th out of 119 in Athlon's preseason poll), Buffalo (rated 118) and Temple (rated 115, as apparently Eastern Michigan and Utah State were not available). Granted, Notre Dame's schedule is slowly shifting that way, but PSU's has been like that for this entire decade."

Now this is completely off the deep end. Yes, Fla. Intl. and Buffalo really suck, but please, look at YOUR schedule! Duke, Air Force, Stanford....need I go on? Everyone plays cup cakes. It just so happens yours are better than ours this year. In 2005, ours were South Florida (bowl team in '06) and Cincinatti (knocked off Rutgers in '06). It's a cycle, and we just happen to be on the very easy end this year.

"Penn State fans also seem to think that just because a great-great-grandfather "runs" their team, they're quite different from the Ohio States of the world when it comes to class. I'd love to think so, but sadly, all of my experiences in State College lead me to believe otherwise. I attended the 2005 Ohio State/Penn State classic, and while I maybe could handle their entire student section chanting "F** Ohio!" and "F** Lee Corso!", they turned their back on the dotting of the "I"!"

You know, I was there, too, and didn't notice any of this. Nor did any jounalists who covered it. There are always loose cannons at every school. Everyone has their tasteless moments. May I refer you here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM28gO8bs_M

Bear in mind, Herbstreit is an OSU grad, and made these remarks at halftime of the OSU-PSU game.

This from the article you cited:

"Outwardly, I was enthusiastic about the idea. But visions of a vandalized RV danced in my head. Harassment from drunk coeds. A weekend of beer showers. And God forbid the Irish lose -- we'd have to leave by halftime....I thought of that young lady as I read the end of Mr. Staub's article. What would happen to a Notre Dame student who found herself in respiratory distress in Happy Valley? I would hope fans there would give her the same level of attention we gave our Nittany Lion friend, but reading that article, I'm not so sure. I'd like to think my lack of surety would bother PSU fans, but reading that article, I'm not so sure."

Sounds like someone is a wimp. At that same OSU-PSU game in 2005, fans from both team got along pretty well. Aside from the kind-hearted booing we gave them, I don't recall many instances of shear ugliness. In fact, at College Gameday, one OSU fan took a massice "O" flag, and displayed it right behind Chris Fowler's head. In response, and Penn State fan got his own flag, and stuck it in front. Fans from both sides laughed, and all in all, I think both sides had a good time that weekend.

No one is going to destroy your RVs. My God, Happy Valley isn't Bull Run. Expect the booing, and mild harassment, but, at least from my end, and that of many of my PSU counterparts, its all in fun. People that treat you like crap are the exception, not the rule, I promise.

"The Notre Dame/Penn State game on September 8th is obviously important to the Irish, as every potential win needs to be focused on in an attempt to reach bowl eligibility this season, but for the Nittany Lion fanbase it's become almost an obsession."

I don't know who started that blog, but people in the PSU community have made fun of it, too.

"could restart the local rivalry with Pitt, but the Lions envision themselves on some sort of blue-and-white pedestal when it comes to playing the Panthers."

Ok, now, here is where you really don't get it. Pitt wants a 1 and 1 series. Would you take a look at the Big East? In a world where EVERYONE makes a bowl, Pitt hasn't been there in years. Outside of the top teams, I don't see the Big East as anything more than the MAC. Would ND give a MAC team a one for one? Now I'm not sure how things are done at ND but football games make our athletic department independent of tax payer expenses. We need 7 home games. if Pitt doesn't want to break their backs for us, there are other schools that will. Now, if we keep adding the Virginias of the world to the schedule down the road, I might understand, but to give those whiny Panthers a one for one is like letting your middle school brother hang out with your college buddies. We'd like a rival, but, we aren't THAT desperate.

"I think the animosity between the two teams comes from a hint of jealousy from Penn State about the coverage Notre Dame gets"

Probably. It's hard to understand why a team gets so hyped, and then plays in a BCS bowl and its shown they don't belong there 2 years in a row, and again gets more press than anyone that isn't USC. Which reminds me...

I'm sure ND hates ESPN's love affair with USC as much as I do. Heck, the entire press gives them more credit than they deserve. They play in a JV league, and when they ran the table in 2005, they got a free pass, because they had Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. Never mind FRESNO ST. took them to the brink. The same was true of Texas that season. Texas won the conf. title game 70-3. What does THAT say about the Big 12? I'm not so sure they were the best two teams in the country that year, and while I don't know If PSU, OSU, or ND could have taken them, I don't think the last TD Young scored to win the game for Texas would have happened if PSU's defense was on the field.

Looking back, I'm glad we had our hearts broken on the field that season, because, if not for 2 seconds in Ann Arbor, we would have run the table, too. Would the press have put us in that title game? I doubt it. The hypefest that was USC-Texas wasn't going to be overcome that year. The BCS would have again been exploited as the fraud it is.

Why do I tell this story? Well, to illustrate why the PSU's of the world get upset at the press ND receives. Someday, it may not be about what TEAM is better, but who the media likes more that gets to play for a National Title. If it came down to an undefeated SEC champ vs. the only 2 11-1s in the country, ND and PSU, who would get the nod from the media?

Keep that in mind when you get attacked. We get away with it, because we are part of the rest of the world. ND isn't. With greater power come greater responsibility, or in this case, criticism

maroon and white game

Fri, 18 May 2007 20:30:24 -0000

just played my high schools maroon and white game, its nearly football season.

i was on the white... we lost... really bad

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Best Tourney Games

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:35:00 -0000

I like all of CW's nominees, though I'd add a few for consideration. The Vanderbilt-Georgetown game was just outstanding, complete with a hot start from Vanderbilt, a slow but steady comeback from Georgetown, a last second shot to take a one point lead, and, of course controversy. Great tournament game.

Aside from the horrific announcing by Gus Johnson, the Louisville-Texas A&M game was just a classic NCAA matchup. Both teams played well, there were 260 lead changes, and a last second possession with the game on the line. The Aggies' and Tigers' Sweet 16 battle was worth the price of admission, as well.

Briefly, a few other games I thought were outstanding: Vanderbilt-Washington State, Kansas-Southern Illinois, and USC-North Carolina.

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