Demoting Notre Dame

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Could Notre Dame ever become like Minnesota? I wasn't around, but I'm assuming when the Gophers were in their prime people would have thought it impossible that they would go over 50 years without a National Championship let alone a Big Ten championship.
 

HopHead said:
Could Notre Dame ever become like Minnesota? I wasn't around, but I'm assuming when the Gophers were in their prime people would have thought it impossible that they would go over 50 years without a National Championship let alone a Big Ten championship.
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I don't think it's possible, only because college football so based on money. Notre Dame's football program will always have a lot of money and the means to hire good coaches.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't think it's possible, only because college football so based on money. Notre Dame's football program will always have a lot of money and the means to hire good coaches.
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Why is that? Certainly NBC won't continue to pay for a 6-7 win team forever.
 


They should demote Florida State while they're at it. Vastly overrated every season simply because of their name.
 

station19 said:
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/8264769/notre-dame-irish-relegated-insignificance

"In short, until Notre Dame football starts winning again, it's Rice to me."
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The anti-Notre Dame crowd is about the only thing as gross as the pro-Notre Dame crowd.

First, Rick Reilly's subtle mention of Penn State is completely out-of-line and terribly off base. It insinuates something much worse than simply not being an elite football program. They already aren't on a pedestal, they didn't land Urban Meyer or anyone like that, they landed Brian Kelley when they were searching for a coach. I don't think most college football fans would think of Notre Dame as being on a pedestal.

Second, Rice? Really? They are Rice?

They have over 30 former players in the NFL.
Since Holtz (I figure that's the last time they were a National power), they have a record of 107-77 (.582). Meanwhile, in the last 50 years, Rice has had a grand total of 6 winning seasons, while playing in WAC / Conference USA.

The Rice comparison was gross and dumb.

We live in an age where people would prefer to say nonsense like Notre Dame is Rice to me rather than actually make their point. Notre Dame is down and they aren't an elite program, however, they are a LONG ways from being anything Rice-like. That doesn't generate the clicks and it isn't sensational enough, but it's more accurate.
 





Bob_Loblaw said:
Because they sell a lot of tickets and tons of people want to see them play.
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I think it's changed quite a bit. I used to despise Notre Dame back in the 80s when they were good. Now I'm just indifferent towards them because they have been marginal for the last 10 years.
 

ND has a huge alumni base and can schedule 4-5 cupcakes every year. They also have a "Love-hate" "Tebow" factor going with the JC angle. They are handicapped by extremely high academics like NW, Vandy, ect. Holtz had a 10 schollie reprieve from the ND academic threshold which was yanked by ND and Holtz bolted. ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. I would put Stanford, NW, Vandy and UCLA in that category as well. Like Stanford, USC is private and they choose to have different standards if You can run a 4.4 or bench 550lbs.
 

SelectionSunday said:
They should demote Florida State while they're at it. Vastly overrated every season simply because of their name.
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I don't get the "demote" thing.

The television deal has nothing to do with performance (directly). If NBC wants them to have a deal, they'll have a deal. They don't have great ratings, so that should take care of itself.
 

John Galt said:
I think it's changed quite a bit. I used to despise Notre Dame back in the 80s when they were good. Now I'm just indifferent towards them because they have been marginal for the last 10 years.
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Sure, I'm not arguing that. They don't make as much money as they probably used, but they have an incredibly strong alumni base and they STILL will make a ton of money.

Last year, Forbes ranked them as the 2nd most valuable college football team (they factored in the low rankings and possibility of losing their deal). They make an immense amount of money.
 



HopHead said:
Could Notre Dame ever become like Minnesota? I wasn't around, but I'm assuming when the Gophers were in their prime people would have thought it impossible that they would go over 50 years without a National Championship let alone a Big Ten championship.
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Minnesota was one of the few schools that allowed African-Amercian players prior to the 1960's which is "coincidently" when the slide to where they are now began.
 


Art Vandelay said:
Minnesota was one of the few schools that allowed African-Amercian players prior to the 1960's which is "coincidently" when the slide to where they are now began.
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Could You please elaborate on your comment and "Coincidently"? I either need more coffee or Your post is a really poor attempt at humor. The badgers were as well, in fact showed up at LSU and forfeited a game because LSU would not allow the "blacks" to play.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Minnesota was one of the few schools that allowed African-Amercian players prior to the 1960's which is "coincidently" when the slide to where they are now began.
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Gopher football enjoyed a lot of competetive advantages that started to quickly erode in the 1960's. The same can be said today for the unique advantages that Notre Dame has enjoyed.

Nationally, I now see the casual ND fan jumping the bandwagon much the way casual Gopher football fans did in the Upper-Midwest in the late 70's and early 80's.
 

popeyoung5 said:
ND has a huge alumni base and can schedule 4-5 cupcakes every year. They also have a "Love-hate" "Tebow" factor going with the JC angle. They are handicapped by extremely high academics like NW, Vandy, ect. Holtz had a 10 schollie reprieve from the ND academic threshold which was yanked by ND and Holtz bolted. ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. I would put Stanford, NW, Vandy and UCLA in that category as well. Like Stanford, USC is private and they choose to have different standards if You can run a 4.4 or bench 550lbs.
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B.S. on the ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. Notre Dame is not Stanford academically nor on the same level on the FB field recently, but both can win National Championships. Both produce plenty of NFL players and have highly rated recruiting classes (legitimacy of recruiting rankings can be discussed in a diff thread), but there is plenty of talent there.

Notre Dame has fallen off because of coaching. They've not hired a good coach since Lou Holtz and Stanford hit the jackpot with Jim Harbaugh.

Calling their academics "extremely high" is an overstatement. I classify extremely high as an Ivy League type school like Stanford. Don't get me wrong, they are a good school, but not an elite school like Stanford.

ND Draft picks by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 1
2010: 4
2009: 1
2008: 4
2007: 7 (1 first round)
2006: 3
2005: 2
2004: 5
2003: 7 (1 first round)

Stanford by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 4
2010: 3
2009: 0
2008: 0
2007: 3
2006: 4
2005: 6
2004: 3
2004: 3 (1 first round)
 

SJUgopher said:
B.S. on the ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. Notre Dame is not Stanford academically nor on the same level on the FB field recently, but both can win National Championships. Both produce plenty of NFL players and have highly rated recruiting classes (legitimacy of recruiting rankings can be discussed in a diff thread), but there is plenty of talent there.

Notre Dame has fallen off because of coaching. They've not hired a good coach since Lou Holtz and Stanford hit the jackpot with Jim Harbaugh.

Calling their academics "extremely high" is an overstatement. I classify extremely high as an Ivy League type school like Stanford. Don't get me wrong, they are a good school, but not an elite school like Stanford.

ND Draft picks by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 1
2010: 4
2009: 1
2008: 4
2007: 7 (1 first round)
2006: 3
2005: 2
2004: 5
2003: 7 (1 first round)

Stanford by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 4
2010: 3
2009: 0
2008: 0
2007: 3
2006: 4
2005: 6
2004: 3
2004: 3 (1 first round)
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Top coaches who want to win a title avoid it because of academics. You are right, ND is the 19th ranked academic university. The highest ranked academic school that could win a title is USC at #23 because they have a "special" academic playbook for athletes. Again, Holtz bolted out of ND after they pulled His 10 player exception per year to the academic standard. Here's the current ranking.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+3
 

popeyoung5 said:
ND has a huge alumni base and can schedule 4-5 cupcakes every year. They also have a "Love-hate" "Tebow" factor going with the JC angle. They are handicapped by extremely high academics like NW, Vandy, ect. Holtz had a 10 schollie reprieve from the ND academic threshold which was yanked by ND and Holtz bolted. ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. I would put Stanford, NW, Vandy and UCLA in that category as well. Like Stanford, USC is private and they choose to have different standards if You can run a 4.4 or bench 550lbs.
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I would not put ND admission standard in the same category with Stanford.

1. Stanford


2. NW

3. ND and Vandy

UCLA is very questionable.

Stanford is the only school that has very rigorous admission standard. Besides that, its student body is very indifferent to sport success as well. If I remember correctly all the Stanford recruits have to wait clearance from admission office. Does Stanford accept very very few number of borderline student? Maybe. Haven't seen or heard about that yet. The success they can attain for last a few years is simply astounding. I assume they got lucky with Luck.
 

popeyoung5 said:
ND has a huge alumni base and can schedule 4-5 cupcakes every year.
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Can't other teams do that as well? Some non-conference schedules can be pretty bad as well. Also, look at ND's schedule this year. They certainly aren't playing a bunch of cupcakes.

I do think it's sometime annoying how much attention ND gets even when they're not very good. But they do have one of the strongest fan bases in the country and tons of tradition. I've been to a game in South Bend before, and really enjoyed it, even though I don't care for them that much. Like Bob said, the anti-ND crowd is about as bad as the pro-ND crowd.
 

SJUgopher said:
B.S. on the ND has become too academically difficult to win a national title. Notre Dame is not Stanford academically nor on the same level on the FB field recently, but both can win National Championships. Both produce plenty of NFL players and have highly rated recruiting classes (legitimacy of recruiting rankings can be discussed in a diff thread), but there is plenty of talent there.

Notre Dame has fallen off because of coaching. They've not hired a good coach since Lou Holtz and Stanford hit the jackpot with Jim Harbaugh.

Calling their academics "extremely high" is an overstatement. I classify extremely high as an Ivy League type school like Stanford. Don't get me wrong, they are a good school, but not an elite school like Stanford.

ND Draft picks by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 1
2010: 4
2009: 1
2008: 4
2007: 7 (1 first round)
2006: 3
2005: 2
2004: 5
2003: 7 (1 first round)

Stanford by year:

2012: 4 (2 first round)
2011: 4
2010: 3
2009: 0
2008: 0
2007: 3
2006: 4
2005: 6
2004: 3
2004: 3 (1 first round)
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I don't think anyone is arguing that their academics is on the Ivy League level, however, the football programs at Ivy League schools are not measured against the power programs like Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Alabama, etc.

Stanford absolutely hit the jackpot on Harbaugh, he did amazing things. However, I think it will be difficult for Stanford or Northwestern to have elite football programs for a long period of time. It's a bit easier for Notre Dame (Academics aren't as high as Stanford and NW), but their academic standards are much more stringent than the programs they are compared against.
 

popeyoung5 said:
Could You please elaborate on your comment and "Coincidently"? I either need more coffee or Your post is a really poor attempt at humor. The badgers were as well, in fact showed up at LSU and forfeited a game because LSU would not allow the "blacks" to play.
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I'll put in my two cents to explain Art's comment - because shortly after 1960 all the schools started to accept blacks and let them play. At the time Minnesota was one of a handful of schools that would accept blacks and really let them play. There were other schools that would technically accept blacks, but they weren't treated as equals and were generally relegated to the bench. Then there were the other programs that wouldn't even accept them. However, once the barriers started coming down, players could choose between tons of schools. Minnesota didn't have a built in advantage. And back in the 60's, getting around the country was much more difficult, so many of the players who came from farther around the country simply because MN would give them an opportunity (Bell and Stevens from Philly, for example) could now stay closer to home.

And ironically Warmath took a lot of heat for using so many non-MN kids on the team. As much as we look at that time as the last glory period, at the time there were a lot of alumni not happy about the team even though it was winning because they felt it should be mostly MN kids. "Bernie won with MN kids - why can't Murray?" Now, I don't think anyone would care if we signed 85 kids from Uzbekistan (or whatever other random country) if it meant they would win...
 

popeyoung5 said:
Top coaches who want to win a title avoid it because of academics. You are right, ND is the 19th ranked academic university. The highest ranked academic school that could win a title is USC at #23 because they have a "special" academic playbook for athletes. Again, Holtz bolted out of ND after they pulled His 10 player exception per year to the academic standard. Here's the current ranking.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+3
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I've heard the Knute Rockne (also heard that's why Ara Parseghian) reason, the Kim Dunbar/NCAA investigation reason, and health (neck, wife's cancer) reasons before, but never the 10 player exception as the reason he left. If he still wanted to coach why didn't he somewhere else immediately. There had to be plenty of suitors including the MN Vikings.

Notre Dame has so many advantages that I doubt a top coach avoids them. They have NBC, play a national (international this year) schedule in that they strategically play games all over the country - west coast, mid-west, NE, and south, hundreds of top Catholic school players want to go there (look at CD-H), BCS bowl and revenue tie in, and a great/ well-known history.
 

SJUgopher said:
I've heard the Knute Rockne (also heard that's why Ara Parseghian) reason, the Kim Dunbar/NCAA investigation reason, and health (neck, wife's cancer) reasons before, but never the 10 player exception as the reason he left. If he still wanted to coach why didn't he somewhere else immediately. There had to be plenty of suitors including the MN Vikings.

Notre Dame has so many advantages that I doubt a top coach avoids them. They have NBC, play a national (international this year) schedule in that they strategically play games all over the country - west coast, mid-west, NE, and south, hundreds of top Catholic school players want to go there (look at CD-H), BCS bowl and revenue tie in, and a great/ well-known history.
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Ok, so why have they been irrelevant bottom feeders (See Cowboys/Raiders-NFL) for so long and top coaches like Urban Meyer and Nick Saban pass ND up? Besides Vandy, You can fog a mirror and get into an SEC school.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Because they sell a lot of tickets and tons of people want to see them play.
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I'm just nitpicking but ND does not even sell out most of their home games anymore(despite what they will tell you as their alumni association buys up the unsold tickets much like General Mills did for the Vikes). And their other "home" games that are really played on the road also don't sell well.
 

First of all, USN&WR rankings are not well-respected in academic circles. Not at all. And even if they were, they would not tell you anything about how easy it was for coaches to get and keep athletes enrolled 20+ years ago.

A lot has changed at ND. They have historically been a nice, regional liberal arts catholic college with a monsterously popular football team. Until the late 1990's they used their football program's reputation to feign academic excellence, after which they started using it as leverage in actually building better academic programs.

But back in the 80's and 90's, it was certainly not a great school. And they were perfectly willing to do whatever it took to win on the football field. Elsewhere, football programs were under attack by academics. Make no mistake, ND's unwavering "commmitment" to football was what attracted Lou Holtz. They liked to pretend they were "different" than Miami. They were not.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
First, Rick Reilly's subtle mention of Penn State is completely out-of-line and terribly off base. It insinuates something much worse than simply not being an elite football program.
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Probably mentioned in relation to a video student dying as well as numerous accusations regarding sexual assault accusers being harrassed including the girl that killed herself - Lizzy Seeberg
 


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