Demoting Notre Dame

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Lakeville Goldy said:
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...
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Bobby Bell - Shelby, North Carolina
Sandy Stephens - Uniontown, Pa
 


popeyoung5 said:
Here are the Notre Dame uni's for the Miami game in Bribe town. Really? The Adidas design team needs at least a drug test. Incredible.
Prediction- The Irash win 4 games max this year.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-fo...soldier-field-miami-hurricane-adidas-football
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I didn't realize they gave team lobotomies.

FdYgd.jpg
 


SJUgopher said:
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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The whole Catholic school thing is long since past. I had a conversation with a guy I used to work with on this. He's an old-school St. Paul Irish Catholic guy. Went to Cretin and St. Thomas, still does the big family St. Pattys day thing every year. Back in the day (he's in his 60's), it wasn't just assumed, it was EXPECTED that you rooted for Notre Dame. Those days are long since past. Kids today root for winners - hell, I went to high school in the early 90's, and it was that way then. Nobody wore Gophers gear. It was all Florida, USC, Michigan, Texas etc.
 


discochris said:
The whole Catholic school thing is long since past. I had a conversation with a guy I used to work with on this. He's an old-school St. Paul Irish Catholic guy. Went to Cretin and St. Thomas, still does the big family St. Pattys day thing every year. Back in the day (he's in his 60's), it wasn't just assumed, it was EXPECTED that you rooted for Notre Dame. Those days are long since past. Kids today root for winners - hell, I went to high school in the early 90's, and it was that way then. Nobody wore Gophers gear. It was all Florida, USC, Michigan, Texas etc.
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I am a Saint Paul Catholic guy and most of my childhood friends are as well. To some extent, I agree with you that the kids root for winners. However, there is still a huge draw for kids who have been attending Catholic schools to continue onto Catholic universities. It's why St. Thomas and St. Johns are filled with kids who went to CDH, St. Thomas, etc. It's a natural next step for a lot of these kids who have enjoyed their time at a private/catholic school. It's not automatic, but it plays a big role when kids are looking at schools. It's no surprise that a lot of Cretin kids still end up at Notre Dame despite their struggles.
 

mngolf said:
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.
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I was really discussing that in terms of them having money. It doesn't matter if people show up to the games or not, the tickets are sold. Additionally, there is still alot of people who want to see them play. It's not as much as the past, but they still have a draw.
 

popeyoung5 said:
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.
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This is actually what's wrong with this discussion, it's not based in reality.

Notre Dame has not been one of the most succesful programs in the country for a long time but they are FAR from "bottom feeders". In the past 10 years, they've had 8 or more wins 5 seasons. That's not great for Notre Dame standards, but it's so far from being a "bottom feeder" or anything like "Rice" that that the comparison just smells of someone having an axe to grind.

Now, why did Urban Meyer and Nick Saban skip out on Notre Dame?

First, because Notre Dame isn't the ELITE of the ELITE in terms of football programs. Now, when it comes to Meyer, I think we all thought he was holding out for Ohio State.

You're taking the best college coaches in the entire country that are at premier jobs and questioning why they don't want to go to a good football job (notice "good" not "best" and certainly not "irrelevant bottom feeder"). That's not a fair comparison, that's you talking out of both sides of your mouth. Your saying they are irrelevant because the greatest coaches in the country won't go there? Is there not somewhere inbetween?
 

I am shocked US News has the University of Minnesota ranked in a three way tie at number 68. Never would of guessed that. Is anyone else surprised by that? I was under the impression we were high teens or twenties? Were we once higher? That can't help recruiting....I didn't check them all but is Iowa is the only school we out rank in the Big 10 and by a very slight margin?
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I am a Saint Paul Catholic guy and most of my childhood friends are as well. To some extent, I agree with you that the kids root for winners. However, there is still a huge draw for kids who have been attending Catholic schools to continue onto Catholic universities. It's why St. Thomas and St. Johns are filled with kids who went to CDH, St. Thomas, etc. It's a natural next step for a lot of these kids who have enjoyed their time at a private/catholic school. It's not automatic, but it plays a big role when kids are looking at schools. It's no surprise that a lot of Cretin kids still end up at Notre Dame despite their struggles.
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I am a Catholic school lifer. Never spent a day anywhere else.
 

60's Guy said:
I am shocked US News has the University of Minnesota ranked in a three way tie at number 68. Never would of guessed that. Is anyone else surprised by that? I was under the impression we were high teens or twenties? Were we once higher? That can't help recruiting....I didn't check them all but is Iowa is the only school we out rank in the Big 10 and by a very slight margin?
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believe minnesota is ahead of indiana, nebraska, michigan state and iowa. and is either tied or just ahead/just behind purdue, ohio state, penn state. the top two rated in the big ten are northwestern and michigan.
 

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 do not know if you realize, but their schedule every year is usually top 10 in the country in terms of difficulty. I would say that they could have one of their best teams in the last decade and only win 7 games with this years schedule. This coming from an ND fan as well as a gopher fan.

Go Gophs
 

60's Guy said:
I am shocked US News has the University of Minnesota ranked in a three way tie at number 68. Never would of guessed that. Is anyone else surprised by that? I was under the impression we were high teens or twenties? Were we once higher? That can't help recruiting....I didn't check them all but is Iowa is the only school we out rank in the Big 10 and by a very slight margin?
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Don't be. The list that USN&WR publishes is not considered legitimate by academics. If you look at the criteria, it mostly just awards a high-ranking to schools that have a high % of applicants rejected and a low drop-out rate. In acadmic circles, these are two variables that are not considered to have any relationship to academic quality.

The U has had a historic mission of allowing undergraduate admission to a wide array of students, allowing them to succeed or fail on their own merits. This is a recipe for failure under USN&WR "criteria", which is not really "criteria" at all. Their "criteria" effectively deducts points for a key measure of academic rigor.

Again, their list is is less repected among academics than the opinions of the bloggers on Bleacher Report are here.
 



The idea that ND can't win because academics make it too hard to recruit is nonsense.

Rivals team rankings
2007 - #8
2008 - #2
2009 - #21
2010 - #14
2011 - #10
2012 - #20
2013 - #4

As mentioned earlier, they've had a string of bad coaches. Unfortunately, the continued strength in recruiting indicates that it's not too late to turn it around.
 

Goldmember said:
*read above post so I don't take up too much space*
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Couldn't agree more. So instead of going on a rant about it [I truly hate rants] please just view the methodology from the link below and you should understand why it has critics. hint: Peer assessment review constitutes a whopping 15% of total score. Alumni giving is worth 5% of the score.

Rant free link
 

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