Noter Dame's real problem

[Babs]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...992481&ps=cprs

This guy says it's not the lack of a decent coach -- it's the lack of a conference. He says that Notre Dame's (or Note-r Dame, as we call it in Oklahoma) impediment to success is that its games garner no interest, and they garner no interest because the school is not competing in a conference title race.

[falafel]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...992481&ps=cprs

This guy says it's not the lack of a decent coach -- it's the lack of a conference. He says that Notre Dame's (or Note-r Dame, as we call it in Oklahoma) impediment to success is that its games garner no interest, and they garner no interest because the school is not competing in a conference title race.

Frank Deford looks just like I imagined him. Except I didn't expect the George Washington mushroom hair.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Maybe not that they aren't competing for a conference title, but that they don't get the 3-5 easy wins that come from being in a conference.

Imagine if they joined the Big 10, they would be paired with Penn State I assume, while Ohio State and Michigan would be the power teams in the other half.

Penn State
Inidiana
Purdue
Northwestern
Iowa
Notre Dame

So every year Notre Dame has 3-4 sure wins in their division, plus they play Minnesota, Michigan State, Illinois most years from the other division. Mix in a service academy and some crappy Big East team and most years ND wins 9-11 games if they can pull one out against Penn State or USC.

[Babs]

Frank Deford looks just like I imagined him. Except I didn't expect the George Washington mushroom hair.

He must live in Utah. I hear shrooms are really 'in' there.

[I.J. Reilly]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...992481&ps=cprs

This guy says it's not the lack of a decent coach -- it's the lack of a conference. He says that Notre Dame's (or Note-r Dame, as we call it in Oklahoma) impediment to success is that its games garner no interest, and they garner no interest because the school is not competing in a conference title race.

While we all know how much NBC love to put up programming every Saturday that no one has any interest in, I'm going to have to disagree with our friend Frank, and what appear to be his woolly ears.

Notre Dame isn't sprouting cash money in place of grass on the lawn over there, even if they do have a golden dome, so their football money has to come from somewhere. You don't get millions and millions of dollars raised a year from boosters to pay fat buyout contracts if nobody is paying attention.

Besides, what is his solution to his perceived conference problem? Rotate conferences and play different teams from a different conference every year. Sounds a lot like what they are already doing, or perhaps I am mistaken.

[TripletDaddy]

The biggest problem at Our Woman is the academic restrictions....or, better said, the false self-perception of their own academic standards.

Look what happened in the modern era once the Pope loosened the entrance requirements for football players....Lou was able to bring in Prop 48 Tony Rice at QB and they won it all in 1988. A few years later, the Domers want to tighten academic requirements again, so Lou sees the writing on the wall and bolts. The The Domers go into the tank.

Urban wants the Irish job. When he realizes he can't get even one academic exception for recruiting the kids he needs to compete at the highest level, he passes and goes to Florida, where there are no real academic requirements. Look what he has done there.

The biggest football powerhouses have very marginal (if any) true academic restrictions.

Yet look at some of the schools that are traditionally competing at the highest levels.....USC, Michigan, Cal, etc....these schools are on par if not BETTER than The Irish in terms of academic prestige...MBA, Law, medical, etc..so I am not sure what academic integrity the Domers are protecting.

Heck, look at Stanford this year. Notre Dame is not in the same class as Stanford in academics...and the Farm is having a pretty nice year.

Notre Dame doesn't need a conference. They have a fantastic business model predicated on an unparalleled global brand. Joining a conference would only dilute its revenues. They simply need to loosen the entrance requirements. Frankly, the rest of college football should be grateful that the Domers are delusional when it comes to their academics. Could you imagine what they could accomplish year in and year out if they opened the doors to all blue chippers? It would be scary.

As is, even in the toilet, Notre Dame still has nice recruiting classes every year. How many more kids would want to Shake Down the Thunder if the Irish were winning year in and year out?

[Mormon Red Death]

Maybe not that they aren't competing for a conference title, but that they don't get the 3-5 easy wins that come from being in a conference.

Imagine if they joined the Big 10, they would be paired with Penn State I assume, while Ohio State and Michigan would be the power teams in the other half.

Penn State
Inidiana
Purdue
Northwestern
Iowa
Notre Dame

So every year Notre Dame has 3-4 sure wins in their division, plus they play Minnesota, Michigan State, Illinois most years from the other division. Mix in a service academy and some crappy Big East team and most years ND wins 9-11 games if they can pull one out against Penn State or USC.

They aleady play 3 big 10 teams a year. They are Michigan, Michigan St, Purdue and will play along with that wisconsin in a couple of years. They should just join the big10+1 and have 8 conference games.

[BoylenOver]

Notre Dame has never scheduled a FCS opponent. If they were in a conference, they'd be able to, especially when they have Stanford, USC, and Navy OOC.

That said, clearly they're doing ok for themselves as an independent. Exclusive TV contract, $14 mil all to themselves if they ever finish in the top 15 of the BCS rankings, etc.

[New Mexican Disaster]

The biggest problem at Our Woman is the academic restrictions....or, better said, the false self-perception of their own academic standards.

Look what happened in the modern era once the Pope loosened the entrance requirements for football players....Lou was able to bring in Prop 48 Tony Rice at QB and they won it all in 1988. A few years later, the Domers want to tighten academic requirements again, so Lou sees the writing on the wall and bolts. The The Domers go into the tank.

Urban wants the Irish job. When he realizes he can't get even one academic exception for recruiting the kids he needs to compete at the highest level, he passes and goes to Florida, where there are no real academic requirements. Look what he has done there.

The biggest football powerhouses have very marginal (if any) true academic restrictions.

Yet look at some of the schools that are traditionally competing at the highest levels.....USC, Michigan, Cal, etc....these schools are on par if not BETTER than The Irish in terms of academic prestige...MBA, Law, medical, etc..so I am not sure what academic integrity the Domers are protecting.

Heck, look at Stanford this year. Notre Dame is not in the same class as Stanford in academics...and the Farm is having a pretty nice year.

Notre Dame doesn't need a conference. They have a fantastic business model predicated on an unparalleled global brand. Joining a conference would only dilute its revenues. They simply need to loosen the entrance requirements. Frankly, the rest of college football should be grateful that the Domers are delusional when it comes to their academics. Could you imagine what they could accomplish year in and year out if they opened the doors to all blue chippers? It would be scary.

As is, even in the toilet, Notre Dame still has nice recruiting classes every year. How many more kids would want to Shake Down the Thunder if the Irish were winning year in and year out?

This is a good well reasoned argument but....are they really unable to attract talent? Yesterday I was looking at my Phil Steele book on recruiting that attempts to quantify the level of expectation for players by listing each recruit at each position based upon the amount of interest that they generate in the press and the various recruiting services. Our Lady's players were extremely highly rated (clearly they get a bonus just by being recruited by the Irish, but not enough to move their rankings way, way up). In fact there defense has the #1 recruit of the last two years at linebacker and highly rated palyers all over the field. Furthermore, their recruiting classes the last 3 years were all rated as top 10.

I really believe it is not great coaching that has led them to be not very good. They outrecruit everyone on their schedule this year except SC and possibly Michigan once in a while and they lost half of them.

Certainly some help from the academic side would not hurt and might help them turn the corner.

[Babs]

The biggest problem at Our Woman is the academic restrictions....or, better said, the false self-perception of their own academic standards.

Look what happened in the modern era once the Pope loosened the entrance requirements for football players....Lou was able to bring in Prop 48 Tony Rice at QB and they won it all in 1988. A few years later, the Domers want to tighten academic requirements again, so Lou sees the writing on the wall and bolts. The The Domers go into the tank.

Urban wants the Irish job. When he realizes he can't get even one academic exception for recruiting the kids he needs to compete at the highest level, he passes and goes to Florida, where there are no real academic requirements. Look what he has done there.

The biggest football powerhouses have very marginal (if any) true academic restrictions.

Yet look at some of the schools that are traditionally competing at the highest levels.....USC, Michigan, Cal, etc....these schools are on par if not BETTER than The Irish in terms of academic prestige...MBA, Law, medical, etc..so I am not sure what academic integrity the Domers are protecting.

Heck, look at Stanford this year. Notre Dame is not in the same class as Stanford in academics...and the Farm is having a pretty nice year.

Notre Dame doesn't need a conference. They have a fantastic business model predicated on an unparalleled global brand. Joining a conference would only dilute its revenues. They simply need to loosen the entrance requirements. Frankly, the rest of college football should be grateful that the Domers are delusional when it comes to their academics. Could you imagine what they could accomplish year in and year out if they opened the doors to all blue chippers? It would be scary.

As is, even in the toilet, Notre Dame still has nice recruiting classes every year. How many more kids would want to Shake Down the Thunder if the Irish were winning year in and year out?

The guy's whole column is a joke.

The argument appears to be that Notre Dame is not successful because it garners no interest. It garners no interest because it's irrelevant to the national title race. It's irrelevant to the national title race because it can't compete for a conference championship, because it's not in a conference.

Notre Dame is not irrelevant because of its independence. It's irrelevant to the national title race because it's mediocre. Simply throwing it into a conference would certainly allow it, technically, to contend for a conference title; but in reality would no more guarantee its national relevance than the same perennial opportunity does for, say, Baylor or Vandy or Wazzu.

And besides, the only way that the lack of interest could possibly affect on-field performance is in its impact on recruiting, and I don't think any of us believe that Notre Dame lacks for talent.

[SeattleUte]

Babs, you don't know who Frank DeFord is? yikes.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Babs, you don't know who Frank DeFord is? yikes.

She must not have HBO to watch Real Sports with Bryant Gumble. Frank looks sharp in HD, he always has a funky sport coat as well.

[SeattleUte]

She must not have HBO to watch Real Sports with Bryant Gumble. Frank looks sharp in HD, he always has a funky sport coat as well.

He was SI's main football writer when I was a kid.

[mUUser]

eh, there's nothing wrong with ND that Urban wouldn't have fixed in 2 years.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

eh, there's nothing wrong with ND that Urban wouldn't have fixed in 2 years.

Why didn't he take the job then?