A Question
Why does Notre Dame still get treated like they’re a top-tier program? They’ve lost 9 straight bowl games after this year’s blowout. For that matter, why do they always get a BCS bowl? I know it’s supposedly because they have such a strong fan base, but is that really true?
I’m just asking, because, you know, it seems like they have a puff schedule every year with one or two hard teams that blow them out more often than not. Let’s see Notre Dame get through a season in the SEC or Big 12 with 7 wins…
I totally agree. Notre Dame should do now what they should have done a long time ago: join the Big-10. The reason people hate them is because of the whole exceptionalism thing. They have to be the only “independent” team. They have to have their own special rules for getting into the BCS. They have their own private TV contract. It’s annoying as hell. If they just joined a real conference, no one would question whether they deserve to be in a bowl game; they’d have earned it.
Why? Nostalgia for a bygone era.
I don’t follow college football all that much, but I get the impression that Notre Dame had the good fortune to be good back when college football was just starting to become big, and also it happened to be something of a rallying point for Irish Catholics when Irish Catholics were coming to the pinnacles of power, but still had a kind of institutional memory of the days of “No Irish Need Apply.”
The former still counts for something (even in their bad years, the Yankees draw because babe Ruth played for them 80 years ago).
But the latter is pretty much irrelevant today, both in terms of the Notre Dame student body and the position of Irish Catholics in American society today. But it seems to linger enough that Notre Dame can continue to convince TV networks and bowl sponsors to form over big bucks to watch a mediocre football program.