Notre Shame

The Golden Domers put forth another disgraceful display. Only this time, it came off the field.

Notre Dame announced yesterday that its football team will opt not to play in a bowl game, even though the team is "bowl eligible" with its pitiful 6-6 record (The criteria for being bowl eligible is the subject for another rip another time, but for now, I'll stick with skewering the Flighting Irish). Notre Dame hadn't locked into a specific game yet, but you can be sure they would have gotten into a better one than they deserved based on their gigantic fan base.

Seriously, who does Notre Dame think it is? The team has been mediocre for nearly two decades but yet it seemingly considers itself too good to show its face in the GMAC Bowl?

I guess playing in the postseason is old hat for this team after that monumental victory over Hawaii in last year's, you guessed it, Hawaii Bowl. Nevermind the fact that the Irish had lost nine straight bowl games before that, an incredibly anemic span stretching all the way back to 1995.

In other words, get over yourself Notre Dame! You're not a big deal anymore!

What makes this story even more distasteful is the fact that the players themselves had a say in this. This pervasive sense of unwarranted entitlement must have spread all the way down as the team took a vote in the past week.

Don't you have to question the mindset of a squad of college-aged kids that wouldn't want to take a group trip somewhere, get a lot of free stuff and get cheered on by screaming coeds to go play a football game on national TV? Man, am I thankful I don't have to do that.

Maybe Charlie Weis wasn't such a bad coach after all. Maybe his team was just a bunch of spoiled brats.

Well, check that. It was obviously a combination of those factors and others since Weis clearly stinks when running the show. He knows how to put up points (It helps to have Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate -- best name in sports?), but when it comes to everything else, he is as lost as they come.

I would say I wish I could watch the fat fraud lose one more time, but he's already gone anyway. Hopefully, the football program will ditch its snotty attitude next.

Get a grip

Apparently Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen got nailed with a punch he never saw coming after the Irish fell to UCONN in overtime on Saturday.

I love sports, I'm passionate about them, maybe sometimes even to a fault. But hitting a player because you feel he let "your team" down is downright creepy. Are you really so wrapped up in the fortunes of the team you root for that you need to cause physical harm to a player whose performance you don't approve of?

Get a life.

This rip isn't directed solely at ND fans, although my guess would be that they have a slightly higher lunatic rate than the average fan base. This is directed at fans everywhere who can't draw the line between super-fan and super-psycho.

If you're that upset after a loss, go get a hug from your mom or something.

Notre Dame football: A story of rampant delusion

A schedule as average as a No. 4 starter's stuff.

A recruiting class ranked among the top 15 for the fourth straight year. 

Yes, once again, Notre Dame still finds itself out of BCS contention at 6-4 and staring at the prospect of a .500 season. Boo hoo.

Not surprisingly, the school and the clueless fans who still root for this team nationwide appear set on a new football coach. Yes, another one. Charlie Weis simply hasn't cut it, just as Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham failed to channel God's intentions and win for his favorite football team before him. Supposedly, winning is still the Notre Dame way. I guess someone forgot to tell Mr. Record Book, post-1994.

Here's the problem: The faithful in South Bend made a wrong turn somewhere in the early 90s, back when Tony Rice and Rocket Ismail were relevant football players. So please, I beg you: If you see anyone who looks boring, and appears to be dressed in stuffy 17-year-old clothes that may or may not have shamrocks on them, direct them to the nearest police officer or a gas station. They need directions. Fast.

Allow me...

The Notre Dame program as they once knew it is finished. Gone. Kaput. Not only is Knute Rockne not walking through the tunnel, neither is Lou Holtz. And if you've seen Lou bumbling on TV this fall, you understand how pathetic that commentary sounds. But the problem runs deep.

The idea Notre Dame remains an elite program and an elite job for coaches is outdated at best, foolhearty at worst. Even people who seem to understand how far the Irish has fallen don't quite grasp the enormity of the freefall, nor the reasons for it. They claim the university's high academic standards ruin the program's ability to recruit with the Floridas and USCs of the college football world. So how has Stanford, a far superior school, rebuilt under Jim Harbaugh?Golden Domers can catch the reborn Cardinal in two weeks, when Stanford wipes the floor with them.

The truth is simpler than poor coaches and the wrong players. First, athletes want to compete in a major conference, not against Navy, Purdue and UConn in meaningless non-league games. Second, most have no recollection that Notre Dame once rocked the NCAA. None. This is such a huge factor that few ever discuss.

Players today are far too young. The 2010 commits, for example, were born in 1992. And remember: This is a team that has one win (last year's Hawaii Bowl) in its last 10 bowl games. One! The Irish lost those nine games by a total of 159 points, or more than 17 a game. So not only is Notre Dame unable to win bowl games, it is almost always non-competitive. Mediocre football is all 18-year-olds associate the Irish with.

Rumor has it Weis' job may interest Urban Meyer, a man as shrewd as the Irish faithful are delusional. Chances are the two-time national champ will simply pump Florida for whatever money it has left in the budget — your typical merciless shakeout. Honestly, I can't blame him.

Secretly, I hope Meyer will use his love for ballyhooed love for South Bend as leverage. That's about the only area  Notre Dame football can be competent in these days.

In fact, don't real Top-25 programs like USC, Michigan and Boston College use the Irish every year? For wins, of course.