College Football Live

[Zbi]

Andre Ware on college football live, just made the statement, Notre Dame is closer to Army and Navy, then to being a relevant team again. I paraphrased his statement, but still I find it ridiculous that ND is irrelevant even though everyone keeps mentioning ND.

Thoughts?

 

[DillonHall]

Andre Ware on college football live, just made the statement, Notre Dame is closer to Army and Navy, then to being a relevant team again. I paraphrased his statement, but still I find it ridiculous that ND is irrelevant even though everyone keeps mentioning ND.

Thoughts?

ND is relevant in that everyone has an opinion about the university (and especially its football program), but is irrelevant in terms of competing for national championships.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

Andre Ware was closer to being a fashion model than a legitimate NFL quarterback.

 

[phork]

We can barely beat Navy nowadays.. Truth hurts a little I guess.

 

[mgriff]

Yea, as far as impact on the highest tier of college football, ND hasn't made a mark at all recently. It's really sad but it's true. We'll always be relevant because of our massive fan base, but I have no idea how long that is going to last. Our records have been closer to Army and Navy than to the top of college football. As phork said, the truth hurts.

 

[irishpat183]

Truth hurts. I agree with Ware.

However, we'll always have the edge in tradition and exposure.

 

[SoDakDomer]

BCS bowl game appearances
1.Ohio State-9
2.Oklahoma-8
3.USC-7
4.Florida-6
5.FSU-6
6.VTU-6
7.LSU-5
8.Mich-5
9.Miami-4
10.Texas-4
11.Bama-4
12.Oregon-4
13.Wisconsin-4
14.WVU-3
15.Georgia-3
16.Stanford-3
17.Notre Dame-3

 

[phork]

Tradition fades with the Grey hairs. At some point we'll fall off the map. Exposure is relevant when you have something to expose. NBC won't be to happy pulling 1 shares for ND football Saturdays.

 

[clashmore_mike]

Tradition fades with the Grey hairs. At some point we'll fall off the map. Exposure is relevant when you have something to expose. NBC won't be to happy pulling 1 shares for ND football Saturdays.

Cool man, we get it.

 

[ClausentoTate]

What does relevant even mean?

If it means NC's then maybe 5-10 teams are relevant in any given year and even that's debatable.

For reference, before their last NC Texas hadn't won one for 35 years, Auburn hadn't for 50, Oregon hasn't ever and Alabama hadn't for ~20 (before '09).

UM is irrelevant as crap, it's been 15 years!
Oklahoma is irrelevant as crap, it's been 12 years!
OSU is irrelevant as crap, it's been 10 years!
FSU is irrelevant as crap, it's been 13 years!

How dare we think a team stacked with 4-5 star players has a chance to win anything... we have at least as much talent as any of the other teams playing the game, with a few exceptions in the SEC.

I don't think ESPN's allowed to say anything that isn't polarizing. It's good television. I really don't pay attention to what they say about us. Even Lou is hard to watch, I know why some people hate us after what he says sometimes.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

How dare we think a team stacked with 4-5 star players has a chance to win anything... we have at least as much talent as any of the other teams playing the game, with a few exceptions in the SEC.

Half the SEC, USC, Oregon, OSU, FSU, Texas, Oklahoma all clearly have more talent than ND.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Half the SEC, USC, Oregon, OSU, FSU, Texas, Oklahoma all clearly have more talent than ND.

I strongly disagree with that.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Andre Ware on college football live, just made the statement, Notre Dame is closer to Army and Navy, then to being a relevant team again. I paraphrased his statement, but still I find it ridiculous that ND is irrelevant even though everyone keeps mentioning ND.

Thoughts?

My thoughts are that you should stop watching ESPN when it isn't a sporting event. It's in their interest for Notre Dame to fall off the map, so they will get their kicks in whenever possible.

If Notre Dame is irrelevant then they wouldn't be talking about them. The Irish beat the tar of out a team that made it to the Big Ten Championship, clearly outperformed the Sugar Bowl Champions, and were a Dayne Crist fumble away from beating ESPN's beloved Southern Cal.

Take that irrelevant talk and punt it off a bridge Baxter-style. Notre Dame hasn't put up the critical W's in a while now, and they need to, but you'd have to be the most ignorant of fools to believe that there isn't a sh'load of talent on that roster and that the talent tide isn't rising in South Bend.

I can't think of many examples of a top tier coach, when given good talent, hasn't produced the wins and elevated the program. Brian Kelly will do just that.

 

[irishtrain]

ND is relevant in that everyone has an opinion about the university (and especially its football program), but is irrelevant in terms of competing for national championships.

Dillon, Man it hurts to agree but I must. My involvement on this site shows lately as I just dont have much to say anymore-as the program speaks for itself. Gone are the days/gone are the days. College football has moved on to minor league pro football and Notre Dame (for its own good and to do whats right) remains college/college life/education and will at best be 7-5 this year. When Lynch left it spoke volumes on the position of the program on the national level. Even when in the past some guys hated South Bend they would have never ever left Notre Dame football.

 

[IrishLax]

I strongly disagree with that.

Me too.

On another note, we're not close to Army, Navy, or Air Force when we're beating them by 20+ routinely. During the Weis years I would have TOTALLY agreed with this statement... but it's just not the case anymore. We were within a Dayne Crist fumble on the 1 of being tied with USC in the 4th quarter... and we dominated the last 3 games against service academies.... the statement Ware made is just ridiculous.

 

[TerryTate]

He had trouble reading the teleprompter.

 

[returnofthemack]

My thoughts are that you should stop watching ESPN when it isn't a sporting event. It's in their interest for Notre Dame to fall off the map, so they will get their kicks in whenever possible.

If Notre Dame is irrelevant then they wouldn't be talking about them. The Irish beat the tar of out a team that made it to the Big Ten Championship, clearly outperformed the Sugar Bowl Champions, and were a Dayne Crist fumble away from beating ESPN's beloved Southern Cal.

Take that irrelevant talk and punt it off a bridge Baxter-style. Notre Dame hasn't put up the critical W's in a while now, and they need to, but you'd have to be the most ignorant of fools to believe that there isn't a sh'load of talent on that roster and that the talent tide isn't rising in South Bend.

I can't think of many examples of a top tier coach, when given good talent, hasn't produced the wins and elevated the program. Brian Kelly will do just that.

I'm gonna get crucified for this, but I'm not convinced BK is a top-tier coach. I have a hard time believing that a top-tier coach would have stuck with Tommy Rees as long as Kelly did. A top-tier coach does not make all of the gaffes that Kelly did last year (Purple-face, horrible QB decision, Twittergate, etc.). So far, he is a good, not great coach, who took two crappy schools to heights they had never achieved before, transcending minimal expectations. On the big stage and under pressure, he has wilted. The only big games he has won at ND were USC and Utah his first year, and in those cases, there really wasn't much pressure on him since nobody expected us to win those games. He has lost games we shouldn't have lost: Tulsa, USF, etc. and has shown the same ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory that has plagued ND since Lou Holtz left.

As far as relevance goes, we are relevant in that we're always a top 50 team. However, if you restrict relevance to a team that is almost always in the Top 25, ND is not close. They always find ways to lose against the better teams and they specialize in dropping games against opponents we should blow out. Since I started watching ND football (2001), the only times where I was convinced that ND was a good football team were in Weis' first two years. Willingham's first year was good, but it was very similar to Hoke's first year at scUM in that I thought we were ridiculously lucky in many of our close wins. I think Kelly can make us a perennial 8-9 win team, but I doubt ND will ever go past that. With scUM returning to power and OSU with Urban Meyer, ND will not be able to recruit in the Midwest, and since they won't win more than 9 games during the season, they will slowly lose relevance. As the older generation of fans passes away, there will be fewer and fewer young fans to replace them.

 

[returnofthemack]

Me too.

On another note, we're not close to Army, Navy, or Air Force when we're beating them by 20+ routinely. During the Weis years I would have TOTALLY agreed with this statement... but it's just not the case anymore. We were within a Dayne Crist fumble on the 1 of being tied with USC in the 4th quarter... and we dominated the last 3 games against service academies.... the statement Ware made is just ridiculous.

When I think about the USC game, I realize if we had scored on the drive where Dayne fumbled, we would have been tied, but this overlooks the fact that USC outplayed ND all night. Until GAIII returned the kickoff, I thought it was going to be a blowout. The offense only scored one TD (granted it should have been 2), but I still have a hard time seeing us win that game. We were not able to stop USC's offense. Kelly got straight-up outcoached that game. Shockingly, ND wilted under pressure.

 

[Veer option]

You guys really need to stop getting so butthurt when an ESPN talking head speaks badly of ND.

 

[ACamp1900]

His overall point was fine but saying we are closer to Army than to the top five is pretty drastic... This program is a solid, just in the top 25 mix, type program right now... That is NOT where anyone here wants it, but that is pretty damn far from being Army...

but that's what ESPN does, make extreme comments to rile people up...

see. colin. cowheard.

 

[Downinthebend]

When I think about the USC game, I realize if we had scored on the drive where Dayne fumbled, we would have been tied, but this overlooks the fact that USC outplayed ND all night. Until GAIII returned the kickoff, I thought it was going to be a blowout. The offense only scored one TD (granted it should have been 2), but I still have a hard time seeing us win that game. We were not able to stop USC's offense. Kelly got straight-up outcoached that game. Shockingly, ND wilted under pressure.

False, in the second half we were doing just fine.

 

[NDhoosier]

God, I would hate to be a ND football player right now, our fanbase is completely non-supportive. I have never seen a fanbase more pessimistic about its own team than Notre Dame football.

 

[returnofthemack]

God, I would hate to be a ND football player right now, our fanbase is completely non-supportive. I have never seen a fanbase more pessimistic about its own team than Notre Dame football.

There aren't many fanbases that would sell out an 82,000 seat stadium or many student bodies where 97% of students buy season tickets for a team that underachieves as regularly as ND football.

 

[rocket66]

What a difference a year makes. Last year expectations were crazy high and ND was favored in every single game besides Stanford in the regular season.

The team returns a ton of starters at key positions and now they're drawing comparisons to Army. Smh.

I'd rather have the media saying what they're saying now because IF the lights click on for BK and this team, we could be in for a lot of fun.

 

[Downinthebend]

What I want from this year is an offense breakthrough. The inability for Kelly to.. play offense is shocking.

 

[Buster Bluth]

The inability for Kelly to.. play offense is shocking.

lol wut

 

[mgriff]

Records 2007-2011
Air Force: 9-4, 8-5, 8-5, 9-4, 7-6
Army: 3-9, 3-9, 5-7, 7-6, 3-9
Navy: 8-5, 8-5, 10-4, 9-4, 5-7
Notre Dame: 3-9, 7-6, 6-6, 8-5, 8-5

 

[Zbi]

What I want from this year is an offense breakthrough. The inability for Kelly to.. play offense is shocking.

I am with you on this one. The lack of offensive cosistency is a problem. One game the offense looks nearly unstoppable, and the next game the offense cannot achieve a first down. Notre Dame has the offensive skill players to have a big season, lets see what Kelly can do with them.

 

[DCIrish]

Records 2007-2011
Air Force: 9-4, 8-5, 8-5, 9-4, 7-6
Army: 3-9, 3-9, 5-7, 7-6, 3-9
Navy: 8-5, 8-5, 10-4, 9-4, 5-7
Notre Dame: 3-9, 7-6, 6-6, 8-5, 8-5

Really shows how average this team has been.

 

[Downinthebend]

I am with you on this one. The lack of offensive cosistency is a problem. One game the offense looks nearly unstoppable, and the next game the offense cannot achieve a first down. Notre Dame has the offensive skill players to have a big season, lets see what Kelly can do with them.

Its more than that, one quarter we look unstoppable, the next we can't get a first down, another quarter we look like we're rolling, and we throw an interception.