Countering the ND drivel
Countering the ND drivel
Couple of things to point out.
Pointing out the margin of victory in games such as USC is absolutely ridiculous. It does not mean that a team that plays USC close should be voted higher or should go to a better bowl game than a team that gets blown out. So what if a team is close? A loss is a loss and a win is a win. I guarantee that no duck fan would prefer the USC game to come down to the wire instead of a 10 win season.
Besides, if this argument is used than it can be turned around to the Stanford game. We go to Stanford, blow them out. ND goes to Stanford, wins by a minute and a half and a couple of penalties. My point here is that anytime a ND fan makes the argument that the USC scores should matter, they are making themselves look bad for being so narrow minded that they refuse to look beyond a single game's statistics.
Part of this argument is that the Ducks barely beat Arizona, that they only beat Houston by 14, and beat Washington State by only three. However, after doing some research you can see that Arizona was a team that was in the middle of a surge as seen by a dismantling of UCLA, that Washington State was much better than their record indicated, and that the Ducks were in complete control of the Houston game and were never in danger of losing that game.
The argument that the ND schedule was more difficult is not true. The only quality win on the entire ND schedule was Michigan. And try to tell me that the combined wins against Fresno State, Cal, and Arizona State did not offset that. The next best team on the ND schedule was BYU. Quite the quality win.
Also, it seems as though a lot of ND fans are trying to gloss over the MSU game as if it never happened. Pointing to the Ducks-Montana game and saying that it does not count for anything and that we have the same amount of wins does not matter. Regardless of the fact that we did not intend to schedule Montana (another opponent had canceled our game, leaving us to scramble for a game against Montana), you still have 2 losses. I may be wrong in my math, but I believe that 9-1 comes out better than 9-2.
Saying "MSU was a hot team" is pathetic. MSU lost 6 of their next 8 after you played them. The team you played was not in the middle of a hot streak; if anything they were on the edge of a downward spiral. By arguing that MSU was in the middle of a streak and thus the loss should be glossed over, you are saying the same for our slight victories over a streaking Arizona team, Arizona State team and Fresno State team. Once again, you are arguing our point.
However, I'll be the first duck fan to admit that most of the Oregon anger is not really directed towards Notre Dame, but at the BCS. The fact that 7-4 Florida State got into a high paying BCS bid simply because of their win over Virginia Tech is ridiculous. The same goes for Pittsburgh last year.
The reason that so many Ducks have come to post on your site comes down to two reasons: Oregon, and the Pac 10 in general, is frustrated at watching teams that are simply not as good as us thrown into BCS bids because of a championship game or because that team will make more money. Notre Dame, in addition to edging us out of a game because of the money, is the embodiment of what the NCAA and BCS have become: money trumps all. The deal for Notre Dame exemplifies this: if ND squeaks out 9 wins, they get a BCS game. Just the bare minimum is all, the very least possible way to be fair and still get the Catholic audience. If it were possible to do so and still put up the ruse of fairness, I’m sure the Notre Dame would get into a BCS game any year with a winning season, regardless of ranking. Because it all comes down to money.
The other reason for Ducks to post on your site is because we are shocked at how arrogant the Notre Dame fans come off as. Various Irish posts in this site refer to Notre Dame getting in because they will make more money or because they have more tradition. And that is why the Oregon fans are upset; it does not matter if the Ducks are the better team, just whatever team will make more money for the BCS. Name another sport that places more value on the team with more money over the better team.
Notre Dame Fans, look at it from a Duck fan’s perspective. Imagine if you had squeaked out that victory against MSU and Oregon had lost to 6-5 Arizona State. You finish the year ranked ahead of the Ducks in the BCS. However, Oregon’s fan base spends more, so they get the nod. Notre Dame gets to play a 7-4 team in the WhoCares.com bowl. Only thing at stake is ND’s pride.
I’m only asking to keep the hypocrisy down.
In all of the various angry, grammatically incorrect responses generated by this post, keep in mind that this section was created for duck fans to voice opinions, so I am not whining all over your forum, I am writing in the area designated for me to post in. I am not asking for a massive flame war, I am not insulting you personally, I simply believe that there are points that need to be made.
