Gregg Doyel is one of the biggest haters out there, and has been for a long time. Hating for hate's sake when it comes to Notre Dame is his M.O. I read this article today too. Its really nothing new from him.
Most of his points are easily dismissable, such as his insinuation that Notre Dame's recruiting has been lacking due to their independent status. This is despite the fact that ND under Weis has recruited at least as well or better than 10 of the 11 Big "Ten" teams the past 5 years I'd say. OSU is the only one that's been markedly better in my mind, and well, what do you expect? Winning begets better recruiting, and combine winning, a good recruiter/coach like Tressel, and a storied program like OSU, and you have the trifecta of college football. But it has nothing to do with OSU being in a conference. If ND wins on the level of OSU, they will recruit on that level too. Hell, Weis' first 2 years when he was winning on that level, they pretty much were recruiting on that level as well.
Then he pulls the old "Lets take a sound-bite out of a much larger statement the Notre Dame AD said, and spin it to make him sound ridiculous" with the whole USC line. ND's home-and-home configuration with USC was 1 out of about 5 or 6 reasons Swarbrick gave for remaining independent, but of course Gregg spun it to sound like it was the only reason.
Then there's the $20 million figure he throws out there for the Big Ten, SEC, etc schools' payout from their TV contracts, compared to the $9 million ND gets. Now, Swarbrick admitted ND's number was less, so I won't argue that it isn't. However, if you look at the link to the original article, that $20 million figure comes from the Big Ten schools T.V. and radio contracts. ND's $9 million is just what they get from NBC. This does not include Notre Dame's contract with ISP Sports, which makes Notre Dame the only school in America to have all of its football games broadcast nationally on the radio. I couldn't find an article that gives any info on what that contract is worth, but I was able to find one that listed Auburn's contract with ISP at $5.7 million. Just for the sake of argument, lets say ND's is equal (and lets face it, its probably more). That means we're talking about $14.7 million vs $20 million. Still a big difference, but not the less-than-half figure Doyel throws out there.
Hey, its Notre Dame football. Haters are gonna hate. Homers are gonna...ugh...home? And the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I just hope that if Kelly gets this program on the right track to a NC someday, the guys like Doyel are man enough to admit they were wrong. I doubt Gregg will, but I can still hope.
