Love thee Notre Dame

At 2:30am this morning, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, bothered by the injustice of yesterday.

The initial flinch from the pain is settling into a slow masochistic burn. Pause for a moment and simmer in everyone's hatred being shared. As an ND fan, I got comfortable thinking everyone liked us because of our coach. Or respected us because of our recent success. We came close to a title, signed the best class any of us have ever seen, we dismantled our final 10 opponents.

Then the SEC pulled another dirty trick. And the anti-ND, anti-Catholic, anti-individualists took off their masks and started shouting all of their pent-up hatred via their usual refrains. "Join a conference", "You're not special, fall in line". They hate anyone who would venture out of the security of the pack. They need a collective identity because they aren't strong enough walking alone in the dark.

Then the puppets who get paid by creating this outrage, were outraged themselves. ND didn't eat the shit sandwich and smile like everyone else. They thought ND, after some bitter emotion, would "awww shucks" this thing and accept a bullshit offer to a 2nd rate postseason game. ND, on principal, took a vote and further strengthened their position as the one who goes a different way. They passed on the money and the humiliation everyone conspired to offer them.

Corruption always seeps in. We've seen it in history, politics, business and now we see it in sport. We all want to believe sport still has some pure elements. That the players and the coaches determine the outcome but that's false. They determine their effort. They determine their execution. They can't get an SEC ref to throw a flag if he doesn't want to. They can't get a committee chaired by an SEC admin to view them under equal light. They can't get a collusion-riddled network of broadcasters to admit that ND was undeservedly robbed of a chance to win a title.

This is the price of going alone. We don't have a group of purchased friends to talk up our accomplishments. We don't have a group of shills using the statistics that show ND deserved more. They'll cherry-pick what suits their agenda and their agenda is destroying anyone or anything that wants to be different. They'll give ND a chance, but first they must bend the knee.

ND chose to not bend the knee. I love this team. I love our coaching staff. I love our players and I love what we aspire to be.

yep. similar scenario. I kept getting flashes of the Miami and Bama logo flashing up on the TV. Still sick and not getting better for two months

As soon as I saw that Bama hadn't dropped I felt sick.

In theory, they could have left them at 9, ND at 10 and BYU at 11.

But, my gut just knew.

This and '93 are tied for most soul crushing moments of my fandom.

This is a great take. Yes, it sucks that 'Bama got into the CFB based on a version of the "not what you know, it's who you know" principle. The Tide are like the spoiled, no-account son of rich guy who gets the dream job because of connections & politics while ND is the sharp, hard-working man who gets screwed because he doesn't have unearned juice behind him. But that doesn't mean you give up or go the route of the lazy and the entitled. You double down on what really matters and earn your way into the winner's circle.

Notre Dame doesn't need to knuckle under and give up their independence just to satisfy the chorus of conference-loving Borg minded fools. The Irish need to keep walking their own path. Yes, sometimes being the black (or Blue & Gold) sheep will get you overlooked and passed by. But the Irish will get their shot and I want them to get that shot and win it all by being who they always were.

Black Irish said:

This is a great take. Yes, it sucks that 'Bama got into the CFB based on a version of the "not what you know, it's who you know" principle. The Tide are like the spoiled, no-account son of rich guy who gets the dream job because of connections & politics while ND is the sharp, hard-working man who gets screwed because he doesn't have unearned juice behind him. But that doesn't mean you give up or go the route of the lazy and the entitled. You double down on what really matters and earn your way into the winner's circle.

Notre Dame doesn't need to knuckle under and give up their independence just to satisfy the chorus of conference-loving Borg minded fools. The Irish need to keep walking their own path. Yes, sometimes being the black (or Blue & Gold) sheep will get you overlooked and passed by. But the Irish will get their shot and I want them to get that shot and win it all by being who they always were.

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Then you are stuck with a rotten relationship with the ACC or you have to find a new Conference tie-in. Being a true independent without a tie-in is simply not realistic.

There is ZERO chance that the Big Ten or the SEC would consider a similar arrangement. So that leaves the Big 12.

ab2cmiller said:

Then you are stuck with a rotten relationship with the ACC or you have to find a new Conference tie-in. Being a true independent without a tie-in is simply not realistic.

There is ZERO chance that the Big Ten or the SEC would consider a similar arrangement. So that leaves the Big 12.

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I disagree. I still think independence is overall better for them. I don't even think the ACC tie-in is doing them any favors, as this year's debacle demonstrated. Maybe if ND was fully in the ACC they would have gotten the Miami treatment and mysteriously won the eye test for the committee at the last second after Virginia lost the ACC title game just so that lousy conference would have a team in. But it's not worth giving up independence to belong to a garbage conference, or any conference. OSU and Indiana aren't ranked 1 & 2 because they're in the Big 10. It's because they're really good teams with undefeated seasons. 10-2 ND was never going to be a shoe-in. Yes, the Irish got screwed but losing their first 2 games out of the gate was, and is, still the biggest factor in them ultimately not getting in. 12-0 or 11-1 Notre Dame isn't getting screwed like they did by the committee, it's that simple.