By Andrew Krumme
Well it happened again. The University of “We think we are far superior than you are because of our tradition” (as the almighty King of Smack Jim Rome would say), Notre Dame, was handed a BCS Bowl bid and $14 million plus. But once again they dropped the ball, getting embarrassed 41-14 by LSU in the Sugar Bowl Wednesday night.
How many times is this going to happen? Why do we continue to let Notre Dame football get away with this? What they are getting away with is almost as bad as OJ’s free pass and Major League Baseball’s decision to turn a blind eye to all their sluggers’ cattle cocktails they have been injecting for the past 25 years. And this time they had no excuses to explain their utterly pitiful display of football.
They have the quote-unquote genius coach at the forefront, the golden boy at quarterback and the offensive weapons to go along with their missile launcher at the helm.
Where do we draw the line? It was obvious last week against the Bayou Bengals, it was obvious when they got waxed by USC and Michigan that the Flopping, I mean Fighting, Irish do not belong among the nation’s elite teams come bowl season.
But because of their tradition with names like Knute Rockne, Joe Montana, Tim Brown to go along with seven Heisman winners (not one in almost 20 years) and 11 national championships (again, not one in almost 20 years), they robbed teams who played much tougher schedules and actually beat worthwhile opponents out of a chance to play in a BCS game; teams like Auburn and Wisconsin, who finished ahead of them in the BCS and an Arkansas team that finished 7-1 in conference play en route to winning the SEC West.
Still, the Flopping Irish get a free pass because of their national appeal and NBC TV contract.
Did I mention this team has not won a bowl game in over 10 years?
It has to end at some point. How about they take the first step by not thinking they’re better than everyone and join a conference. For God’s sake you’re not a military academy and even some of them are in conferences.
And how can the NCAA grant the Domers their own specific guidelines for getting a BCS bid? Sure, all you Notre Dame homers can go ahead and argue that the guideline is for all the independent teams but that was put in for them and they and everybody else know it.
The funny thing is, their almighty coach Charlie Weiss seems to agree with me and everyone else who has a clue about the pipeline that runs between South Bend and the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis.
“We’ve got to turn the corner because right now we’ve got a nice, solid team. You want to be an upper-echelon team, not a nice, solid team, and a team competing for national championships,” said Weiss.
Well Charlie, at least you know you do not have an upper-echelon team. Nobody else seems to care.
