savvyandsassier said:

No one would ever say anything like that. They'd have way, way, way too much discretion and good sense. Not because the rest of the outside world is all arrayed against ND, and their forces have SB completely surrounded. But rather because, are you serious that you would ever make a self-pitying speech like that? That would be shocking if anyone ever did. Ned Yost. I know that's not his name but that's what I call him now. Ned. If it weren't for old Neddy, ND would be in the Big Ten right now! But the man was a bigot, and he had it in for the papists. Again, it would be shocking if an official representative of ND ever said such a thing. And so revealing.

Actually that would be effin' awesome if MF gave a thoughtful, measured reply carefully explaining to a stunned media ND's well-worn tale of woe, and why they will never join a conference, and certainly not the Big Ten. On account of this institutional grudge. The Catholic Church, if there's any institution in this crazy world that is just so weak and vulnerable and harried. The Catholic Church, home of the very moral concept of forgiveness. Their entire spiritual raison d'être, the sine qua non, and it will be a cold day in hell before America's most famous catholic institution ever forgives anyone. Indeed they pride themselves and define themselves on this eternal defiance of their very essence. I guess he who is without sin can cast the first stone?

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jcswoopnh said:

Driskell's site offers some solid info. Unfortunately, the message board has gotten really bad imho. The dozen or so solid people posting there have been overwhelmed by low football IQ, effeminate posters'.
Throw in a few others that have a cult level worship towards BD, make it almost unreadable. It's too bad ad I used to really enjoy it IB

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sjb75 said:

I would not walk across the street much less subscribe to read or listen to anything Bryan Driskell has to say about anything.

I subscribe, read, and listen to Rivals and Eric Hansen primarily. A class individual in the mold of Lou Somogyi and a prolific writer.

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Drinking The Green Koolaid said:

I would have loved to hear Marcus Freeman respond to the question about being in a conference as follows:

"At one time Notre Dame wanted badly to join a conference. For those that know college football history, many years ago Knute Rockne attempted on multiple occasions to have Notre Dame join the Big 10. But Fielding Yost, the athletic director of one of the conference's blue blood programs, the University of Michigan, blocked Notre Dame's admission into the conference and then conspired with other ADs to blackball Notre Dame from playing other teams in the conference. And why did Yost do that? Because he was was motivated by anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant bigotry and was jealous of Rockne's success with Notre Dame's fledging football program. Having been denied entry into the Big 10, Notre Dame was forced to travel nationally, scheduling games with Army and USC, among others. And so Yost's conniving bigotry ended up badly for the Big 10, because Notre Dame's independence allowed it to become a national brand. There we sit today. And now Coach Franklin wants us to just toss that all that history aside and join a conference? Well, no thank you, we like where we are at."

But of course, Marcus has too much class to do that.

I suppose most ND fans here are aware of this history, but if you want to do a deeper dive, read Murray Sperber's Shake Down the Thunder or John Kyrk's Natural Enemies.

All that said, I suspect the day will come, probably soon, when Notre Dame is going to have to join a conference.

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irishalice said:

Yep, those were the asshats of the paid board.

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tbonesays said:

We talk about Boob Weisingham as though it was one continuous era of suckitude. Actually there was a discernable improvement from Ty < Weis < Kelly. I guess Davie goes somewhere in between Ty and Weis. His success was mostly with the residual quality of Lou's coaching.

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hvillebill said:

And yet there were those on this board that wanted him fired after the NIU loss and were drooling over the possibility of getting Urban Meyer or Nick Saban.

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FightingIrish44 said:

Clearly his comments were directed at Uconn.

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