Nobody said these aren’t bright kids. The vast majority just doesn’t meet ND level.
247Sports: Notre Dame Is An Overrated Team Heading Into 2023
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How many times are you going to respond with this stupid comment?
That’s pretty close. Was part of a conversation where a former player said “ there were 2 guys on the team that could have gotten in on their academic credentials, me and my brother“. not too hard to figure out who it was. But the idea that an nd degree means the same for the average undergrad and vast majority of the fb players is comical.
Would you rather have “B” students with a 1200 SAT get into ND and be studs on the football field or “A” students with a 1500 SAT who are 4 star athletes but not difference makers. Are football players at ND smarter because they have to have a foreign language requirement, calculus, and stay on a 4-year graduation plan? That is where the administration has to make a decision. If you want to focus mostly on the student part that is fine. You won’t win championships in football moving forward with this thinking. Let me keep saying this for 2024 and beyond….ND has to beat at least 3 teams (and probably 4) ranked in the top 12 IN A ROW to win the Natty. Is this likely with our current student athletes?
I think you're making good points to substantiate your KEY POINT. And it's a shame you're being forced to keep making both THEM and IT repeatedly. Simple declarative sentences in English usually gets it done.
But there's one other factor, right?
There's still that LAYER OF PLAYER who while ND would admit, still DOESN'T WISH TO GO TO SCHOOL PER SE.
The kind of player who is so talented he can go anywhere and in a lot of places, do ZILCH other than play football.
That's the kind of player by definintion a) ND CAN NEVER GET or b) will transfer out once he realizes what he's TAKEN ON.
For instance, the kind of kids who played for Miami in the 80's were NEVER coming to ND. And it's often that cadre that can be the DIFFERENCE MAKERS.
Only the REALLY LIBERAL RECRUITNG of the early Holtz years allowed ND sometimes to beat those teams. And just barely when they did.
So, for this reason, I think there will also be -- at the very upper levels -- significant potential for an ONGOING TALENT GAP with ND getting HIND TIT.
At ND, you stil have to be a STUDENT.
Thanks. Good points. I do wonder how far we’ve veered from those Holtz days. I have heard that we have tightened up a bit, but I can’t imagine it’s too dramatic. I’ve read stories in the past about kids we’ve admitted, many with 2.5’ish gpas. I don’t recall who or when I read those articles (could’ve been Weis years) but it was several years ago (not 80’s or even 90’s). So it was sometime in the mid to later 2000’s. We certainly do not admit general students with 2.5 gpas. They certainly don’t tell us what the SAT scores are. I imagine there are legalities surrounding that. The truth is there might be a handful of football players on scholarship over the years that could get into ND without football. The premise was that it is extremely small and that we already bend the rules substantially for them. I did say “nobody” but was writing more in the standard figure of speech type talk. The other poster is correct that I can’t prove it’s nobody, but it’s simple to prove that it’s very very small. A 4.1 gpa doesn’t give you much of a chance at getting into ND without a stellar (and I mean Harvard level) SAT score. 25% of the local high school graduating class in my hometown this year had a 4.0 or higher gpa. Those kids do not all have Harvard or Notre Dame level SAT scores. In fact, only 2 out of 150 kids with a 4.0 or higher stood up and were recognized for having an elite SAT score, which was high enough to match Harvard’s and ND’s average SAT score for matriculating freshman. That’s not to mention ND requires mountains of service work, impressive extra curricular activities, parents being alumni/donors, etc. I’ve heard many stories of kids getting into Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Columbia, etc and getting straight up denied or waitlisted at ND. ND is small, elite, picky, and likes service work and special things on top of sterling academics. They don’t take unathletic Ian Book’s with 3.5 gpas. No offense to them.
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Brian Kelly hasnt shown he could beat 4 “top 12“ teams in a row yet. And please stop being naive….Kelly never was competitive in any bowl game of substance. He wasn’t going to win 3 or 4 playoff games in a row in one season. Hell, he couldn’t win ONE with these stellar 4 star scholars. All that said, if you think Notre Dame will build enough depth with these 4 star student athletes to win another Natty I’d say you’re a fool. The administration knows this too. They are hell-bent on selling the ND “experience“ instead of building an elite product.
This doesn’t diminish my joy of watching the boys compete. I still want them to win every game. The expectations have changed though.
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It may not be Holtz/vinnie days when anyone with a pulse was good to go but requirements are not nearly as tough as some in fan base want to believe. My niece attended a solid private school who had two kids we recruited heavily , she dated the kid who committed and played for nd. The other kid ultimately went to Michigan. Anyway, within the school her boyfriend was regarded as a kid who tried hard and nice kid but no academic all star. i never asked or was told what his test scores were but I know from the head coach he could get into university of Pennsylvania if he could get 900 on SAT’s. Coach told me “ he didn’t hit the number”. My niece told me flat out “ he couldn’t get into UConn without football”. He didn’t have any problems getting into nd. He didn’t last long and it wasn’t because he was struggling academically, dedicated tutors help a lot. Reality is to compete at the level of football we do you have to look for football players first and then deal with any academic hurdles. And it’s why from 2015-2020 ND offered 115 5 stars which compares very similarly to USC, 110 , OK , 108, MICH, 128 , OSU, 125, Clemson, 110, Miami , 98, LSU, 124, PSU, 89. Not surprisingly it’s less then GA, 151 and ALA 173. But 115 is considerably more then others on our schedules recently, UNC, 67, Wisc, 70, Cal, 50, Stanford, 49 , Duke 41, Vandy, 39, Wake, 24, NW, 13, BC, 29. And service academies 1. As Sampson said a few years ago , we can realistically go after 75 of the top 100 kids. This is a big business for the university and if 2% of the underlying population is an academic question mark so be it. we have 200 tutors dedicated almost exclusively to the football players and now have majors like film and tv, ( seems to be a popular one with a number of ballers). when was the last time a guy on the 2 deep flunked out? Grey? How many STEM majors do we have on 2 deep, probably the same as any other top 10 program. The Stanfords, NW, Dukes, Rice’s they may have some but that’s not who we are competing with when it comes to the entertainment aspect of the university. You have to be a pretty marginal student not to get in and when you do you’re in. No different then any other top 10/20 football powerhouse.
Yep. It’s the same at Michigan, Duke, Vandy, Stanford, etc. they all bend the rules considerably for athletes. What bothers me is simply that ND people have this false idea that academics hold us back and that all of our athletes are valedictorians from the nations elite Catholic schools. It’s simply not the case. We offer the same kids, with rare exception, as every other program. It’s true that academic kids like D Bowen and J Love gravitate towards ND for the academics. That doesn’t mean we don’t try and get the non academic kids.
We have a higher standard than a lot of schools in terms of academics and character. No one said we have all valedictorians but there is a difference
I'm speaking from complete ignorance.
But I would imagine that for football players there's a) a protocol and b) negotiations. That's how EVERYTHING ELSE IN LIFE works. From there, it's a matter of parameters.
As a side note, 64 years ago, I was on track for admission to ND when I decided I wanted to go Ivy League instead and told ND during my interview that it was my THIRD CHOICE. So, with that, I was wait listed.
The two Ivies I'd placed ahead of ND then turned me down, and I wound up attending my 4th place school -- the right one for me and the one I actually wanted to attend. The whole time.
I mention this because in those days, it was definitely easier to get into ND than into the Ivy League, even as you suggest that it may be harder today.
All of these colleges take on a certain character over time, becoming in many instances EVER MORE RARIFIED versions of themselves.
Which leads me to wonder what is ND doing on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion front? Harvard is making it pretty hard for WHITE MALES to get in. To your knowledge, is ND also playing this game?
Or is the more CLUBBY/FOLKS-LIKE-US paradigm still operable. From what you've written, it sounds like it is.
But as for football, guys like Lawrence Taylor and Ray Lewis were NEVER South Bend bound, and I would bet that that's one thing that won't change.
"He wasn’t going to win 3 or 4 playoff games in a row in one season. Hell, he couldn’t win ONE with these stellar 4 star scholars. All that said, if you think Notre Dame will build enough depth with these 4 star student athletes to win another Natty I’d say you’re a fool. The administration knows this too. They are hell-bent on selling the ND 'experience' instead of building an elite product."
BRAVO as per the post!
As per ND, BRAND PRESERVATION uber alles.
MARKETING!
Beyond that, it's ND's version of "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain."
Or let's CATCH LIGHTNING -- or even a LEPRECHAUN -- IN A BOTTLE.
But, yes, by all means, NEVER SAY DIE, though DIE WE WILL.
Excellent data and an interesting narrative.
My quibble is this. Offers are one thing; acceptances, ANOTHER.
Do you have the HIT RATIO data on those 5-star offers? Even if not, don't we know simply ANECDOTALLY or with a quick glance at the numbers that that's where ND comes up short?
For many of those 5-stars, it's more a question of WHY GO TO SCHOOL IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? FOOTBALL IS A LOAD IN ITSELF.
Anyone who played in college knows this. Me, I got my lowest grades during football season. Proud to say, though, it was still a 3.0.
It’s false because academics do hold us back.
One student doesn’t a universal make !
They may not be won in the classroom, but they are lost in the classroom.
Notre Dame is a unique institution in that it upholds higher academic standards while competing in athletics at the highest levels
I don’t think they are. I noticed US News dropped the law school like 10 spots for 2023. My deep suspicion is bc those other schools started denying white people and shot up the rankings as a result. ND probably didn’t change much in that regard as they realize it’s racist.
That’s exactly the opposite of what I’m saying. ND likely goes on merit, which is why they dropped.
Lol what a load of bs, just start to finish.
Wow.
We haven't won a single bowl game in 30 years? We just beat an SEC team in a bowl last season. And that was just the beginning of the BS.
Freeman should not be held accountable for 9-3. He’s doing all he can within the constraints the admin places on him. Kelly was allowed to have losing seasons. Freeman can lose 9 games and say it’s bc he didn’t get his OC, who wouldn’t wanted a different OL coach. There are dozens of things the admin does not to support Freeman and our student athletes.
That’s not true.
Why would you make that up and perpetuate a lie ?
Hawaii and LSU
So Kelly didn’t have those same restraints put on him ?
Stop making excuses.
If Freeman didn’t get the OC he wanted it wasn’t because of the administration, ditto the OL Coach
Name the “dozens” of things that the administration doesn’t support that are unique to Freeman.
Name the “dozens” of things that the administration doesn’t support relating to our “student athletes”
I think BK got the coaches he wanted. He also had some really bad seasons and his job was never in jeopardy. With freeman everyone is saying he has to win 10 games. Horse shit. He doesn’t have to win 10 games. His losses also aren’t all on him. You’re expected to beat Ohio State and USC with less resources and less support. If Ryan Day wanted Ludwig, he’d be there. And guess what? When Ohio State wants Freeman, he’ll remember that. BK left ND bc he knows Jack is a joke and the school spends more on the athletic director and less on coaches. A total corporate dictatorship. Time for a change.
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And as I see it, that's to ND's credit.
I'm waiting eagerly to see what SCOTUS does with affirmative action.
I've never believed it's constitutional.
But, of course, it won't affect which football players get offered. That's a TOTALLY MERIT-BASED system as the schools themselves are DIRECT BENEFICIARIES.
And if you're argument is correct - and you've certainly documented it -- ND plays THAT merit game as well.
Where it loses, I'd argue, is in terms of the academic RIGOR required once someone is IN. For a lot of standout recruits with the NFL clearly in their sights, it's either a) a bridge too far or b) simply completely UNNECESSARY.
Anyway, "you fight with the army you've brought."
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