This has been an exciting year for ND football -- undefeated season, one of four teams in the playoffs, victory over the top-rated (at the time) team in the country. What could be better?
In reading the message board regularly, there is this enormous cloud hanging over the ND fanbase. It's "one more of those games that don't end well." Or start well. Or middle well.
Nine years ago, an undefeated ND team played Alabama as 9-10 point underdogs. Since that time, the ND program has upgraded coaching, its strength and conditioning, player development, depth in critical areas, etc. The result is now, Notre Dame is perceived to be 19-20 points worse than Alabama. They have gotten better and have lost ground.
We lament the fact that ND keeps losing decisively in big games. Do you think ND is the only team? How much better has Oklahoma been? Yes, you get the one hit wonders like LSU and Florida St., but once their exceptional QB leaves, so does their good fortune. A few others make it once, and move back to oblivion. The vast majority never make it at all.
Because of geography, I've gotten to watch a Buffalo Bills franchise, that for 25 years was mired somewhere between futility and mediocrity, rise to legitimate Super Bowl contention, and not be 19-20 point underdogs if they get there, or anywhere along the way. Strong management makes a huge difference. But, the bigger point that it's possible in the NFL, and not just to do it once, but to be able to sustain it.
Watching college football move toward its annual coronation is increasingly becoming like Groundhog Day, the movie. There's virtually no chance for a Cinderella story, or a program rising from the ashes like the Buffalo Bills. Notre Dame has had three undefeated regular seasons in the past nine years, yet if they were to win an NC, it would literally shock the world. And this won't change. I won't go into the reasons because we talk about it all the time on this board, though some insist on dismissing it and laying the blame at the feet of the administration or the coach. Well, yes, those could improve, but if you think that change at that level will signal the onset of transformational change for Notre Dame, it won't. The point spread differential may move back to 9-10.
I write this, which nobody likes to read or hear, because it's actually, in a perverse way, a suggestion for finding a silver lining. Instead of channeling your inner Eeyore, which many are doing on a daily basis here, accept the fact that the playing field has tilted so far that ND gets a chance to do what over 100 other teams won't this year, and some, never. They can shock the world. If they lose, as expected, even by a large margin, then it's really nothing more than the story playing out as scripted by the system.
I've been alive for four NC's, and consider myself lucky in that regard, and sad for those who haven't experienced even one. At the same time, I've never experienced something absolutely transcendent like the shock-the-world moment we would get with an ND victory over Alabama, let alone the Impossible Dream of an NC.
Sorry, once again, for the length that runs contrary to the message board rules of engagement. But, I wanted to provide an antidote to the malaise that pervades so much of posting these days. Yes, it is very likely that ND will lose by 19-20 points, and what's worse, it's unlikely to change much in future years because the system of college football is putting ND on the wrong side of history. Nonetheless, they have opportunity. They have a shot at providing a magical, transcendent moment that so rarely happens in life, and in this year, of all years, opportunity is a ray of sunshine to be savored. What's the worse that can happen? Exactly what's expected. And the best? It would be truly sublime. I'll take that deal anytime.
In reading the message board regularly, there is this enormous cloud hanging over the ND fanbase. It's "one more of those games that don't end well." Or start well. Or middle well.
Nine years ago, an undefeated ND team played Alabama as 9-10 point underdogs. Since that time, the ND program has upgraded coaching, its strength and conditioning, player development, depth in critical areas, etc. The result is now, Notre Dame is perceived to be 19-20 points worse than Alabama. They have gotten better and have lost ground.
We lament the fact that ND keeps losing decisively in big games. Do you think ND is the only team? How much better has Oklahoma been? Yes, you get the one hit wonders like LSU and Florida St., but once their exceptional QB leaves, so does their good fortune. A few others make it once, and move back to oblivion. The vast majority never make it at all.
Because of geography, I've gotten to watch a Buffalo Bills franchise, that for 25 years was mired somewhere between futility and mediocrity, rise to legitimate Super Bowl contention, and not be 19-20 point underdogs if they get there, or anywhere along the way. Strong management makes a huge difference. But, the bigger point that it's possible in the NFL, and not just to do it once, but to be able to sustain it.
Watching college football move toward its annual coronation is increasingly becoming like Groundhog Day, the movie. There's virtually no chance for a Cinderella story, or a program rising from the ashes like the Buffalo Bills. Notre Dame has had three undefeated regular seasons in the past nine years, yet if they were to win an NC, it would literally shock the world. And this won't change. I won't go into the reasons because we talk about it all the time on this board, though some insist on dismissing it and laying the blame at the feet of the administration or the coach. Well, yes, those could improve, but if you think that change at that level will signal the onset of transformational change for Notre Dame, it won't. The point spread differential may move back to 9-10.
I write this, which nobody likes to read or hear, because it's actually, in a perverse way, a suggestion for finding a silver lining. Instead of channeling your inner Eeyore, which many are doing on a daily basis here, accept the fact that the playing field has tilted so far that ND gets a chance to do what over 100 other teams won't this year, and some, never. They can shock the world. If they lose, as expected, even by a large margin, then it's really nothing more than the story playing out as scripted by the system.
I've been alive for four NC's, and consider myself lucky in that regard, and sad for those who haven't experienced even one. At the same time, I've never experienced something absolutely transcendent like the shock-the-world moment we would get with an ND victory over Alabama, let alone the Impossible Dream of an NC.
Sorry, once again, for the length that runs contrary to the message board rules of engagement. But, I wanted to provide an antidote to the malaise that pervades so much of posting these days. Yes, it is very likely that ND will lose by 19-20 points, and what's worse, it's unlikely to change much in future years because the system of college football is putting ND on the wrong side of history. Nonetheless, they have opportunity. They have a shot at providing a magical, transcendent moment that so rarely happens in life, and in this year, of all years, opportunity is a ray of sunshine to be savored. What's the worse that can happen? Exactly what's expected. And the best? It would be truly sublime. I'll take that deal anytime.
