I have been a Notre Dame fan my whole life, and have been following the Irish closely for the last 20 years. In fact, I have been a subscriber to Irish illustrated since the print days and was so avid a fan that I was paying the ridiculous $2 a minute fee to listen to the 800 number for the recruiting updates.
With that said, one of the posts that are on the board regarding David Grimes in George West got me thinking. How is it in all honesty that the best program in the history of college football (or at least top three programs) can go through such turbulent time as it has the last 20 years? Some can say that it's a result of coaches problems with the staff, bad luck due to injuries, a lack of player development or any number of other things. And while all of those contributing factors may play a big part of the current state of Notre Dame football its not like other programs throughout the country don't also experienced the same conditions or have the same issues.
I'm so grateful that the University of Notre Dame honors its true calling, its commitment to all of its students whether they are athletes or not to provide them with the best education possible, in the attempt to prepare them for their lives, their futures.
I see programs such as the one closest to where I live, the University of Southern Cal and how they being a top program just a little bit below Notre Dame in stature and tradition can with relative ease turn their program around as they have several times over the last 20 years. Just take a look at how that program was when Hackett was head coach and then was taken over by Pete Carroll. And then after how the university was on probation was able to keep the program going strong with some major road bumps and its way. Even now after Lane Kiffin was fired midway through the season, relieved of his duties at the airport with the interim head coach and a less than top and coach currently at the helm will probably beat us this year. All of that with a coach who is now entering his sixth season at Notre Dame and with the program firmly in place, all I can say is wow!
I do strongly feel strongly that there has to be some issues that we the fans are not aware of that are preventing us from bringing in top fight coaches. Now I know that there's a lot of you out there that do not think that no top end coaches want care. however, I really do believe I was that coaches such as Gruden, Urban M, and Saban as well as multiple NFL coaches know that if they could bring multiple national championships to the University of Notre Dame they would go down as legends in football, period.
therefore, there has to be an understanding amongst the coaching fraternity that the administration at Notre Dame is impeding the program for whatever reason and therefore making it extremely difficult to have a top end program.
Now we can catch lightning in a bottle like we did in 2012 where sooooo many things went our way. But top end programs are not built on luck, and therefore proclaiming that we need brakes coming our way is not something that should be spoken about as part of the formula for winning long term.
I guess what I'm saying fellas is that unless there's a fundamental change within the administration to truly enable Notre Dame football to be as successful as possible within the parameters of ethical behavior then I don't think we will be a top 5 program year in and year out.
With that said, one of the posts that are on the board regarding David Grimes in George West got me thinking. How is it in all honesty that the best program in the history of college football (or at least top three programs) can go through such turbulent time as it has the last 20 years? Some can say that it's a result of coaches problems with the staff, bad luck due to injuries, a lack of player development or any number of other things. And while all of those contributing factors may play a big part of the current state of Notre Dame football its not like other programs throughout the country don't also experienced the same conditions or have the same issues.
I'm so grateful that the University of Notre Dame honors its true calling, its commitment to all of its students whether they are athletes or not to provide them with the best education possible, in the attempt to prepare them for their lives, their futures.
I see programs such as the one closest to where I live, the University of Southern Cal and how they being a top program just a little bit below Notre Dame in stature and tradition can with relative ease turn their program around as they have several times over the last 20 years. Just take a look at how that program was when Hackett was head coach and then was taken over by Pete Carroll. And then after how the university was on probation was able to keep the program going strong with some major road bumps and its way. Even now after Lane Kiffin was fired midway through the season, relieved of his duties at the airport with the interim head coach and a less than top and coach currently at the helm will probably beat us this year. All of that with a coach who is now entering his sixth season at Notre Dame and with the program firmly in place, all I can say is wow!
I do strongly feel strongly that there has to be some issues that we the fans are not aware of that are preventing us from bringing in top fight coaches. Now I know that there's a lot of you out there that do not think that no top end coaches want care. however, I really do believe I was that coaches such as Gruden, Urban M, and Saban as well as multiple NFL coaches know that if they could bring multiple national championships to the University of Notre Dame they would go down as legends in football, period.
therefore, there has to be an understanding amongst the coaching fraternity that the administration at Notre Dame is impeding the program for whatever reason and therefore making it extremely difficult to have a top end program.
Now we can catch lightning in a bottle like we did in 2012 where sooooo many things went our way. But top end programs are not built on luck, and therefore proclaiming that we need brakes coming our way is not something that should be spoken about as part of the formula for winning long term.
I guess what I'm saying fellas is that unless there's a fundamental change within the administration to truly enable Notre Dame football to be as successful as possible within the parameters of ethical behavior then I don't think we will be a top 5 program year in and year out.
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