Tag: notre dame independent

Roddy Jones: ACC’s playoff hopes depend on how they play Notre Dame

Time for the Irish to spoil the ACC’s plans.

As we begin the superconference era, Notre Dame remains an independent. The tradeoff for that is devoting a large portion of its schedule to the ACC, and fans of teams in that conference really might have to root against the Irish this year in order to have a chance at the College Football Playoff.

In an appearance on the “GoJo and Golic” podcast hosted by former Irish [autotag]Mike Golic[/autotag] and [autotag]Mike Golic Jr.[/autotag], ESPN analyst Roddy Jones gave his insights on what the ACC would have to do to get the most teams possible into the playoff. He said that depends on how well the conference takes care of the Irish:

Looking at the Irish’s schedule, Florida State and possibly Louisville really are the only ACC opponents who could give them problems. With little room for error themselves, they’ll have no concern for the ACC’s playoff aspirations. They’ll be giving it their all every week, as they should.

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College football podcast spills beans on Notre Dame Stadium end zones

How many of you knew this already?

Any college football diehard will know Notre Dame Stadium has one of the most unique designs for its end zones. While other college football stadiums paint their end zones, Notre Dame opts for simple lines all angled in a certain direction.

But what do those lines signify? Why don’t the Irish dress their end zones up like other teams do?

Some of you might already know the answer, but for those who don’t, college football podcaster Ty Hildenbrandt spelled it out:

Yes, the lines have everything to do with the year the university was founded along with the location of the Golden Dome, the focal point of a campus filled with one famous attraction after another. If this doesn’t tell you how steeped the Irish are in tradition, nothing will.

To that end, it stands to reason that as long as those end zones stay designed as they are, the Irish will not be joining a conference until they’re pretty much forced to. Notre Dame defines itself with tradition, and at least for the moment, that will not change.

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Perfect Notre Dame season won’t bother Georgia SB Nation site writer

Stick this one on the bulletin board.

Notre Dame played Georgia in 2017 and 2019, losing both times. The programs currently are not scheduled to meet again in the regular season. But they could meet in the expanded College Football Playoff, and that isn’t lost on one Georgia writer.

The writer, known as GlimmerTwinDawg, is part of Dawg Sports, the SB Nation site for Georgia athletics. He wrote that if the Irish finish the season undefeated, it won’t trouble him. That’s because it wouldn’t prevent the Irish from being locked out of the top four seeds of the College Football Playoff. He also factors in the Irish’s favorable 2024 schedule and the likelihood of them making the playoff regardless.

But then, he presents the scenario that many outside the Irish fan base would love:

“I relish the idea of their success, overrated as always, will not be rewarded. And instead actually punished for their ham-handed stance on conference memberships. Sure, they might get to host a mid-December playoff game at home. But they will inevitably get shellacked by an SEC or (Big Ten) team itching to knock off their gipper. This is a variation of schadenfreude – I want them to succeed only to lose out on an opportunity. And then fall short. Again.”

So we have another writer who can’t stand the Irish’s independence and how it lets them keep their status as a blue blood. That’s what this all comes down to.

All we can say is that’s why they play the games. The Irish surely know what other people think about them, and that should give motivation to prove everyone wrong. Whether they can do it though is another question they’ll have to answer themselves.

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Michigan site tries to own Notre Dame with top-10 wins stat

Maize and Blue Nation needs to stay out of Irish business.

As historic as the rivalry between Notre Dame and Michigan is, it currently is at a standstill. What should be an annual meeting has been shelved until a home-and-home in 2033 and 2034. But somehow, Wolverines fans believe now is the time to dunk on the Irish.

Although the teams won’t face each other at least in the regular season for a while, the Michigan site Blue By Ninety decided to let those on social media know about this fact:

The nature of the stat here is irrelevant, and we’re not here to argue it. What is relevant is that although their team is coming off a national championship, Wolverines fans clearly still see the Irish as enough of a threat to bring this stat up.

Whether or not the Irish are a threat to the Wolverines in any given year, their fans conveniently seem to forget that it was their school that shut the Irish out of the Big Ten, leading the Irish to remain independent and become the national brand they are now. If they don’t like the Irish getting the attention they do, they only have their own school to blame for that.

Wolverines fans need to keep their focus off the Irish and onto Ohio State and whatever SEC program tries to topple their team. We can talk about this if the Irish and Wolverines meet in the College Football Playoff. That time has not come, so let’s table the discussion for now.

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Power rating site gives Notre Dame favorable outlook for 2024

Does this excite you?

With college football action still two-and-a-half months out, it is time for experts to analyze the teams. Among them is Kelley Ford, who runs a power ratings site and is going through a different conference each day.

The time to look at the independents has come, so that means it’s Notre Dame’s turn. Let’s just say if the season goes as well as Ford as projecting, 2024 will be a very special season for the Irish:

Is it an overly optimistic look? Probably, but that doesn’t mean Irish fans can’t get excited about the season. The expanded College Football Playoff gives the Irish a chance to play meaningful football in December. If this chart is to be believed, the team very much will be equipped to make some noise.

Prospects are looking up in South Bend, so the question we have to ask is whether [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and his staff can get the most out of their players to back those projections up.

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Stephen A. Smith questions Notre Dame’s relevance

This guy.

Believe me when I say the last thing I want to do is bring attention to Stephen A. Smith. I could write a whole post about everything I can’t stand about him, but that’s a topic for another day.

With the College Football Playoff officially expanding to 12 teams, the inevitable topic of where Notre Dame fits in as an independent has come up. It has to given that the top four seeds automatically will go to conference champions, which locks the Irish out of those spots.

Whatever the reason for the Irish entering the conversation though, it prompted Stephen A. Smith to outright question why the program is relevant during the latest episode of ESPN’s “First Take”. He went on so long that Awful Announcing had to split the video in two when tweeting it out:

The only thing worth adding to this is that [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] is working hard to build the program he sees fit, and the hope is that more progress will be made in his third full season at the helm. With luck, Smith will be eating his words before too long.

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Sports Illustrated’s Richard Johnson: Notre Dame ‘not an independent’

Keep telling yourself that, Richard.

With college football almost here, old issues are starting to be debated again. Notre Dame’s independence is about as old a debate topic as it gets, but with major conference realignment coming in 2024, it feels like a hotter issue than ever. Richard Johnson of Sports Illustrated disputed the very idea of the Irish being independent on his podcast. Specifically, he cited the university being a partial ACC member:

There shouldn’t be any middle ground discussed here. Either you’re in with a conference all the way, or you’re not. Notre Dame is not a full-fledged ACC member, so it’s no use debating this particular point. Until an ACC logo permanently is painted onto the Notre Dame Stadium surface, we can’t call the football program part of it.

Notre Dame’s other athletic programs are in conferences out of necessity more than anything else. They can’t sustain themselves the way the football program can. And until the college football powers-that-be decide that independence is bad for the game, the Irish are staying independent.

[lawrence-related id=74924,74868,29105]

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Legendary coach Bob Knight dies at 83

Rest in peace, Coach.

Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight has died at the age of 83. In 42 seasons coaching college basketball, Knight accumulated 902 wins, the sixth-most of all-time. He made 28 NCAA Tournaments and came away from three of his five Final Fours with national championships, all of them with Indiana.

Notre Dame was a regular opponent of Knight’s Hoosiers, who asserted their dominance in the series with 21-6 record during those years. However, the Irish won their first game against Knight in the 1968 NIT, when he was coaching Army.

The Irish also were witnesses to one of the many incidents Knight was involved in during his career. In a 1993 game between the teams, he screamed at and kicked his son, Pat, and subsequently was suspended for one game.

In 2010, two years after Knight coached the final game of his career for Texas Tech, he got in some digs at Notre Dame during a public speaking engagement. He began by referring to Sam Perkins and fellow Hall of Famer Chris Mullin, two players he coached to the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics:

“They were two smart Catholic boys. They should advise Notre Dame to go in the Big Ten, because there are some dumb Catholic boys up there. They have no idea how much it would change their recruiting.”

Since then, of course, Notre Dame has joined the Big Ten for hockey and the ACC for all other sports but remained independent in football. Still, that had to have ruffled a few feathers in South Bend at the time.

In spite of everything, Knight accomplished a lot in his career and deserves to be celebrated for it. May he rest in peace.

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Deadspin wants Notre Dame to save Pac-12 by joining it

Dumb idea.

Much has been made over the past few weeks about the likely demise of the Pac-12. With only four schools currently slated to be members in 2024, the conference’s future doesn’t look good. Or does it?

DJ Dunson of Deadspin has decided that Notre Dame needs to be the savior of the remaining programs. California, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State apparently have become important enough to Notre Dame that it needs to upend its entire future for the sake of these particular teams. Here’s the idea in full:

“The ACC’s ham-handed attempts to scoop up Stanford and Cal were reportedly at the behest of Notre Dame looking out for their natural rivals. For now, that quid pro quo is on life support. Props to them for making an effort to rescue the eggheads in Palo Alto from a sinking ship, but you know what would help?

Why not join a conference that is seeking a media rights deal and join the Pac-12? The Pac-12 appears to DOA, but what does Touchdown Jesus represent if not the resurrection? It’s not a super-conference, but a mini-conference is a solid middle ground.”

No. No. Notre Dame does not owe anyone anything, least of all a group of teams they have very little history with except for the Cardinal. And the beauty of independence is that you can have this attitude and not worry at all about the shifting conferences around you.

Thanks for the offer, but if the day were to come that the Irish absolutely had to join a conference, the other side of the country is the last place they would consider. The aforementioned schools will just to find another way to sustain themselves.

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Woodward Sports Network: ‘Nobody should schedule Notre Dame’

Nope. Not happening.

With college football being thrown completely out of whack, attention has turned to Notre Dame once again. All indications are that despite the calls of many outside the Irish fan base, their independence isn’t ending anytime soon. The program will not be intimidated by such pressure.

But that’s not stopping outlets such as the Detroit-based Woodward Sports Network from telling would-be opponents to force Notre Dame’s hand. Check out this clip from a show with a panel that includes Braylon Edwards, who faced the Irish three times while with Michigan:

Please. Any athletic director with a brain would be foolish not to agree to play the Irish regardless of the state of their own program. The exposure and grandeur is too hard to resist, and lesser opponents gladly will take the money they’re paid to come to Notre Dame Stadium because being there is not an opportunity that comes along every year.

These programs are shifting conferences because of money. Nobody is going to take a financial hit just so it can get Notre Dame to persuade itself to join a conference. If anything, teams will do whatever it takes to get a piece of the pie in South Bend because it benefits everybody to some degree. Those who think otherwise should find a different line of work so they aren’t detrimental to their school.

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