I’ve always had a place in my heart for Notre Dame football. I’m not really sure why. Ever since my mother sat me down to watch Rudy, I tuned into NBC every Saturday to watch intently over the tenures of Lou Holtz, Bob Davie, the laughably short tenure of George O’Leary, Ty Willingham, and now the supposed offenseive genius Charlie Weis.

You’d think that with the current state of this year’s Fighting Irish football team, I’d be wiping my tears with a Golden Domer blanket and dreaming of better days in South Bend. But this is the greatest point in my Notre Dame hating career and these are tears of pure bliss.

You read that right. I have hated Notre Dame football ever since I learned the rules of football. Because in my opinion, cheering for Notre Dame football is like going to a casino and cheering for the house. Granted, Rudy is a great film that I still watch often, but since the first ND game I’ve watched I have wanted to kick that little leprechaun back on the rainbow he came in on.

Writing these last couple paragraphs has not only helped me vent, but it has also reminded me of why I dislike the Irish from South Bend so much. Here it goes.

First, the school has the most fair-weather and bandwagon fans this side of the Yankees and Red Sox. When Brady Quinn was playing pitch and catch with Jeff Samardzija last year and Charlie Weis got his big money extension, everyone I saw on Green Street and in class was high on the Irish. But after they had their yearly crash down to earth come bowl season and have started 2007 with four losses, a large majority of the Irish faithful who were chirping in my ear last season suddenly claim no Irish fandom at all. But I will admit I do know many good Irish Catholic ND faithful who follow the team no matter what. To my friends in this category, this is not directed to you. But those of you that support the Irish sparingly, please be a real fan and support your team through thick and thin like a real fan.

Second, they are perennially overrated. Granted, most of this is due to their national fan base and the fact that they are God’s team (not touching that one), but the media is also at fault here (I won’t even start on Lou Holtz). Turn on “College Football Today,” or any show having to do with sports, and you will see sound byte after sound byte from Charlie Weis proclaiming that they’re starting from scratch this week or that Jimmy Clausen will help erase the fact the Irish are averaging .8 yards rushing per attempt with a balanced attack. C’mon, we are all sick of seeing it.

But the fact that they receive lofty rankings to start each season that rise with each game — even if other teams are idle (this year was a lone exception) and seem to disappoint come bowl season is no surprise. The reason they haven’t won a bowl game since the 1994 Cotton Bowl is because of the poll voters and media hype for a program that routinely plays all three military academies in a season. Their schedule, with this season’s first eight games as an exception, is always a joke, with appearances from teams such as the aforementioned servicemen, Duke (WOW), and many others.

In 2005 The Irish were given a BCS bid over the Oregon Ducks — a team with a better resume and higher BCS ranking — to play in the Fiesta Bowl against the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Irish were dominated in a 35-20 drubbing from the Buckeyes in a game that was never even remotely close.

Fast forward to 2006. Notre Dame returns nearly all its key players and its “offensive genius” Weis, and his team gets steamrolled by future No. 1 pick Jamarcus Russell. LSU won 41-14, which puts the Irish averaging a whopping 14 points per BCS bowl while allowing 38 per game. Maybe if they played a real schedule and weren’t hyped on every media outlet, they would look better when they play a national TV game not on NBC.

So although Jimmy Clausen will probably blossom into a good quarterback and Notre Dame will most likely return to glory, the Irish haters of the world like me can have their cake and eat it to. Eat it while it lasts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 3:55 pm and is filed under College Sports, College Football, Notre Dame, Charlie Weis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.