Is Notre Dame football dead?

I heard a stat today that blew my mind: Notre Dame is 1-7 in its last eight games, dating back to last season.

For people younger than 30, that's probably no big deal. Notre Dame has always been irrelevant in football, as far as they've known.

But for the rest of us? It should be absolutely shocking.

So far Brian Kelly is doing about as well with Charlie Weis's super neato skeato recruits as Weis himself did, seeming to verify the idea that the recruiting services always give Notre Dame recruits a bump for some reason. But it seems clear on the field that they can't recruit the kind of players they used to.

Is Notre Dame just going to become like Army or Navy or the Ivy League schools? A relic of college football's past?

1-7. Amazing.

 

I sure hope so.

 

I'll never understand the strategy behind hiring the offense-minded Kelly, when anyone watching that team last year could clearly see that Notre Dame's problems last were not on offense. Notre Dame straight up couldn't stop anyone.

 

The prognosis isn't good, but I don't know if it's fatal. Alabama, Oklahoma, USC, Texas, Miami and Nebraska have all had extended periods in the doldrums in recent years. Most seem to be in fairly rude health these days.

Eventually, though -- and this may have already happened -- there will come a point when the coaches capable of turning around Notre Dame won't come calling. Why should they, one might ask, when a coach is expected to recruit nationally, play a national schedule and be winning nine and 10 games by their third year but all the evidence states those expectations are out of touch with reality? There's no point in taking on a six- to seven-year rebuilding project when the donors and administrators who control the purse strings start to get twitchy after four years without a BCS bowl.

Patience and managed expectations -- not to mention a defense -- would go a long way toward at least re-establishing Notre Dame in the national consciousness. Whether those in charge are willing to do that and risk increased scrutiny from their constituency remains to be seen.

 

Hey, I thought God loved Notre Dame football. Isn't that why Jesus gave Mark Dantonio a heart attack? Ye have little faith in St. Kelly?

 

I came to realize in the mid-1980s that the reason Notre Dame recruited so many Parade All-Americans was that the Parade team was, at least at some point, developed mainly in cooperation with the Notre Dame recruiters. Nice feedback loop.

 

More like anyone under 25. I'm 26 and I still remember their classic match-up against Florida State and when that BC upset seemed so monumental.

I maintain that Ron Powlus single-handedly destroyed the program. No real meat to that theory. It just makes me smile to think it.

 

True story. Ron lived in the apartment next to us, his Junior & Senior years. Truly a nice, good guy....& seeing the way he was treated, forever changed my outlook on college athletes. Unreal, the sh*t that kid (and that's what he was....a kid) had to put up with.

 

The echoes won't be waking up anytime soon with Notre Dame Football.

 

I'm far from a ND fan (quite the opposite), but one thing to keep in mind with the 1-7 stat: they were about a minute total from being 3-4 since they nearly beat the two Michigan teams this season. Then again, not sure how much that will end of proving.

 

Grotesque, impossible expectations.

See: Cook, Beano.

 

My personal fave was the night his "classy" ND classmates decided to take a sh*t on his balcony. Except, of course, they climbed on to the wrong balcony & did so on mine. Yes, we had the dumb *sses arrested.