Notre Dame

Why are their home losses still referred to as "shocking" or "stunning"?
http://www.stardem.com/sports/colleges/article_628ff490-d6f2-11e0-8cad-001cc4c002e0.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/college/football/bulls_thunder_past_irish_as_lightning_hZ6JLadgiw7H31MUCm8u1O

There can't be anything more predictable... Notre Dame starts the season ranked, and end the season mediocre.

 

Because apparently it's blasphemy otherwise.

 

Those chuckleheads are the most delusional fan base there is. That year it all went to shit for Charlie, i think they finished 3-9, excuse-making by fans was at an all-time high. "transition year! Paying for the sins of that lazy Tyrone Willingham!" I think it was Forde who went to the main ND message board and found that the average fan prediction there, before the season, was about a nine-win season.

 

Did anyone here watch the game?

 

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/31377/

 

Almost every BCS fan base in America would be the same way if you performed the same study.

Not that Notre Dame fans aren't delusional. But they have company in that regard.

Yesterday was shocking because of how it went down. Notre Dame was far and away the superior team, but turned it over five times to zero for South Florida. Notre Dame won its last four five games last year, against teams like Utah, USC, and Miami, in a bowl game beatdown. They had everyone back. They had a coach with a track record of college success. But they had quarterback issues, which bit them in the ass in Game 1.

 

Other fan bases don't think a 9-3 season is around the corner when a 3-9 one is.

You keep saying Notre Dame was far and away the superior team. Do you have any idea how many times they were the "superior team" in the Charlie Weis era if not for those pesky turnovers in the red zone? Those count too.

 

You were definitely prescient about that team. I think Weis - and the defensive deficiencies - got exposed in the Fiesta Bowl by Tressel, big-time, the year before. As I'm sure was pointed out on that thread, that team almost lost to Stanford the year before with the BCS on the line. The '05 team got worse as the season went on, not better. That was not the case, however, with the '10 team, which is why this year felt different. I think they'll still win nine or 10 games.

 

But that '07 team was coming off two BCS appearances. I thought the fans were wrong, but I think that any or most BCS fan bases would have equivalent expectations after the previous two seasons. That team had almost no one back, and fans should have understood it was a transition year, but I don't think fans at Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, or USC, to name a few, would have predicted much differently coming off two BCS appearances.

Notre Dame is a better team than South Florida, but, you're right, turnovers count. But I do think Notre Dame wins eight or nine out of 10 against USF. I mean, it was still 23-20, with an onsides kick at the end.

 

This is where being independent just kills Notre Dame, too. They have to frontload their schedule so much that they can't play an Army or a Western Michigan in the first week. Instead, they are playing those teams at the end of the season. And, yes, Boise plays tough Week 1 games, as well. The answer is that Notre Dame's program isn't as good as Boise State's right now.

 

I will add that I haven't had as much fun watching college football in a long long time as I did watching that ND train wreck in '07. The game they played Air Force, it looked like a high-level high school game that the TV network chose to air as a tribute to the purity and hard work of the athletes who just couldn't move as fast as the real players.

 

The Michigan game was one of the most absurd spectacles I've ever watched. If I remember right, the first snap was shotgun, and the center - who starts for the Vikings now - rocketed it right over Clausen's head about 25 yards down the field. And it got worse from there.