The World vs. Notre Dame

Nuff Said! ps - well written article... what does it mean if the college football world "resolves" around a team?

But unfortunately Charlie Weis did a lot of things at Notre Dame that deserved to be defended. I can't think of a player being involved in any serious off the field incident while he was there. His graduation rates were absolutely stellar, and that's a credit to the sort of individuals he recruited. It's no coincindence that the current transformation ND is going through is like night and day compared to ours, even considering the similarity. There has been no mass exodus among the players, they all shut their mouths, and went to work for Brian Kelly (This is in no way a knock on Lloyd, who I believe is one of the most upstanding individuals to ever grace a football program, I'm saying Weis did some good). There's been no bad blood, no pissed off diva players that left and then trashed the coach because they weren't promised a starting position, or told to run to the line of scrimmage. There were also zero NCAA investigations. Charlie Weis was an asshole that pissed off a lot of people, and only had mediocre success. I just think it's off base to say that he didn't accomplish anything that deserved to be defended.

then World wins. Sorry, ND, we have the numbers.

Notre Dame hasn't been the same since the book "Under the Tarnished Dome" came out. The book neutralized Lou Holtz as a recruiter, and that alone was enough to severely hurt the program. Since then, they have made countless mistakes in hiring coaches. Most of us are still pissed at Rosenpuke for his hatchet job, but "Under the Tarnished Dome" shows what a truly talented writer can do with a hatchet. I wonder if Rosenpuke's grand pretensions were influenced by the effects of that book?

He lost me around this part: "Until the mid 2000’s, Notre Dame had genuinely great personalities and players." ?! I'd agree that most of their players have been good citizens and closer to the mythical "student athlete" than most. But, does he really believe that Lou Holtz was a stand-up guy?

But in 2005, the perception of the program began to change as the team hired an over-hyped, under-experienced head in Charlie Weis.

You're passing judgement on a decision that was made 5 years ago with an argument that couldn't be made until much more recently. My perception was that ND could lose to 3 ex-coaches in the same season, that gloom quickly turned into happiness. It didn't have anything to do with the coach, more to do with what the previous coach had done to the program.

as he genuinely seemed to disrespect any reporter who dared to question his coaching and embrace a Belichek-ian stranglehold on the program

I guess Kelly is Belichek-ian as well, as is every ND HC I can remember as media contact with players has always been in a "stranglehold". I wonder if Belichek learned it from ND?

Then in 2007, the program made a big splash by recruiting and landing Jimmy Clausen out of Thousand Oaks, CA, the highest ranked QB in the incoming class. .... and said he planned on winning multiple National Championships.

He was the highest ranked QB in the last 10 years according to Rivals. He said his "Goal" was to win a national championship every year.

During the next three years, the program remained in a state of constant flux, resulting in more downs than ups, yet the fan base defended their flawed heroes who continually thumbed their nose at the rest of college football on and off the field.

What are you talking about? Is that just a catchy line you thought up?

All the while, complaining about their national perception despite continually losing to almost every team outside of the service academies.

So ND and fans were complaining about their national perception over the 2 worst records in school history, are you sure they weren't complaining about how bad the team was playing? I am pretty sure they were, your national perception argument was pretty low on the list. A list of those teams that ND didn't lose to over those 3 years: UCLA, Duke, Stanford, Michigan, Purdue, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, Michigan State, Boston College and Washington State.

And despite Jimmy Clausen becoming a very competent QB at ND, his constant whining on the field during a loss, and childish taunting after a win never sat well with fans either.

WTF are you even talking about? I don't remember hearing a bunch of whining after loosing to UM last season. I remember hearing UM fans talk about him going up to Tate and congratulating him on the win, waiting patiently till Tate's ESPN post game interview was completed. So lets look back now, you say: -ND fans complain about their national perception -Weis was a bad HC hire because he didn't have college coaching experience, because 5 years later he obviously wasn't right for the job -Weis and ND don't open the team to the media like belichek, something egregious obviously -Clausen was immature when he committed to ND, his perception further suffered from being misquoted -random line of no base -ND was more concerned with their national perception than their team's play. Played 21 different teams '07-'09 , and had wins over 12 of them, not counting the service academies, so you're just blatantly wrong again. -Clausen taunts after wins and whines after losses, and you cite no example and just profess it to the masses I guess. So you wrote your opinion article on how ND complains about their national perception and it's all their fault. As proof you provide your own opinions based on information is either blatantly wrong or you're too lazy to check. Do you realize you just proved ND fans correct?

Sure, Charlie Weis and ND nation are a bunch of bandwagon arrogant pricks, but that's for us to say as fans who hate ND--it's not proper material for an article that purports to analyze ND's downfall. Did ND cause its program to unravel by making poor financial decisions, hiring guys that caused division within the athletic dept, piss off the student body and alumni base, etc.? Nope. Instead, ND experienced its karmic downfall for the unforgivable sin of having personnel and players that its rivals couldn't stand (at least somewhat reasonably). And we all know that someone who annoys rival fans is a definitely a polarizing figure. It's certainly amusing to us that Weis tooted his own offenesive genius horn only to find his ass fired, that Jimmy Clausen came up a little short of his 4 national championship rings, or that ND players are not as well behaved as domers would like us to think, but come on. How about using concrete evidence to argue how/why ND got what it deserved, not one about metaphysical karma and gloating about how satisfying it is to see ND embarrassed after getting guys. It's kicking fans when they're down and it's not material worthy of an article that shows up in Google news results. It's incredibly stupid when that sort of thing is written about Michigan by some bitter WVU/MSU/OSU fan. I don't think it's any different when the target is ND. I'm sorry for being a dick, but this is why I hate the Bleacher Report and believe that some people just shouldn't be given a forum.

is pain. stay away.