Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM APRIL 2024 5 T he definition of relevant, per Merriam-Webster, is "having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand." Notre Dame has significant and demon- strable bearing on college football. Always has. Always will. ESPN's Stephen A. Smith used his "First Take" platform on Feb. 21 to vehemently dis- pute that truth. In an irony that hardly needs explanation, he actually argued against the very point he attempted to make. On a show that aver- aged an all-time high 496,000 viewers in 2023 per ESPN Press Room, Smith tried tell- ing half a million people Notre Dame has not been relevant since he had an afro and his hairline was "two feet forward." For Notre Dame fans instantly as- serting Smith himself is not relevant, stop. He is. Hundreds of thousands of people — plus many more on social media — watch snippets of his long- standing show every day, even if only to get a glimpse of the equivalents of a train wreck or burning building. The masses can't look away, and Smith has remained relevant as a result. Don't let emotional bias seep into your retort to Smith's Notre Dame bashing. He's frantically influenced by his disdain for the Dallas Cowboys, for instance, and his pontifications of them are enfeebled as a result. The Cowboys are a perfect compari- son for Notre Dame, for better or worse. Dallas hasn't won the Super Bowl since the 1995 season. The Irish haven't won a national title since 1988. And yet, Smith spends every NFL campaign blabbering about the 'Boys. And he spent prime real estate on the airwaves in late February putting down Notre Dame just shy of 200 days before the Irish kick the season off in what surely be one of the most watched college football games of Week 1 both in person at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, and on TV. That's relevance. Smith confused it for success in his rant. He didn't give Notre Dame enough credit for recent achievements in the first place. The Irish program is one of eight nationwide with multiple Col- lege Football Playoff appearances since the inception of the event in 2014. Just six schools have won a national cham- pionship in the CFP era. It's logically unsound to suggest only half a dozen teams out of more than 130 in the Foot- ball Bowl Subdivision are truly relevant. Saying Notre Dame isn't relevant because it has not won it all since the late 1980s is like saying the Boston Red Sox or Chicago Cubs weren't relevant when the former was in the 86-year midst of the Curse of the Bambino and all throughout the latter's historic 108- year drought between World Series wins. Ever heard of two-time Ameri- can League MVP and two-time Triple Crown winner Ted Williams, a 1966 Hall of Fame inductee who hit .344 and still holds the MLB record for a career on-base percentage of .482? His 19- year, 2,292-game career was spent ex- clusively with the Sox. How about when Roger Clemens won more games than his age, 24 to 23, in leading Boston to the 1986 World Series? The Red Sox didn't instantly become relevant when they became the first team to ever come back from an 0-3 post- season series hole against the New York Yankees in the 2004 ALCS and went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Jimmy Fallon and Drew Bar- rymore were in the middle of filming a romantic comedy set around a man's obsession with Red Sox baseball at the time of Boston's unlikely heroics. They got lucky with timing. Nobody had any idea the curse would be lifted that year. Even if it wasn't, "Fever Pitch" still would have played well and reached a wide audience. Relevance. Aided by suc- cess? Certainly. Dependent on it? Absolutely not. Notre Dame could go another 36 years without winning a national champion- ship. Ninety-two year old Stephen A. Smith could say the same things about the Irish in 2060 he's saying in 2024. He'd still be wrong. ESPN's College GameDay will keep setting up under the watchful eyes of Touchdown Jesus. The Peyton and Eli Mannings of the world are still going to seek South Bend for content creations like they did two years ago for multiple videos set on Notre Dame's campus. When the nth expansion of the Col- lege Football Playoff is announced, talking heads and anyone with a social media account will discuss how it af- fects Notre Dame. That's just the way it is. Polarization lends itself to relevance. Smith should know that. The Cowboys know that. Notre Dame definitely does, too. "Those who know Notre Dame, no ex- planation's necessary," former Irish head coach Lou Holtz once said. "Those who don't, no explanation will suffice." ✦ GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com Notre Dame has not won a national title since 1988, but the Fighting Irish are always at the forefront of the college football conversation. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Relevance Can't Be Confused With National Title Drought