Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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the fifth quarter lou somogyi Constant News Cycle Makes Today Seem Worse A By Lou Somogyi popular sentiment among many Notre Dame faithful prior to this year 's opener against Temple was, "Thank goodness, the season is here. This had to be the longest, most tumultuous and worst offseason in the program's history." Pshaw, I say (especially if you weren't around in 1974). The only reason that might be the perception is we all tend to have shorter memories and everything is more magnified today than in days of yore. Myriad websites on the Internet (including ours), 24-hour news outlets and the proliferation of social media, especially Twitter, create a craving in our culture for constant up-to-the-second information. Some of it will inevitably be negative. Nowhere is it more evident than in recruiting, where it's comical to compare the era in which I grew up to today. There was minimal news about recruiting in the 1970s. Back then, you'd pick up a game program in the fall and say, "Oh, I see they got a freshman quarterback from Pennsylvania. … Oh, this guy's father played here in the 1940s. … This guy is from the same high school as So and So …" All I knew back then was the Irish would get their share of top-notch prospects — just like Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, etc. No big deal. Brian Kelly and his staff constantly have to put out fires, just like all Notre Dame coaches did in the past. It's just more highlighted today. photo by joe raymond Today, the investment fans have into recruiting is of epic levels, to the point where the actual games almost become ancillary (See 2011 loss to USC). Thus, what used to be relatively unknown in the past ("what you don't know won't hurt you") is now neverending, round-the-clock news and angst on the Internet, social media, Twitter, etc. It's a soap opera people