Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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FAN FORUM CHAIN REACTION Regarding Eugene Wytrykus' letter (Sept. 29, 2014) about vacating victo- ries, keep this in mind: Last year Notre Dame's victory over Michigan State knocked the Spartans out of the cham- pionship game, so MSU had to settle for the Rose Bowl. For the effect of the "vacancy" to be truly felt, the championship game would have to be replayed with Michi- gan State facing Florida State instead of Auburn. • Then the Rose Bowl would have to be replayed with another Big Ten team, probably Ohio State (instead of Michigan State), facing Stanford. • The Sugar Bowl would have to be replayed with Auburn (instead of Alabama) facing Oklahoma. • And, oh yes, they'd have to fig- ure out who would have been in the Pinstripe Bowl instead of Notre Dame and replay that game. Joe O'Donnell Clinton, Iowa Mr. O'Donnell, good points, but we suspect that an unbeaten SEC team like Auburn would be in the BCS National Championship Game no matter what. FROM THE WEBSITE "If these were your sons, how would you feel?" was the question asked last week on BlueandGold.com regarding the five student-athletes involved in an academic probe. Here was a sampling of some replies: Paulora: All else is dressing besides making damn sure my son understood the value of honesty. All the rest of this chest thumping is superfluous compared to that. Irish Bob: I'd be very disappointed in my son. I would help support him and get through the tough times. We all feel ND should have been done already, but we all don't know a thing. If these kids didn't put themselves in this there would be no "this," so how is ND doing what ND feels it needs to do at fault? Hodges: I would definitely be disappointed in my son for letting himself, his family and teammates down. I would also be very disappointed in ND for taking so long, and not knowing why. I would leave the decision to stay or transfer up to him. If he chose to transfer, I would thank Kelly for giving him the opportunity. I would also seek legal counsel, to find out what my options were. If I had a case, the ham- mer would come down big time. Mr.Rice128364: I would be disappointed that my efforts to teach my son had been ineffective. Notre Dame is not in the business of ruining its students' lives. If they are gone for the year or worse, it's because their actions warrant it. WorldBFree: I have raised my kids to believe life is about choices. Everyone gets to choose how they live their life. What you don't get to choose is how others will react to the choices you make. If one of my kids cheats, he has nobody to blame but his or herself for the punishment. There are more than 90 kids on the team who are not involved in academic fraud (or at least not caught) and not facing any punishment. My kids need to make sure they fall in the group of 90 plus rather than the 5 who got caught. Jsarna: If my son cheated, I think he would deserve whatever punishment he received. If he was my son and he had the opportunity to return to ND a la Golson, then he would be doing that. These can be valuable learning experiences, and I think Golson is a better man for going through what he did.