Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY LOU SOMOGYI A popular expression about cu- riosity is "I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall" when it comes to the desire of knowing more about a topic. Since this August, and right through the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl, the Showtime cable network has been the proverbial fly on the wall with the Notre Dame football program. The series "A Season with Notre Dame Football" debuted on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and became a weekly half- hour staple at 10 p.m. ET, adding in the "adult language, adult content" warnings to its telecast. The final in- stallment was scheduled for Jan. 5. The purpose of the show was to give viewers an all-access, behind-the-scenes look at the Fighting Irish football team throughout the 2015 season, from the practices, staff meetings, the sidelines during game day, or even a day in the life of some players, including the prep- aration for mid-term exams in October. At times, that "fly" could be a dis- traction, but overall the reward has been deemed far more gratifying than what some might have perceived as an initial risk. The all-access concept was not really ground breaking. One of the most fa- mous ones included author John Fein- stein's best-selling Season On The Brink book that chronicled Indiana Univer- sity's 1985-86 basketball season. Sur- prisingly, volatile Hoosiers head coach Bob Knight opened the doors to Fein- stein for an all-access full season with Indiana basketball — a move Knight regretted later. However, that was merely the writ- ten word. By 2001, the cable network HBO introduced "Hard Knocks," a reality television series visually chron- icling the lives of an NFL team in train- ing camp as it prepared for an arduous 16-game regular season. Around 2010, current Showtime ex- ecutive producer Scott Stone began contemplating having a similar series on a college football team, except this would focus on the entire season. From the outset, Stone's top prize for such a series was the University of Notre Dame. THE PLAN According to Stone, the blueprint would be different from "Hard Knocks" because whereas the HBO series followed NFL training camp, in college the emphasis would be on the actual football season and the lives of student-athletes. Recruiting the right school for such a show began in earnest early last sum- mer. "The thought was that if we could do it in college as opposed to the pros, the stakes are even higher than that because these guys are in school, away from home and they're becom- ing adults," Stone said. "It would be a story to allow character develop- ment." Next was finding the right school to tell the story and one that understood and appreciated the value of doing such a show. "We approached every top program you could think of, with one or two exceptions," Stone said. There was some trepidation among