Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/81334
Fan Forum Body Of Work Regarding Rick Reilly’s rant about “demoting” Notre Dame and Mike Golic Sr.’s response, Reilly sounds like a socialist/communist opposed to the free enterprise system. What is this country coming to when even Notre Dame football is attacked for its popularity and power in spite of a relatively short period of underwhelming win-loss records? Reilly chooses to compare Notre Dame’s 21st century win-loss record to TCU, Oregon and Boise State — a selective period that excludes 88 of the last 100 years. He praises the cheater and NCAA rules violating USC (giving them credit for wins against Notre Dame that the NCAA mandated be forfeited) and pans the Irish by citing that they only won one of their last 10 games versus USC. It wasn’t that long ago that USC went 13 years in a row (just prior to its hiring Pete Carroll) that is was unable to win a game versus Notre Dame. Golic gave a fine, accurate and impassioned response to this whiney article of Reilly, but Golic also should have pointed out that (beyond just the fact of Notre Dame’s massive popularity, citing the 33,000 ND U.S. fans buying tickets to the Navy game in Ireland) if it weren’t for the immense popularity and excellence of Notre Dame football over the decades — and its national exposure on NBC over these many more recent decades — it is highly doubtful that college football would as big a money sport as it is today. Notre Dame did for college football what John Wooden and his UCLA teams did for college basketball in terms of raising its national (versus regional) profile. The NCAA and BCS owe a lot more to Notre Dame than Notre Dame owes to them. Steve Farley Northridge, Calif. Tough Or Difficult? Blue & Gold Illustrated is a shared periodical in our workplace, so when I read the August 2012 issue, and noted with disbelief that Beano Cook of ESPN and Bruce Feldman of CBS Sports were both of the opinion that ND regularly plays tough schedules, their statements were met with skepticism. In fact, Feldman deemed ND’s 2012 football schedule to be the toughest in the nation! Could it be that their comments were based on Notre Dame’s past mystique? When a schedule is comprised regularly with opponents such as Navy, Air Force (not on schedule this year), Purdue, Wake Forest, Boston College, Pitt and the two Michigan schools, I don’t see how anyone can realistically surmise that the present and/or future Notre Dame football schedules are or should be considered tough. Maybe the word “tough” should be replaced with the more accurate “difficult.” This is the first year in quite some time where Notre Dame has removed itself from its comfort zone and raised its level of competition, i.e., in addition to USC and Stanford, this year’s schedule will include Oklahoma, Miami and Brigham Young. The new schools on the 2012 schedule may be more difficult to navigate, but for anyone to classify them as juggernauts would be a misnomer. So, rather than present an idealized won-loss record for Notre Dame, a more reserved forecast regarding the 2012 season will have the university ending, at minimum, with a 6-6 record, which surely will result in some form of jubilation for Irish Nation! Fred Benteen Napa, Calif. From The Website Former Notre Dame star running back Allen Pinkett’s statements the week of the Navy game that the Fighting Irish needed a few criminals in the program was a hot button topic. Simm: What is it with our radio color guys putting their foot in their mouth when it comes to telling the media what kind of players ND needs in order to win big? First Hornung, now Pinkett. goforitIrisih! What he said was not politically correct, but so accurate! We Are ND76: Do you think Allen’s comments were meant to be more like Lou Holtz’s comments about “needing at least 4-5 kids without a mailbox!” If I understood what Pinkett was trying to say and I agree to an extent, but “criminals” was a poor choice of words. He was saying every team needs some kids with swagger and a little edge to them, much like Aaron Lynch (although it was disruptive to the team). HamonWry22: Football is a form of gladiatorial combat, which we loved for centuries. Nasty is a prerequisite. Criminal is not. They are not synonyms. On the football field, Alan Page was a bad ass. Off the field, he put criminals in jail. Give me 22 Alan Pages and I’ll like my chances against 22 criminals. Tommyd44: I guess for the last number of years, I couldn’t see the ND team getting into a pre-game brawl in the tunnel. And I do think that mentality (not the action) is necessary for us to make our opponents nervous when they come to ND Stadium … and it comes from the coach, to his staff, to the captains and on down. GIGA: I jaywalk on a daily basis, refuse to recycle and never rinse and repeat … put me in the game, coach!