Yeah… um, what I said before about Notre Dame seeming to be headed in the right direction? Never mind.
As for Texas, well, the Longhorn Network prevented almost everybody in Austin from seeing the game, so I’m not sure how they looked. I’ll merely point out that they won their first two games last year in extremely unimpressive fashion, so I won’t put much stock in their win over Rice. If you can’t simply DOMINATE the Owls (and Texas didn’t- they were tied at 3 after 1 quarter), you’re probably not that good, and will be in big trouble when you run up against teams that are.
Just watched Top plays on Sportscenter. There were some incredible catches in CFB yesterday. Ohio St., Va Tech, UCLA had players who made some unbelievable receptions.
Notre Dame completely screwed things up for Michigan. It was generally believed ND had a chance to be a highly ranked team by years end. Now they lose to a nobody team in the opener. So win or lose next week, Michigan gets hurt. If they win, it is against a team that lost to a small time program. If they lose.how bad are they lose to a team that can’t beat a bad small time program.
USF is hardly a small time program. The school has 47K+ students (ninth largest in the country). They’ve only been playing football since 1997, have already been ranked in the AP Top 25 (faster ever to get there). They’ve beaten several ranked teams over the past 5 years (including Auburn in 2007). They’re members of the Big East.
They may not be one of the elite college programs, but they aren’t “small time”. Frankly, Notre Dame hasn’t exactly been an elite program for a while either and Michigan is working on a decent string of very mediocre teams.
Small time. I doubt they will be in the recruiting level of ND or Mich. in the near future. They can occasionally do well with lesser athletes who surprise. but the program is way down the list.
What recruiting level are you talking about? The team that’s gone to a bowl game every year for the last 6 years (and lost only 1) or the team that took a few years off and has only managed to win 1 bowl game in 8 years? Got news for you, recruiting levels don’t play the game and the score of the game (which really is the only statistical measure that counts) has USF looking like the better team.
This reminds of the crap FSU took from all the “elite” school programs back in the 70s and 80s. Until we started going to your stadiums and whipping your asses.
I’ve been watching USF for the last few years and I’ve been pretty impressed with their progress. I remember seeing them last year or the year before and thinking “wow, this team I hadn’t even heard of until recently is playing pretty damn competitively against regular top 25 teams.”
Yesterday when I heard espn say they “stunned” ND I thought “you guys haven’t been paying attention”
Agreed, I don’t think anyone was all that stunned yesterday in South Bend - at least those who actually paid attention. South Florida is a very good school right now, and the matchup was going to be a good one - just not as good as I was quite hoping…
It was easily the strangest game I’ve ever been to. First off, I was entirely impressed with the number of USF fans that made it up to South Bend. Tremendously friendly and enthusiastic people, we had dozens stop by our tailgater to talk football, Skip Holtz, drink our beer, eat some brats/corn/burgers/etc. and have a good time. I had never made up my mind regarding the Rees v. Crist controversy, so I’m not going to say I doubted Crist all that much. His horrendous performance in the first half was really surprising - he didn’t seem to make very good decisions (at least from my seats). And then as the band started taking the field at halftime, the announcer states, “Usher #800, please report to the main gate.” A minute later, “We ask that the band exit the field,” and then they announced that they were suspending the game, and told everyone to retreat to the concourses, over to the JACC (the basketball facility), and any number of other surrounding buildings. The sky went blue-green, the wind picked up, and we were out of there.
When they let everyone else back in, the crowd was absolutely fired up. Down 16 points, we knew that Rees was going to be starting the second half, so there was still hope. And everything was looking good until…more turnovers, missed FGs, etc. Floyd looked utterly dominant - a man among boys, but the line was starting to fall apart, and while the defense didn’t make any bad mistakes (other than a few stupid personal fouls, they didn’t seem to miss any serious tackles or anything), they weren’t doing anything spectacular. Then the announcer again says, “Usher #800, please report to the main gate” and a minute later we were all heading back into the concourses for another round of delays.
I really don’t know what to expect next week in Ann Arbor. It’s Michigan’s first night game in history, and I can only imagine how drunk that crowd is going to be at 8pm after tailgating all day long.
The first half was ugly for the 'Horns. They needed a Rice fumble near the Rice 20 and a couple tricky plays. Case in point: Handoff, then pitched back to an ex-QB slot receiver, who tosses it down the field. Short the two fumbles, Rice was actually in the game.
Rice is either much better than I expected this season or the Longhorns have a ways to go. Probably a 20-80 split in favor of the Longhorns needing improvement. It’s going to be a long season for my Owls.
FYI Rain: it’s not a new rule. Normal rain isn’t cause for a delay. Any lightning in the area will create a delay. If it’s just rain, it has to be a torrential downpour with heavy winds. Basically, any conditions that could create a safety issue for players, personnel, and spectators. We’ve had tropical storms and lightning create delays with some regularity in the Houston area.
I’ve no dispute that USF was better than my Irish yesterday, however, for the sake of accuracy Notre Dame has won its last 2 bowl games, not just 1 of its last 8. (2008 Hawaii Bowl, 2010 Sun Bowl).
USF recruits from talent-rich Florida so as long as their coaching staff knows what its doing - and it appears that they do - they’re going to have a good team.
Yeah, that occured to me after I posted and I should have gone back to edit to make it more clear. The bowl game stuff was a reference to UM, not ND. I do think Notre Dame will be improved this year - and in fact, I had them picked to win in my football pool. I just wasn’t that surprised to see USF win.
I think USF’s achievements stand on their own, no one is claiming they are a top 10 school. What is beyond a doubt, absolutely true, and Kirk Herbstreit said it last year (I almost never agree with that idiot on anything) is that Notre Dame is irrelevant from a strictly football perspective.
The only reason Notre Dame has been seriously ranked, been sent to good bowls, or talked about extensively at all since about 1995 is because they used to be really good back before Lou Holtz left and they have such a huge fan base.
They’re sort of like the Yankees during their long WS drought, they still have the fans and the notoriety but at the end of the day, at winning football games, Notre Dame has plain sucked for years. They lose most of their big games, fail to win against most quality opponents they play, and have not won a major bowl since they won the Cotton Bowl in 1994.
Notre Dame has no business getting talked about in the same breath as LSU, Alabama, Florida, Oregon, Auburn, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, or Ohio State. Notre Dame is not one of “those” teams, tradition is great and the massive number of fans means Notre Dame will always have enough money to at least keep trying to get back into the elite, but this idea that Notre Dame is right now an elite football school is based on history books not the football field.
And yet UM and ND (for two examples) don’t have streaks as long as USF! In fact, currently active bowl streaks:
Florida State (29) - Go 'Noles!
Florida (20)
Virginia Tech (18)
Georgia, Georgia Tech (14)
Boston College, Oklahoma (12)
LSU, Ohio State, Texas Tech (11)
Boise State, Southern Mississippi, West Virginia, Wisconsin (9)
Navy, Utah (8)
Alabama (7)
Brigham Young, Clemson, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Penn State, South Florida, Texas Christian (6)
They are tied for 18th.
If you want to say the Big East isn’t the toughest conference, fine. Look at USF’s OOC record - 48-19 since 2005 (when they joined a conference). Wins against Louisville, Auburn, FSU, and now Notre Dame (all Top25 at the time of the win). 4-2 in bowl games (UM is 1-3 during the same period, 1-5 if you equal up the last 6 bowl games - ND is 2-2 and 2-4 respectively).
USF has only ever had two losing seasons (program started in 1997). UM has two in the last three years (granted you then have to go back a while for the one before that). ND has had 4 losing seasons during the same time frame as USF.
As an ND alum, I cannot think of the last time anyone I’ve known or listened to has suggested otherwise. There’s a tremendous amount of projection out there to suggest that ND Nation insists that we’re a powerhouse - but I just don’t see it. As much as Mark May wants to build up strawmen so he can pick fights with Lou for “good television”, they’re still just strawmen.
We still continue to recruit well (but not at an elite level), but there are a number of factors that contribute to not being able to consistently pull in the number of 4- or 5-star athletes that the top SEC teams do to the point that we simply cannot compete each and every year (we haven’t, at all, for the vast majority of the last 20 years - but every school has the ability to get on a roll at some point).