Ranked #7 going into the USC game? Hah! Well, that game exposed them for the lame wanna-be operation they truly are. A hundred yards of offense and a pile of points scored on them. If not for a lucky blocked punt/score, it would have looked even uglier!
When put against a real team, ND’s true colors are exposed. The only bowl they belong in is a toilet bowl. :smack:
She said she loved me like a brother. She’s from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
Umm… tell me something, Gato, at the start of the season, did you pencil in Notre Dame for 10 wins? Hmm?
Me neither. NOBODY did. Which means that Tyrone Willingham did a phenomenal job as coach, and George O’Leary’s fudged resume was the luckiest break the Irish ever got.
Willingham took over a team with very little talent (especially on offense), and didn’t get hired until the recruiting process was already well under way. And yet, the Irish still won 10 games and will end up going to a decent bowl. The Irish are a mediocre team that played over their heads most of the year, got a few lucky breaks, and ended up having a solid season. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
SIDEBAR: I know there’s a decent chance that Notre Dame will end up in a major BCS bowl game, and I hope that doesn’t happen. If Notre Dame gets into the Orange Bowl ahead of USC< that will be a travesty.
At the start of this season, if I had told Notre Dame’s fans or alumni, "You’ll win 10 games this year, go to the Citrus (or some comparable) Bowl, and finish around #12 for the year, EVERY one of them woiuld have been delighted, and would have taken that outcome in a heartbeat.
Notre Dame is a good team, not a great one. I don’t remember eharing ANYONE say they were a great team. But they’re vastly improved, and they’ll be a force to reckon with in the upcoming recruiting season. It’s been YEARS since elite players wanted to go to Notre Dame. But they’ll want to go NOW< and Tyrone WIllingham will haul in more than his share over the enxt few years.
So, if you’re a Notre Dame hater, I don’t blame you for laughing at their weak performance against the Trojans. Right now, USC is much better than the Irish. But don’t get used to that! In a few years, Ty Willingham will have the talented personnel he needs to run the West Coast offense he intends to run, and the IRish will be perennial contenders again.
what astorian said 
I wanted USC to pound Notre Dame into submission this year because this is likely the last chance anyone will have to do that for quite a while.
I’d love to see the rest of your list of “real teams”.
Also, well said astorian.
Munch
A delighted ND alum to see the Irish 10-2
Munch, you Domer you, don’t you know that Michigan, Air Force, Florida State and Maryland aren’t REAL teams.
Is it at all possible, in all non-snideness, that this game was instead a sign that USC is, for the first time since '96, a quality football team?
On a similar note, I don’t follow any teams besides 'SC, so do you impartial folks think Carson has the slightest chance of winning the Heisman? On a similar, though not quite identical note, do any of you think he deserves it? (I do, but then, I’m biased.)
I have been a Notre Dame hater for many years, but even I found myself rooting for the Irish. Part of the reason is that I’ve interviewed Tyrone Willingham and think he’s terrific, but also because I can’t resist a plucky team that overachieves.
A chance, but not much of one. Most Heisman voters live in the East and I bet most of those Eastern voters had never even seen Carson play before last Saturday. The only other Eastern team USC played this season was Auburn, and that game probably wasn’t shown much outside Alabama and California.
NEWS FLASH: USC now ranked #4 in the BCS, going ahead of Iowa, but remaining behind Georgia.
Whatever you think about Notre Dame, I think one should appreciate their relative high-mindedness when it comes to honesty and standards. They are not perfect–they did get their noses tweaked by the NCAA recently for booster impropriety–but I don’t think they will ever come close to having the reputation of, say, Miami or Florida State when it comes to troubled players. Randy Moss and T.J. Duckett, two of college football’s recent greats, had to go elsewhere because of off-the-field troubles (Moss, in fact, was too shady for even FSU, IIRC).
I think Notre Dame has a great thing going. The special teams are just excellent. The defensive scheme is solid, despite the breakdown Saturday – see the way they defended Michigan State’s talented WRs, making turnovers and getting points out of them. Ty Willingham showed that he could do alot with a little, let’s see what he can do when he brings in his own players. I’m sure the primary reason they picked him was his experience at Stanford, having to recruit from a pool of players with SATs above 1200.
Notre Dame could be returning to prominance…at least as much as a school with academic standards can. Consistently finishing in the top 15 would be quite an accompishment for any program these days, and time may show that ND is heading towards becoming that sort of program. The days when they were competing for a national title every year will never return, but that doesn’t mean they suck or that they’re a fraud.
And this is in Cafe Society because…
I was dissapointed for the ND defense on Saturday. They’ve really carried this team this year, and now they’ve got an ugly smear on their stats. 610-some-odd yards of USC offense doesn’t look quite as ridiculous when you realize that the ND offense was lucky to be on the field for three downs in a row all day.
I completely agree with the positive assessments of Ty Dub and his chances.
Zebra, I think that there has been a general trend to present sports/game analyses to Cafe Society. Makes sense to me. As much as gat’s schaden is freudeing, this isn’t really a Pit post.
All though football may be considered entertainment, IMHO it does not fit one of the other requirements and in no way could be considered an artistic dicipline. I think the thread would get more responses in MPSIMS or IMHO.
I guess. I’d have a hard time considering many things discussed here as “artistic disciplines” but whatever.
If I were discussing football strategy, I believe it would belong here, along with chess openers and poker game theory and cooking. It’s not ridiculous to have a football thread in Cafe Society.
But that’s my opinion, so this post is probably in the wrong forum.
Count me in as another ND Alum who is pleased to see the team 10-2.
Why is it if people have an opinion of ND, it is either that they love or hate it with so little in between?
Tibs.
Munch - Hey, fellow Domer!!
It’s called “jealousy”, Tibs. 
Rex Dart, I agree, except for the “at least as much as a school with academic standards can” part. Notre Dame has been a school with academic standards for decades, and that argument has been used for just as long. It makes things a little more difficult for recruiting, but it can be done.
Jealousy, HA HA HA HA!!!
Sorry, my opinions of Notre Dame are only fit for the BBQ Pit.
Dang. I opened this thinking it was going to be about the cathedral.