Teddy Greenstein skewers Weis

The arrogance issue is huge. How many high school kids can remember when Notre Dame was a dominant team? Kids today want to go to the schools like Florida, USC, Ohio State and the other schools that have won national titles within the last decade.

Independence shouldn't be an issue. They're on TV every week.

The academic standards are definitely hurting them. Who knows if that will ever change again.

 

Why?

The have their own TV deal.

They have a sweet deal from the BCS that helped them get into three BCS bowls in the 2000s.

Why would Notre Dame join a conference? What's the upside, so long as they can make independence work financially?

And the academic issue holds no water with me. It helps them get as many kids as it prevents them from getting.

A lot of parents snap to attention when they begin talking about graduation rates and job placement.

 

Okay Calvin, you are stretching it a bit when you say Michigan was no match for Ohio State six weeks earlier. Off the top of my head the score was 14-3, OSU scored on two big runs because of missed tackles - in a cold, wet snowy game that had no element of speed whatsoever. OSU did not sustain a drive, and Michigan was without Chad Henne and Mike Hart their top-2 players. Even saying Florida was no match for UM would be a bit misleading even though UM had two red zone fumbles and UF came back and made the game close.

Anyway, I still can't agree with the speed assessment. Nobody can tell me that Florida beat OSU in the National Championship because they were faster.

2007 - No. 1 OSU sneaks by No. 2 Michigan.
2008- National Title - Florida crushes OSU

2008- OSU beats Michigan 14-3.
2009 - Citrus Bowl Michigan beats Florida.

So basically what you are telling me is we have a OSU team who is too slow to beat Florida but they can still take out UM before and after. That same UM team however, is fast enough to beat Florida.

Yeah this makes a ton of sense.

 

Derrick Harvey, now with Jacksonville in the NFL, was the big culprit in that game. Three sacks, one forced fumble got him the Defensive MVP award.

 

Overall, Florida might have had a slight advantage. At the line of scrimmage, they were significantly faster.

And I say that as someone who hates it when people try to press the speed issue -- our paper had a story on that before the Ohio State-Miami Fiesta Bowl, and it felt so good to look smart in the end.

But OSU couldn't block those Florida ends. As someone who was there, that was the key to the game in my eyes.

 

And I feel like beating a dead horse when I am talking about this but if Florida won because of faster defensive ends, how did Michigan win against Florida one year later? Did Michigan have faster defensive ends? Because they sure pressured the hell out of Tim Tebow.

 

I still feel like this is a huge misrepresentation. The Big Ten wins the last four Citrus Bowl and nobody says "the SEC isn't strong enough to beat the Big Ten"

Yet, when it is the other way around the game is decided because of speed. Now if you are going to make the case that USC is faster, I'm going to listen. But if you say the PAC-10 or SEC is faster, I think that's just a huge stereotype.

 

Friend, did you miss this?

I'm just talking about one game, one position. The speed of the Florida DEs was a key to the game, a big key. I'm sure I could go back and watch the tape and have that re-affirmed.

I'm not sure what a bowl game a year later has to do with that.

I don't know why Florida lost to Michigan; I was watching the outdoor hockey game.

 

As it stands, it's affirmitive-action scheduling to benefit Notre Dame's
moneybin and NBC . . . it's absurd that we must endure yet another horseshit BCS game, because of it.

 

They played 10 bowl teams last season.

Again, when Notre Dame scheduled Washington, for example, don't think they were counting on this version of Washington.

 

The schedule is and always has been, insane... The only "break" is the service academies. Almost every other game is against a team from a BCS conference with an impressive history. Yes, Michigan sucks this year, but in most year's they're one of the 10 best teams in the country.

How many teams have their easiest game against a team from a BCS conference?

 

What has always killed them is that the Big Ten teams will only play them at the beginning of the season. So when Ohio State is playing Akron and Youngstown State, Notre Dame is playing Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State and sometimes Penn State.

But then when the rest of the country is playing its biggest games, Notre Dame is playing Navy, Air Force and Syracuse.

I think the perspective gets skewed because by the time people really start paying attention, they don't get why LSU is playing Florida while Notre Dame is battling Duke.