Notre Dame’s home field advantage has been a topic of extensive discussion for quite a while, especially since the Stadium expanded. When Nebraska came to Notre Dame in 2000, we had the infamous “Sea of Red”. When Georgia visited in 2017, the hue repeated to an extent (although there may be an explanation for that).

But shouldn’t we be putting more effort in? How can we as fans contribute to a win? How can we let the team know we’re there? It’s not always an easy thing to do, but there seems to be plenty of enthusiasm to, if you’ll excuse the phrase, give it the old college try.

Trying to create that advantage, however, involves walking a thin line. As much as people may roll their eyes at the “Welcome to Notre Dame” stuff, you’d be lying if you said you don’t take a bit of pride in that. When you hear stories about people’s trips to Ann Arbor, Columbus, and other mouth-breathing nexus, part of you is glad you don’t have to worry about that kind of thing in South Bend.

Having said that, there has to be a way to bring more focus to Notre Dame’s presence both at home and on the road, right? Of course there is, and we’re going to talk about those options right now.

PART 1: KNOW IT

If we’re going to have this discussion, we have to set some ground rules.

Ground Rule #1: When it travels, Notre Dame gets its opponents’ best efforts both on the field and off. It’s kind of like reading your friends’ Facebook feeds — it’s all about the one kid graduating magna cum laude, but the younger brother with the meth lab ain’t getting nearly the bandwith.

Put more visually, we all saw this display a couple weeks ago:

But when we’re gone … and it’s not at night ….

I think Dom said it best:

Ground Rule #2: Everybody wants to see our house. Notre Dame is a bucket list destination, and when you have a team visiting for the first time in a while (if not ever), some people will try to move mountains. As the article linked above said, the Georgia fans in 2017 were willing to pay through the nose. If 2016 had been a better season, maybe ND fans would have been more resistant. But, as the saying goes, it wasn’t so they weren’t. When there’s a unique game on the schedule, ND fans who have more opportunity to be in Notre Dame Stadium may take advantage, and while we want to get to a point where that’s less of an issue, that’s on the long-term want list.

None of that, though, means we shouldn’t try. To that end, I have a couple ideas.

PART 2: WEAR IT

Schools like Georgia can make their presence felt because their primary color is eye-catching. As ND fans saw in 2000, if every fan of the other team shows up in a primary color, you’re going to know they’re there.

In this regard, Notre Dame is starting off behind the 8-ball. Navy Blue is not an eye-catching color during the day, and it’s even worse at night. I’m not suggesting their long-time primary uniform hue be abandoned, but we have to start thinking outside the box a little.

Step 1: Agree to wear something consistent. ND fans can’t be showing up wearing whatever they want. If we’re going to do this, thought and planning is required, so the agreement has to be made up front.

Step 2: Agree on what that color is. We’ve established that the navy blue is out. That leaves us with the official ND gold, RGB #D39F10. The gold is good, and may stand out better at night games.

But I’d prefer ND adopt an actually kelly green in the permitted spectrum, especially for day games. There’s a “tertiary” assignment of #00843D, but it’s a little deep. I’ve always been a fan of the 1977 uniforms (and in fact wish ND would wear them full-time), and regardless of how much gold would stand out in the dark, still want the more-Irish representative color.

Regardless, pick something with visual reaction in mind.

And finally, the step I hope won’t be the deal-breaker….

Step 3: Make that color the primary color sold, including The Shirt. Yes, if it’s the same color each year, there’s a chance ND fans will skip buying it every now and then. Have confidence in your fanbase and their desire to support The Shirt’s charitable efforts. Sacrifice a couple dollars to help support the team in a non-financial way.

PART 3: SEE IT

There aren’t a lot of visual opportunities during ND games. There’s a well-established tradition with the 1812 Overture (provided, as I said, they slow it down a little). But a nice organically-grown effort seemed to show itself at the Southern Cal game. Irish fans augmented their usual arm movements during 1812 with the flashlights on their cell phones, creating a nice effect in the dark outside the field boundaries.

(I’d love to show it to you, but my video searches have come up empty. Perhaps someone will have it in the comments below)

My antipathy towards night games notwithstanding, this is a great example of Fighting Irish fans creating something they can call their own.

PART 4: SING IT

Notre Dame certainly has its in-game traditions, including the 1812 Overture (provided they play it a little more slowly). But I think there’s room for other things just as Irish, and I was inspired by another school’s choice recently.

A couple weeks ago, I caught the end Kansas State’s upset of highly-ranked Oklahoma. The fans in the stands were wearing their distinct purple, which always helps. But they had a unique send-off for the Sooner fans as the game wound down, and I thought it was a very appropriate song to use:

(yeah, that’s not them playing it at the game, work with me)

Finding something directly applicable to your school creates a strong affiliation and is something you can use to bind your fans together. Kansas is a plains horse-riding state, so they chose a very appropriate song and made it their own.

So how can Notre Dame do the same? Anyone can use Seven Nation Army or Shipping Off to Boston or any of the other mass-media-type songs available. Using something unique to us that other schools would look stupid trying to copy? Now we’re talking.

But where would we find such a song? Why am I asking you?

Let’s familiarize ourselves with the Wild Rover, an old Irish song that I know the Band of the Fighting Irish can play because I’ve seen/heard them do it:

(I know, Dropkick Murphys, I’m trying to get people on board here)

It’s got a good beat, so you can lead into it with the drum section to get the crowd into it. Everyone should be able to clap their hands four times. All you need is some lyrics.

AND IT’S NO, NAY NEVER (CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
NO NAY NEVER, NO MORE!
WILL WE LOSE TO THE [OPPONENT]?
NO NEVER, NO MORE!

Yeah, helps if we win, but you gotta start somewhere. I doubt the KSU band unloads Happy Trails when they’re down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

That would be a song the whole Irish crowd could take part in, at football games and basketball games or soccer games or whatever. It’s got a good rhythm so crowds could sing it a capella. It’d be even better with lyrics for the lead in verse, but I’ve taxed my creativity writing this article in the first place, so I’m depending on you folks to throw in some ideas.

Tell Mike what you think (or suggest some lyrics) in the comments below

The post Notes from the Geetar: Get the Red Out appeared first on NDNation.

As a Chicagoan of the proper vintage, I remember well Doug Collins’ tenure as the head coach of the Chicago Bulls. While inexperienced, his Bulls teams improved their win total and advanced further each year in the NBA playoffs. But they always seemed to finish a little short of where they should have, and Collins couldn’t solve the Bad Boys of the Detroit Pistons. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf sensed that, while Collins had done yeoman’s service making the Bulls competitive again after years in the NBA desert, he wasn’t the guy to get them to the championship promised land. Collins had gotten them from Point A to Point B, Reinsdorf was quoted as saying, but the Bulls needed someone to get them to Point C.

I was reminded of Collins while watching Michigan completely dismantle Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish team on Saturday night. What was supposed to be a close game between ranked teams turned into an embarrassing blowout, with the flaws that had been painfully evident in the offense all season painfully exposed yet again. It seemed a familiar refrain, as a similar story had been written after Clemson last season. And Miami in 2017. A missive which, ND fans had been assured, had been expunged from the storybook with the Kelly 2.0 remake after a fetid 4-8 offering in 2016.

Not so much, I guess. But it did make me think of Collins, because it’s time for Notre Dame to decide where it resides in college football and if that address is acceptable.

Reboot or no, after 10 years, we know exactly what we have with Brian Kelly. His offense uses the pass to set up the run, and therefore is dependent on high-quality quarterback play to be successful. His teams usually are effective against teams they can out-athlete, but when faced with upper-echelon and/or motivated competition, especially away from Notre Dame Stadium, they fall short, sometimes catastrophically so. His new-found focus on being Notre Dame’s coach instead of allowing his eye to wander to NFL positions has improved the win total, but hasn’t erased the aforementioned truths, and there is little evidence that will change any time soon.

Make no mistake, what we’re seeing now is good, and (as I wrote a couple weeks ago) better than we’ve seen since Lou Holtz left. Whatever his faults, Brian Kelly has made the Notre Dame job much more attractive than it was the day he was hired. The facilities are top-notch, and the nutrition program is much more appropriate to a championship-level team. Admissions (by most accounts) has shown a willingness to work with him and his staff, and communication between that department and the staff has improved greatly, resulting in a lot less wasted time in recruiting. The budget for assistant coaches reportedly is at market level, and the current crop of assistants has shown what work and focus can do, as evident in the highly-ranked 2021 list of committed recruits — not to mention that recruiting has advanced such that the staff can work on 2021 commits before the 2020 class has even signed.

It’s very good. But as Saturday’s results showed (and Clemson, Miami, et al), it’s not great, and you can count me among those who believe it can (and should) be.

“The best since Holtz”, let’s remember, is an incredibly low bar. If Bob Davie, Ty Willingham, or Charlie Weis had left Notre Dame and gone on to success somewhere else, I could consider the argument some of the intrinsic disadvantages at Notre Dame (and I’m very ready to admit they exist) had held them back. But not only did they not have success, in all three cases, they actually performed worse than they had at Notre Dame. One could argue Notre Dame’s intrinsic advantages (which, unlike some, I’m also ready to admit exist) propped them up.

Let’s also remember this laudable advancement came at a steep price. Thanks to ND having to vacate wins for the first time in its history, its annual pursuit of the highest number of wins and the highest win percentage in college football history is likely now, like the pregame Mass, only a memory. When you run an undisciplined ship, academic difficulties start appearing, as do mentions on police blotters. And the “unremarkable” events of October 27, 2010, should never be forgotten.

(As an aside, those of you who respond to the above paragraph whining like little girls about getting screwed by the NCAA can bite me. The players cheated, they were ruled ineligible, that’s how the rule is written. If you want us to become like the North Carolinas and Michigans of the world and sandbag and withhold information and hide mistakes in the interest of winning, maybe you should go root for those programs instead. If ND is going to stand for “No Different”, I don’t see the point. Winning without integrity is meaningless).

Brian Kelly had to grow and learn a lot as a coach while he improved the program, all at both the financial and psychological expense of Notre Dame and its fans. So while he’s owed thanks for getting Notre Dame back to point B, that’s where it should end. Capabilities of Jack Swarbrick notwithstanding, it’s time for Notre Dame to start thinking about Point C again.

The post Notes from the Geetar: B Ain’t A, but it Ain’t C Either appeared first on NDNation.

At the risk of putting the Baha Men in your head, it’s the topic du jour on the Interwebs. And never let it be said I shied away from a topic.

Notre Dame’s 30-27 win over Southern Cal in the latest edition of the greatest inter-sectional rivaly in all of college football has put the Fighting Irish on pace for another double-digit win season, potentially their third in a row. If Notre Dame gets past the Skunkbears two Saturdays from now, they’ll likely be favored in all of their remaining games and would be a virtual lock for an Orange or Cotton Bowl bid … games in which they probably also would be favored, which would get the lack-of-a-major-bowl-win monkey off their backs.

This puts Notre Dame at an atmospheric level they’ve not seen in a while. Per a tweet from an Athletic writer, the Irish are 26-4 in their last 30 games, which they haven’t done since the 1992-93 season. This prompted Nick Shepkowski over at the Fighting Irish Wire to point out this was the best stretch of ND football he’s ever seen in his life.

And it got me to thinking about a couple things (in case you were wondering what that smell was).

First off, the record citation is objectively correct. Whatever way you slice it, 26-4 in the wake of the 4-8 debacle of 2016 is a hell of a turnaround, and certainly represents a post-Holtz high water mark. Granted, a couple of those four losses were quite catastrophic, and Holtz’s 1992-94 squads that went 26-3-1 played seven of those games against top 10 teams and won five of them. But having said that, this qualifies as the best since then.

Second, Nick’s perception also is correct in that this is all he’s seen. For someone born as he was in 1986 who entered their ND formative years as Holtz was being shown the door, this is awesome, and I certainly can’t blame them for thinking so. I’ve certainly been enjoying the hell out of it, because it certainly makes running the boards here a lot easier.

I’m not exactly known for my patience with people who I feel have been premature in designating a new high water mark for ND football. But different perspectives inform different opinions, and maybe I need to do a better job of remembering not everyone in the Notre Dame electronic world has been fortunate enough to see some of the things I’ve seen. Regardless of opinions about Brian Kelly the coach, the last three seasons are setting the bar a lot closer to the appropriate level than it’s been set in a while, and that’s something we all can appreciate while still expecting continued improvement on that front.

Oh what the hell.

Tell Mike what you think (or get pissed at him for the earworm) in the comments below.

The post Notes from the Geetar: Best Years of our Lives appeared first on NDNation.

Lisa Kelly’s previous two books talked about how Notre Dame’s “40-year decision” affected the lives of former football players and led to their successes both on and off the field. In her third volume of the series, Triumphs From Notre Dame, Lisa takes the concepts to the next level, going beyond football to see how The Notre Dame Value Stream has affected athletes all along the Fighting Irish athletics spectrum.

There’s something for Notre Dame fans of all stripes.

• Basketball nuts will hear about Joe Fredricks’ interview with a Kentucky hoops fan who unexpectedly knew all about him and got him his start in radio at WLW, and Karen Robinson taking what Muffet McGraw taught her and putting it into practice as a coach herself while endowing Coach McGraw’s position.
• Eddie Hartwell remembers his days with Pat Murphy and how it taught him the attention to detail he needed for a job in professional baseball and beyond.
• Shannon Boxx never thought she’d play soccer in South Bend, but went on to play in four World Cups and on the Olympic team
• Brett Bruininks regales Irish hockey fans about his days in the CCHA and how the “life-long learner” skills he learned at ND inspired a teaching career to which he just couldn’t say no
• Not to worry, football’s still represented strongly. Billy Hackett’s strong family life, Raki Nelson’s strong family business, Stephen Pope’s stunt coordination, and John Scully’s compositions all can be found along the way, along with a lot more

And that’s just scratching the surface.

Triumphs From Notre Dame is available from the usual outlets like Amazon, and on Lisa Kelly’s website if you’re looking for the more personal(ized) touch. But you’ve also got some upcoming opportunities to meet the author herself.

Lisa will be in Indianapolis at their Notre Dame Club’s football luncheon this Thursday, October 10th, from 12-1pm at the Skyline Club, 1 American Square on the 36th Floor. Facebook users can find out about the event here.

If you’re going to be on campus for the game against Southern Cal this weekend, you can stop by Augie’s Locker Room just off campus from 3-5:30pm on Friday October 11th.

Take an opportunity to learn life lessons from former Fighting Irish athletics alums in all walks of life. You’ll be glad you did.

The post A True Notre Dame Triumph appeared first on NDNation.

I’m all about sportsmanship and always have been. I’m not one of those “chant things at the other fans at the game” kind of guys. I’ve always been more of a “scoreboard” man — if the big lights say your team is ahead or behind, you should have nothing more to say about it. As I tweeted recently, “Winning without integrity has absolutely no meaning and should not be acknowledged, let alone tolerated. “

It’s one thing, however, to be a good sport, and another entirely to be obsequious and cloying about it. Especially when you had absolutely nothing to do with the result at hand.

In the aftermath of #10 Notre Dame’s 23-17 loss to #3 Georgia last Saturday, social media is replete with the usual “be happy with what we have everyone else cheats no one else wants to coach here” contributions, and we had our almost swallows-to-Capistrano-like appearance of the “you guys aren’t happy enough after a loss” new poster who wants to drop his particular aroma of wisdom on everyone on the site who can stand it. That’s the standard fare in situations like this, nothing we haven’t seen before.

But this time, in the legendary words of Nigel Tufnel, we’ve gone to 11

This week, the readers of the Athens Banner-Herald were treated to full-page advertisement, courtesy of Notre Dame alumnus / trustee / name-on-a-dorm Jim Dunne, ensuring the Bulldogs and their fans understood what great hosts they were. This was a “very special weekend”, and gee whiz and willikers, next time “hopefully the results will be different.”

I’ve always heard the phrase “I just threw up in my mouth”, but never had the opportunity before.

As I said, I’m no stranger to sportsmanship. But last time I checked, the people who had to show it were the young men on the field Saturday night. As usual, there was nothing to fear on that front — Notre Dame’s players gave everything they had and battled up until the final gun, and when it sounded, they looked the Georgia players and coaches in the eye, congratulated them, shook their hands, and returned to South Bend. That’s the sportsmanship Notre Dame has always shown, which is why unlike some others, I’ve always been proud to be a Notre Dame alumnus.

But hold on thar, Baba Looey, because apparently that isn’t enough anymore. People who weren’t on the field feel the need to chime in and reassure the Bulldog masses how awesome they were and what a privilege it was to lose our 18th game in 19 tries against top-10 competition in their stadium. It was ever so swell to leave the field in defeat at your school, so we absolutely had to make sure you knew it.

The uncontrollable desire some Notre Dame fans feel to show the college football world how happy we are in our place of not offending anyone and taking our losses like champs grows commensurate with the bile in my stomach. When it’s done in such a public way by people who were students on campus when great things were being done athletically and should be comfortable with what kind of place Notre Dame is, it makes me want to break things.

I’ve been watching Notre Dame football for decades. I don’t remember any Michigan trustees talking about how nifty it was to have their national championship hopes dashed so early in the season. I must have missed Jimmy Johnson’s treatise on how hospitable we all were in 1988.

Why don’t I remember them? Because they didn’t happen. Know why they didn’t happen? Because intelligent people realized how weird and inappropriate it would be.

Of course the Georgia fans like it and think it’s “classy”. Their team won, and is now 3-0 versus ND lifetime (granted, by a total of 14 points, but whatever). They can afford to pat us on the head and tell us what good little fans we are and how wonderful our ad was for them to read.

Here’s the real question: How do you think that ad would have gone over after a 24-23 last-second just-like-we-used-to-do-it Notre Dame victory? Would they be using the word “classy”, or would they be telling us what to go do with ourselves? Or a better question — would any of us give a damn what Georgia people thought since we’d be too busy talking about a potential CFP berth? I put it to you we would not.

Back in the yesteryear, we knew what “classy” was — magnanimity in victory, maturity in defeat. The Sportsman’s Prayer so loved by Ara Parseghian was the roadmap. Play the game, win or lose, and move on. Pontifical approval-seeking was both unnecessary and unwelcome, because our foes will pretend to like us as long as they’re beating us. Throw a few Irish wins together, you can be damn sure the mackerels will start snapping.

A fair number of fans out there like to talk about the conditions they allege make it much more difficult for Notre Dame to win a national title in football again. Some of those conditions are valid, some overblown. But to me, the prioritization of showing our opponents we think there are more important things than winning over actually beating those opponents is doing far more to reduce the possibility of future success than all the rent-a-players, online courses, or comely coeds in the universe could ever do.

Want to show Georgia how much we appreciated playing down there? Spend less time bowing and scraping, get them on the damn schedule and get one in the win column.

Meanwhile, let’s keep our inferiority complex out of the newspapers. It’s embarrassing.

Tell Mike what you think in the comments below

The post Notes from the Geetar: The Means or the End? appeared first on NDNation.

I love being certain. Certainty is a warm comforter on a cold snowy day. Certainty is the 18-year-old Jameson as it trickles down your throat. To quote Frau Blucher, it reaches the soul when words are useless.

(Although that was not my cigar smouldering in the ashtray)

Everybody likes to know where they stand. Everyone is better at making decisions when all the variables are known. The more educated the guess is, the less of a guess you’re making.

And that’s what we’ve been doing with Notre Dame football in 2019 — guessing.

What kind of a program are we looking at here? Is it the team that tip-toed through a lesser-than-advertised schedule in 2018, only to be completely depantsed in Dallas by Clemson? Is it a team that had advanced and grown but happened to run into an incredibly-talented team, as evidenced by the equal beat-down the Tigers gave the Crimson Tide?

Where is this program on the growth scale, anyway? Are we truly a program an observer can credibly claim is not “different in terms of strength or conditioning or preparedness” from the Clemsons of the sport today?

We still don’t know, because games at Louisville and against New Mexico haven’t given us a lot to go on. Why haven’t they? Because of the big matzo ball sitting there in Game Three. And unlike the Magic 8 version, this one will give us the certainty we crave.

Like a massive planet, everything so far this season has been distorted by the gravity of this week’s game in Athens. According to some folks, not wanting the Georgia Bulldogs to get anything on film can explain lots of things. Offense looks really vanilla? Can’t give Dan Lanning anything to work with before next week, man. Haven’t heard Julian Okwara’s and Khalid Kareem’s names much so far? You will when Jim Coley’s unprepared for the blitzes!

Personally, I think that’s a complete pantload. I’m worried we’re two years away from Harry Hiestand’s coaching and it’s starting to show on the OL. I’m concerned the guys in the center on defense are having to grow up a lot faster than any of us would like and teams are gambling on double-teaming the established perimeter.

But that’s the beauty of certainty. One week from now, we’ll all have it. We’ll know exactly where we are. There’s no denying Georgia is a the high-quality program we all think ND used to be and some of us think ND can be again with the correct stewardship. We’ll see exactly how we measure up on that scale.

My heart really wants the dream. My head says it’ll be the dud.

I guess we’ll see.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Notes from the Geetar — The Serenity of Certainty appeared first on NDNation.

On Wednesday, September 25th, the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame will hold their 23rd annual Induction and Awards Dinner at the new Wintrust Center in Chicago. Past induction classes have honored such Irish legends as Knute Rockne, “Moose” Krause, George Connor, John Lattner, Ara Parseghian, Tim Brown, Jerome Bettis, and Muffet McGraw. In 2019, two more Notre Dame greats will join them: National championship-winning coach Lou Holtz and four-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman Bryant Young.

Lou came to Notre Dame in 1986 with plenty of experience building up programs. His 1988 team won Notre Dame’s last national title, his 1993 team won the Irish’s last major bowl game, and he is second only to fellow inductee Rockne on the list of winningest Irish head football coaches. He followed up his brilliant Notre Dame career by firing up a dormant South Carolina football program before embarking on a long-running stint on ESPN’s many college football analysis shows. He now lives in Florida with his wife, Beth.

Bryant Young was a starting defensive lineman on that 1993 team that should have won Holtz’s second crown. Young lettered all four years and started for three before graduating in the spring of 1994. San Francisco drafted him in the first round, and his 14 straight seasons with them makes him the 3rd-longest-tenured 49er ever. He was selected to the NFL Pro Bowl four times, was named to the All-Decade team for the 1990s, and was the Comeback Player of the Year in 1999 after a devastating knee injury knocked him out late in the previous season.

The dinner and ceremony begins at 7pm, with a VIP reception and cocktail hour at 5:30 for those so inclined. There is also an opportunity to purchase an ad in the dinner’s book to convey your message of congratulations to Lou & Bryant.

Tickets for the event are available only through the HOF’s website. Both VIP and dinner tickets, along with the ad book slots, can be purchased by clicking the logo below.

The post Holtz & Bryant Chicagoland Sports HOF Inductees appeared first on NDNation.

As the college athletics world suffered through the upheaval of realignment in the early part of the 21st century, the common refrain was “it’ll be worth it when our networks come online”. Everyone saw the magic Jim Delaney was working with the B1G, and what’s-good-for-the-goose-itis ran rampant. The SEC was quick to jump on board, followed by the Pac-12, and even the Texas Longhorns figured they could pull it off (although the jury remains out). These networks, mostly coupled to the sports behemoth that is (or at least was) ESPN, sought to milk their own cash cows while (allegedly) bringing more of their content to their constituents who cared (and those who didn’t).

While perhaps late to the party, the Atlantic Coast Conference, home to at least some of your Fighting Irish squads, has shown up with what it thinks is good beer and hopes is quality content. On August 22, 2019, ACCN — a “new 24/7 national network dedicated to ACC sports” — will debut, and feature 150 men’s and women’s basketball games, 250 Olympic sports events, studio and original programming, and 40 football games including at least one featuring Notre Dame.

Not that folks may notice, of course. As of this writing, neither Comcast nor Charter is carrying the new network, which given the new rules and regs, will affect Irish fans a lot more than it did in the past.

What new rules, you ask? To wit:

In prior seasons, ND games on what was called “ACC Network Extra” (or ACCNE on our schedule pages) could be watched online via ESPN3, the website the WWL would use to broadcast all the games for which they had the rights. If you were an ESPN subscriber via your cable company, you could access those games online and watch them on your electronic devices.

In the world of the new ACC Network Extra — ACCNX — that’s no longer the case. While you still will be able to stream the games via ESPN and the app, if your provider doesn’t carry the ACC Network, you’re SOL. ESPN subscription isn’t enough anymore, and if you’re a cord-cutter, your ability to access the games remains to be seen.

And don’t expect Jefferson Pilot or any of the one-off stations to bail you out. According to the press release, all ACC-controlled games will be on ACCN, ACCNX, ABC, and the ESPN family of networks only. Syndication is a thing of the past. On the good news side, you don’t have to worry about games being preempted by a monster truck rally on your local UHF channel. On the bad news side, you may not be able to see the game at all.

We’ve all seen these negotiations before, and one can only hope within the next couple weeks, the ACCN has found a home on your cable monstrosity of choice. If you’re an Irish hoops fan, it’s probably worth your while to hit up the ACCN prompting page to see if you’re covered. If not … well, get those rabbit ears out.

The post Batteries (and Broadcasts) Not Included appeared first on NDNation.

I grew up being told life isn’t fair and I shouldn’t expect it to be. The message came from everywhere — mom, grandparents, teachers, and even the Princess Bride (although also pointing out it’s “fairer than death”, cold comfort as it may be). So let me begin by copping to the fact I have an extremely low tolerance for whinging about “fairness” and much prefer an attitude focused on overcoming perceived inequality.

As July approaches, the focus of ND fans turns to the 2019 schedule. At first glance, the casual fan might note the weakness of the home slate and the two major road tests which hopefully will offset it in the minds of those who determine post-season fates.

But it seems the story du jour … one that probably will crop up again and again as we progress … is how seven of Notre Dame’s 12 opponents have managed to give themselves off weeks prior to facing the Irish. Some publications have called the anomaly out as a “schedule superlative“, while others wonder, using my favorite adjective, whether Notre Dame’s is “the nation’s most unfair schedule“.

So rather than default to the mood of defeatism, let’s examine who these foes are and exactly what their schedules say.

The Games

September 14th vs New Mexico

The Lobos’ season opener is August 31st against Sam Houston State, and they’re off on the 7th. Raise your hand if you think the off week is going to help Bob Davie one iota, so we can properly identify you for a seemingly-necessary head slap. The idiot couldn’t win in Notre Dame Stadium when he was our coach, so I have a very hard time believing he-who-would-be-fired-if-New-Mexico-could-afford-it is going to pull out a victory over his former employer no matter how many bye weeks you give him.

Advantage: Are you kidding me?

October 5th vs Bowling Green

Given that the Falcons are in the MAC, you’re not expecting much from the schedule overall. Notre Dame will be their fifth game of the season, with a game at Kansas State the only one that might make an eyebrow twitch. Notre Dame will be coming off their trip to Athens, so this game may be a little trap-y. But BGSU couldn’t even manage four wins last year, so if there’s going to be a trap, I’d rather it be one of this nature.

Edit: Due to Virginia not being a bye-enhanced opponent, I forgot there’s a game between GA and BGSU, so what I said about Athens above doesn’t apply.

Advantage: Slight, more due to ND’s previous week than theirs. Never mind.

October 12th vs Southern Cal

The Trojans’ schedule is not easy — they’ll already have faced Stanford & Utah and traveled to BYU & Washington before coming to South Bend. But like New Mexico, the opponent’s coach doesn’t worry me a lot. Clay Helton is still keeping Urban Meyer’s seat warm, and if ND needs to get fired up for a rivalry game like this, there’s a lot more wrong than who had a bye when.

Advantage: Moderate, assuming SC hasn’t folded their tents already.

October 26th at Michigan

Michigan doesn’t have a bye before they host Notre Dame. But Notre Dame does, and Michigan will have been in Happy Valley the week before. Make sure the people wringing their hands over all these bye weeks note this in their articles, kthx.

November 2nd vs Virginia Tech

Of all the games on the list, this is the one where I believe their bye may make a difference. I know they’re having personnel issues and whatnot, but other than going to Miami at the beginning of October, they’ll be relatively untested and may have a gaudy record giving them confidence. Justin Fuente is no dummy, and given an extra week and the Irish recovering from their Ann Arbor venture, he might be able to make some noise.

Advantage: Moderate, possibly significant.

November 9th at Duke

This is the only coming-off-the-bye opponent Notre Dame has to face on the road. Duke’s schedule isn’t doing David Cutcliffe any favors this year — they chose to go up against Alabama to open the season, and the ND game will be the Blue Devils’ first home game in a month. The only thing that makes this game possibly difficult is its location. Not that Durham is an intimidating environment, but playing a road game vs a rested opponent should be good for at least a quarter of balanced football.

Advantage: Slight … it’s still Duke.

November 16th vs Navy

Another home game against a team coming off a bye. But this is the Naval Academy. Are the Middies going to install the Air Raid offense in the off week? You always know what you’re going to get with Navy. The only difference here is they’ll be slightly more rested.

Advantage: Slight, although lateness of season may factor in.

November 23rd vs Boston College

This of course assumes the team is still playing by then — the Eagles’ schedule is BRUTAL. Their three games prior to Notre Dame are at Clemson and Syracuse followed by a home date with Florida State. They may need the bye week to sleep all that off. Steve Addazio has kept them competitive, but that may be a tall order this time around.

Advantage: Slight, but leaning towards moderate if BC weathers November.

The Ruling

Kwicherbitchin. So much sturm und drang over teams having the week off or playing weak opponents before they play Notre Dame. Hike up your skirts, ladies, this is Division 1 football. Six of the seven bye-blessed opponents still have to travel to South Bend to play the game, and five of the opponents are among the weaker teams on Notre Dame’s schedule already. Notre Dame always gets the opponent’s best shot — always have and always will — and a bye week doesn’t change that.

This is a very talented Notre Dame team facing a schedule with a couple major tests surrounded by mediocrities, and if Brian Kelly is close to the coach his backers claim he is, the 11-1 record I predicted after the spring game should well be within reach.

The post Life Isn’t Fair … are Schedules? appeared first on NDNation.

Let’s start this off with a note from Captain Obvious: These kickoff times should have surprised absolutely no one. The 2019 schedule has a strong road-to-home strength imbalance, with three of the four toughest games — Georgia, Michigan, and Stanford — away from South Bend and two Tier Four tomato cans at home in the first month. Really, the only thing that should have shocked people in yesterday’s press release is none of the games will be relegated to NBC Sports Network.

But as high a price as that much crapulence in the home schedule is, after the last couple years, I’m willing to pay it to get some more games in the bright sunlight as opposed to the Musco glare. I know some people out there like night games, but frankly, I’ve never understood their appeal to attending fans when it comes to college football.

Football Saturdays 101

Notre Dame football Saturdays have a great rhythm for me:

• Alarm goes off at 6am, link the NDN headlines, hit the shower.
• In the car at 7am, stop at the gas station to get a couple bags of ice to put in the cooler I packed Friday night, a steak egg and cheese bagel and diet coke at the McDonalds next door, and out on 294.
• The time change puts me in the Joyce Center lots 9:45ish, get everything set up.
• Three to four hours of flexibility. Some people in our group are happy to just socialize. Some blow through the men’s basketball practice. Some stop by other folks’ tailgaters, walk around campus, go to pregame events like the band concert, etc.
• Start the break-down 45 minutes before kickoff. If I’m going to the game, grab a roadie or two, and head over to the Stadium so I’m there in time for the band’s pre-game show. If I’m not, it’s over to Granger, formerly to Mike Frank’s house, probably now to bbdome’s if he’ll host.
• Watch what hopefully is a great game.
• If I’m at the game, hang out at the car for an hour or two to let the immediate traffic die down. If I’m at Mike’s, do the Five Idiots post-game podcast (another unfortunate casualty of his move).
• Head back west, possibly stopping at Swingbelly’s if we’re so inclined.
• Home around 10pm or so, set the cooler in the backyard to drain, pour myself a Jameson Black Barrel, and watch the game again on the DVR.

Tales from the Dark Side

Now, let’s examine how night games interrupt the flow.

It almost requires lodging in South Bend. A two-hour drive at 7pm looks a lot less daunting than one at midnight, particularly when you can break it up as we usually do with a stop in Long Beach or Chesterton or even Munster. If I’m looking at getting on the Toll Road at 11:30 at night, I’m probably better off with a hotel room … which, thanks to the rates and required minimums, is $600 I’ll never see again.

Still gotta get up early, but the wait is longer. I know they claim the parking lots don’t open until four hours before kickoff, but in practice, that doesn’t happen. If you show up for a 7:30pm kickoff at 2pm, you’re parking on the outskirts if you’re getting in at all, because everyone else is already there. You might get an hour of leeway, but my experience at previous night games indicates that’s it.

So now you’re there from 10-11am until 6:30pm. That’s a long time to tailgate, particularly if you still have the two-hour drive home after the game. Even if you’re not imbibing, you’re sitting/standing around in a parking lot.

The weather tends to be better. Football is a fall sport, and temps during fall days tend to be better than temps during fall nights. I have no aversion to watching Notre Dame play in the cold; I was doing that before some of the people bitching about this article were born. But if you give me a choice, like any sane person, I’m going to prefer the sun to the dark.

More of the day wasted. Even if I’m not attending the game, I’m still going to watch it, so the kickoff time creates the locus of my Saturday. I loathe waiting around all day for the only college football game I give a damn about to start. If I’m home, I like going out with friends on Saturday nights, and my social choices are a lot more limited if I have to factor in keeping an eye on the Irish.

Far less conducive to kids. I’m surprised a lot of the same people who bitch that the World Series games start so late their kids can’t watch it have no qualms about cheering evening start times for Notre Dame games. I’ve always had rules about attention span and bladder control when it comes to urchin attendance at games, but a 7:30pm kickoff can push things out of all of our control. If I wanted to take my 11-year-old nephew to see the Southern Cal game, 7:30pm creates a lot more logistical problems than 2:30 or even 3:30 would. Hard to create the next generation of fans that way.

Everybody’s a lot more f#$%ed up. To some, this is a positive by-product, because everybody’s lubed and everybody’s raucous and the crowd noise helps the team. That’s as it may be. But there are two things I know for sure:

1. The only two fights I’ve ever personally witnessed at Notre Dame Stadium were during night games
2. The loudest I’ve ever heard Notre Dame Stadium was around 4pm on October 15th, 1988, under a bright fall afternoon sun.

So consider me unconvinced. I would think it’s a lot more efficient (and safer) to give the fans a team to cheer about than to count on them to pour beer down their throats.

They’re a product of financial greed. We all know why the networks want night games — they can charge advertisers more. They don’t give a damn about the fans’ wants or needs, the lucre is there and dey wannit.

Hell, that’s the reason the Shamrock Series was created in the first place. NBC wanted at least one night game per season, but the CSC wasn’t yet prepared to give it to them, so the ridiculous “home game away from home” concept was wrapped up in pretty “spreading the Notre Dame brand” bullshit and brought into being. Funny how ever since the “three night games every two seasons” policy was invoked, the Shamrock Series has been back-burned. Must be a coincidence.

I can’t control how other schools set their kickoff policies, but I may get my wish for more vitamin-D-infused Notre Dame games this year. CBS can only broadcast one SEC night game per season, and they’ll have to balance the Irish in Athens against Alabama vs LSU. We may be rescued from a night game at Ann Arbor by, of all things, the fourth game of the World Series. On the other hand, the time zone difference almost guarantees Stanford will kick off late, and I find it unlikely the folks at the ACC Network will turn down the chance to have Notre Dame vs Duke outside of prime time.

I know people jones for night games (although I’m convinced the vast majority of the jonesers don’t actually attend them), different strokes and all that. But for 2019, I’m glad Notre Dame did their part to make my Saturdays more predictable.

Now all they have to do is win, because I don’t give a damn what time the playoff games kick off.

The post In Praise of Vitamin D appeared first on NDNation.