Wolverine247 Board

I think Alabama would beat the crap out of Notre Dame but that's a long way off. I can see ND go unbeaten, but at the same time you look at their team and think it's entirely possible for them to lose one they shouldn't. Those ACC teams in the back of the schedule look like the easy games but these days it's become almost a regular occurance for those easy games to turn into upsets.

With regards to Notre Dame, I don't hate them the way I hate Ohio State or Michigan State, but I dislike them very strongly. It's not even because of Lou Holtz or our seasons running into trouble early on by losing to them in the past (or this year for that matter), it's because I hate arrogance especially when it can't be backed up.

I mean for starters, Notre Dame is not as good a school as they'd want you to believe. It's not a bad school but it's not a top university either. It's in fact not as good as a number of the public universities to which they feel superior. See, that's part of why they joined the ACC and think the Big Ten is beneath them, all that "national brand" stuff is just P.R. talk to cover up that deep down they think they should associate with their blue-blooded equals at private universities like Duke, Wake Forest, Boston College, Miami or Pitt rather than those beer-guzzling public school Midwest farmer boys in the Big Ten. The fact that those Big Ten boys are often "godless" (i.e. not catholics) isn't as relevant anymore because the Big Ten schools have become more catholic in terms of their student bodies, but it still is there beneath the surface.

But why is Notre Dame relevant? It's not because of academics, it's not because they have produced such great individuals you have to reckon with them as an academy producing America's brightest and best. It's because of their football team and its extremely large fanbase which has its strongholds amongst the working-class Irish. So these snobs basically only exist in the national consciousness because of the sentimental attachment of plumbers and electricians in Chicago, St.Louis and New York. Nothing wrong with an honest trade, but if you think about Notre Dame's arrogance it's rather ironic.

And of course that football team hasn't won anything in 20 years either, if you look at the last 10 seasons of Notre Dame, they look more like North Carolina State than any of the teams to which they like to compare themselves. This year of course it might be different and I would never underestimate their ability to be good at football, but let's face it, even with Brian Kelly they won't ever be again what they once were.

Yea, I dont recall our offense driving consistently against Alabama, and then turning it over multiple times in the red zone with self inflicted turnovers