Tag: USC

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Notre Dame IS the Best…at Whining!

In Pro sports, it’s kind of an unwritten rule that you don’t want to make yourself the topic of the news cycle during the playoffs or a championship game unless you’re one of the teams playing for the championship.

So it’s considered bad form to announce your new head coaching hire in the middle of the World Series. Or, if you have a star player that you just extended, you don’t make that announcement during the NBA finals.

Notre Dame operates on the opposite principle.

A few weeks ago, they got snubbed for a spot in the College Football Playoffs and they’ve been whining about it ever since.

I wrote here about how their elitist and entitled attitude was rubbing the entire college football world the wrong way when they decided that they were too good to play in a bowl game. Apparently, that’s beneath them. Bowl games are for the peasant class of college football. How could they, the “crown jewel” of college football, be denied entry into the College Football playoff?

It’s been a few weeks now since the College football playoff committee made their selection so you’d think that the whining by Notre Dame would be over.

You thought wrong.

Since Notre Dame was snubbed in favor of both Alabama AND Miami, teams Notre Dame assumed would be behind them in the selection process, Notre Dame fans have been spouting off on social media non-stop.

It’s clear to me that Notre Dame fans are receiving talking points from some kind of centralized Notre Dame Propaganda Command Center because the talking points are the same and when the narrative changes, the talking points immediately change as well.

Here’s an example:

Last weekend was the first round of the College Football playoffs, and Notre Dame fans were glued to their TV sets and their phones.

First came the Alabama-Oklahoma game, in which Alabama looked UGLY for about 1.5 quarters. Alabama was getting blown out by Oklahoma and Notre Dame fans were all over the internet blabbering incessantly about how this was PROOF that the committee got it wrong. They took every opportunity to remind the college football world how much better the playoffs would be with Notre Dame blessing us all with their expert football play.

But then something happened….something quite unexpected. Alabama came roaring back with some key plays to tie the game going into the half. They parlayed that momentum into a dominant second half to beat Oklahoma, somewhat convincingly, on the road!

The Notre Dame fans’ talking points were suddenly no longer valid.  Notre Dame fans could no longer keep pushing the narrative that Alabama and their poor performance was PROOF that Notre Dame should’ve gotten the nod.

So what did they do? Every Notre Dame fan, at the same time, began posting a new narrative – that BOTH teams were horrible, PROVING that Notre Dame deserved to be in the College Football Playoff.

The next day was the game that I’m calling “The Notre Dame Irish Bowl” sponsored by Kleenex. I call it that because it pitted the two teams who had beaten Notre Dame in the regular season against each other in the first round of the playoffs.

Miami was playing at Texas A&M, who was a slight favorite. Remember, Miami had beaten Notre Dame by 3 points but that was the first game of the season. Miami had later suffered two conference losses and didn’t even make their conference championship game, so Notre Dame fans had been arguing for weeks that Notre Dame should’ve gotten the nod over Miami, even though Miami had won the head to head matchup.

The Miami-A&M game turned out to be a low-scoring affair that was highly influenced by strong, gusty winds. Miami held on to beat Texas A&M, which most college football fans interpreted as clear evidence that the committee had picked the right teams for the playoffs

Remember, according to Notre Dame fans, A&M deserved to be in the playoffs but Miami didn’t. A win by A&M would have demonstrated that Miami was not deserving to be in the playoff and would have helped with the narrative that Notre Dame would have been more competitive. But Miami ended up winning, seemingly negating their argument.

But according to Notre Dame fan logic, the outcome of this game actually PROVES that Notre Dame should have gotten the nod.

How exactly did that game prove their assertion?

Their claim is that the game showed how bad both teams were. Notre Dame would obviously have beaten either team by at least 2 TDs. Therefore, Notre Dame should have been in the playoff.

Are you noticing a pattern here? If the preferred team ends up losing, then it just demonstrates how bad BOTH teams were to being with.

This week, Notre Dame fans continue to make noise as it was just announced that the historic rivalry between USC and Notre Dame will not resume next year.

Fanbases from both teams have expressed frustration, sadness and disappointment that the rivalry will not take place next season or for the foreseeable future. However, Notre Dame fans, in their quest for notoriety and relevance, are once again mobilizing their social media minions to gaslight the entire college football world regarding the circumstances that led to this rivalry game disruption.

The narrative being pushed this time is that USC is scared of Notre Dame and therefore backed out of the rivalry.

This kind of gaslighting simply ignores the current landscape of college football and the seismic changes that have taken place in just the last 2-3 years.

Notre Dame, as I wrote about here, is an Independent in football, which means they can set their own schedule every year. In the current college football environment, this is a huge advantage.

Forget about Notre Dame’s TV contract or the fact that they don’t have to share revenue with others. By not playing in a conference, Notre Dame can schedule a hodge podge of teams from around the country without worrying about having to navigate the gauntlet of a tough conference schedule.

Take next year’s schedule as an example, It’s been reported that Notre Dame has already replaced the USC game with BYU.

Most of the games on Notre Dame’s schedule are against teams from the Big 10 and ACC who were in the middle to the bottom of the conference. The two best teams on their schedule, at least by this year’s record, would be Miami and BYU. Those two teams combined for 22 wins so far this season.

The rest of the slate has only 49 wins. So the other 10 teams averaged less than 5 wins each. The total W-L record for next year’s opponents is 71-75.

By contrast, USC’s 2026 opponents have a record this year of 82-54.

A lot is being made by Notre Dame fans about the fact that USC wanted to change the timing of the game to earlier in the season, before they get too deep into their conference schedule.

Notre Dame fans have all retorted, no doubt from the Central Propaganda machine, that the USC-ND game has always been played late and so why change it now?

Well, the Trojans are in a different conference now, an arguably tougher one in which they have to travel a lot further than they used to.

Yeah, but they were always in a conference so why make the change?

Because this conference is tougher AND the conferences are all bigger, which means a higher likelihood of having multiple marquee games.

USC, for example, in 2026, plays Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, Washington and Penn State. Notre Dame, in terms of marquee matchups, plays only Miami and maybe BYU (they for sure play BYU, I’m just not sure I’d consider that a marquee matchup).

The bottom line with Notre Dame is that in the midst of a rapidly changing college football landscape, they don’t want to change at all. They refuse to join a conference and yet they expect everyone else to continue scheduling them just as they always have, even though their football schedule is probably easier now than it was in the past.

Notre Dame thinks that they can just schedule one or maybe two games per season against a traditional P4 powerhouse school. The rest of their schedule is littered with has-beens and gimmes. They don’t have to worry about a conference championship game and, as it turns out, they have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) starting next year that if they are ranked in the top 12 when the season ends, they will be guaranteed a slot in the playoff.

In addition to conference realignment, the path the National Championship is much different now than it was during most of the years the rivalry has existed.

For years, this rivalry existed in the context of a voters poll determining the champion. In that context, playing a marquee, non-conference game late in the season actually helped your chances of winning a national championship because if you win that game, it provides a very recent memory for the voters as they rank teams to determine a champion.

But none of that exists now. College football fans, coaches and players all wanted to win a championship on the field. Therefore, it’s imperative that you make it to the playoff field if you’re going to have any chance to win the national championship.

With the playoff field expanded to 12 teams, it’s easier to get into the playoffs with a loss. Even 2 losses doesn’t automatically eliminate a team from contention.

In this new environment, the rankings are paramount. And if you’re on the bubble, it’s best to have losses early rather than late.

So all of these factors led USC to the position that in order to continue the rivalry, it’s best to move the game to the front of the schedule before they enter conference play, just like every other non-conference opponent.

But Notre Dame is an independent and so every one of their games is a non-conference game for their opponent. After the first 3 to 4 weeks, every one of their opponents is having to play Notre Dame as an interruption to their conference schedule.

USC decided that they no longer wanted to do this favor for Notre Dame as it doesn’t benefit USC one bit. It only benefits Notre Dame.

If you truly value the tradition of the rivalry, as Notre Dame and their fans insist they do, why not adjust the details of the scheduling to make it beneficial to BOTH parties? Instead, Notre Dame insisted on keeping the schedule as it had always been.

The ending of this rivalry is nothing more than two parties who could not agree on the specifics of their arrangement. Notre Dame wanted things to remain exactly as they have been, even though the dynamics of the structure have affected them less than any other college football program.

USC wanted the timing of the game to change, given that the changes of the structure have affected them more than most other programs.

So for now, the rivalry is over.

Rather than just saying they couldn’t come to an agreement, Notre Dame, and their fans, in typical fashion, have decided that it’s in their best interest to demonize the other party.

The response is petty and juvenile, but it’s not surprising, given their elitist and entitled attitude. Notre Dame believes they are the best in the country.

That’s one thing we all definitely agree on. Notre Dame is the best in the country…at whining!

 

Photo by Steven Van Elk on Unsplash

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Notre Dame has Taken their Toys and Exited the Sandbox

My Thoughts on the Aftermath of the College Football Selection Process

As a life-long USC football fan, the team I dislike the most is Notre Dame. And yet, in the week leading up to the College Football Playoff selection, I found myself stumping for Notre Dame in online discussions with BYU fans.

BYU fans were arguing that their one loss (at the time) against highly-ranked Texas Tech, made them more worthy for a slot in the college football playoff field than Notre Dame, which had TWO losses.

My argument was that while Notre Dame did have two losses, those losses came early in the season (the first two games) by a combined 4 points to top-ranked teams. The loss to Texas A&M was actually a one-point loss in overtime. Notre Dame had reeled off 10 straight victories since, all by double-digit margins.

By contrast, BYU’s one loss was a blowout. I further argued that BYU had a chance at revenge in the Big 12 championship game against the very team they had lost to and this time, the game would be played at a neutral site (though arguably the Texas location still favored Texas Tech). “Win and you’re in”, I argued. My argument didn’t seem to convince any BYU fans.

Ironically, the argument about who was more deserving between BYU and Notre Dame for a playoff spot turned out to be moot as the playoff committee snubbed both programs in favor of 3-loss Alabama and 2-loss Miami, who had beaten Notre Dame by 3 points in the opening game for both teams.

Notre Dame’s reaction to being left out of the playoff field has been meme-worthy to say the least. Picture the Michael Jackson eating popcorn meme.

In what I can only suppose is considered some kind of act of defiance, Notre Dame’s athletic director said that Notre Dame would not consider playing in a bowl game, given the fact that they were unfairly mistreated.

“We’ll show you!”, they seem to be saying.

Essentially, Notre Dame has decided that they are going to gather up all their toys and leave the sandbox. They suppose that this reaction will draw attention to the inequity and unfairness of the situation. I think, however, that it may have the opposite effect.

Is Notre Dame really being treated unfairly? I don’t think so.

Consider that Notre Dame is the only major college football program that doesn’t play in a conference. They’re independent. That means that they can schedule whomever they want and they don’t ever have to worry about conference championship games.

Yet even though they don’t belong to a conference, they get treated as a Power 4 program.

Notre Dame has their own TV deal, which makes slightly less than what Big 10 teams make but it provides them more flexibility in the scheduling of their games.

Additionally, when Notre Dame went to the playoffs last year, they didn’t have to share any of their playoff money with other conference members as other teams do. Last year’s payout for Notre Dame was about $20 million (more when you consider each round teams are given additional money for travel expenses). This was 3 times more than what Ohio State, the eventual champion, took home.

Notre Dame’s athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, the former chairman of NBC sports, blasted the ACC earlier this week, stating that the conference had done “irreparable damage” to their relationship.

Bevacqua was upset that the ACC had seemingly been stumping for Miami over Notre Dame to the college football playoff committee.

Why would Bevacqua be upset about this? Notre Dame is not a part of the ACC conference in football. Yes, they are in the ACC for all other sports and they do have an agreement to schedule games against 5 ACC opponents each year, but Notre Dame refuses to join the conference for football. They want the benefits of being an independent but they also want the benefits of being affiliated with a conference when it suits them.

You can’t have it both ways. It was entirely appropriate for the commissioner of the ACC to stump for Miami over Notre Dame to the playoff committee. After all, Miami is an ACC member. Notre Dame is not. The conference benefits financially when its members make the playoff field. They don’t when Notre Dame makes the field. If there is only one slot and it’s between Notre Dame and Miami, what logical reason would Pete Bevacqua have to EXPECT the ACC commissioner to promote Notre Dame over Miami?

Notre Dame is a legacy program, no doubt. They have national appeal and name brand recognition. But that doesn’t mean they should get favored treatment. The truth is that teams get snubbed all the time. Just ask the 2023 Florida State team. It happens. Deal with it.

What kind of message are you teaching your team and your fans when you whine about the outcome you didn’t like and decide that “we’re not going to play in your stupid bowl game”? It’s exactly the kind of response I expect from a spoiled elementary school kid. It’s not the response I’d expect from mature adults.

I spent the whole week extolling Notre Dame as being more deserving than BYU for a playoff spot and to be honest, the reaction I got from a number of BYU fans actually gave me, a life-long Notre Dame hater, a reason to like Notre Dame.

But with Notre Dame throwing their tantrum and exiting the Bowl selection process, while BYU has chosen to play Georgia Tech in the Pop Tarts Bowl, Notre Dame has once again given me and the entire college football world, every reason to dislike them.

 

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MacBooks, Craiglist and a Guy on Rollerblades

A few years ago, I listed a used laptop on Craigslist. I got an email from a guy named Hugo and I drove to a Starbucks near him to show him the computer.

A few minutes later a guy comes cruising by on rollerblades, and it turns out, it’s Hugo!

Hugo and I are connected on various social media platforms. Hugo is an active guy, who, in addition to roller-blading, loves the outdoors. 

We sat down and chatted for a few minutes and I learned that Hugo was a UCLA grad who knew some of the same people I knew who had been involved with Cru and Destino at UCLA.

Hugo ended up buying my computer and he and I kept in touch as he would occasionally contact me with computer related questions.

About a year ago, Hugo contacted me again because he had an issue with the computer I had sold him a few years back. We met up and I helped him fix his computer issue.

We were connected on Facebook and I would occasionally see Hugo’s posts about life. In a lot of ways, Hugo represents the typical Young Professional to whom we minister. He loves God and he’s passionate about the underprivileged and less fortunate.

After college, Hugo had to deal with school loans (and is now debt free!) yet hasn’t found his sweet spot professionally. Hugo has struggled to figure out exactly how he can best serve God and fulfill his life mission. He’s not quite sure what His unique calling is or how he can best leverage his talents, experience and passion into a life of purpose and meaning.

When we met up a year ago, I shared with Hugo about our ministry to Young Professionals and some of the specific opportunities we offer, but nothing concrete really materialized.

A few months ago, Hugo contacted me again. His computer had died and I later learned that he was nearing completion of his grad school application and everything he had worked on, including his personal statement, resume, letters of reference and the application itself were irretrievably lost. It was a moment of panic and anxiety as the application deadline was quickly approaching.

Hugo needed a computer fast in order to finish the application on time and he later told me that he decided to reach out to me as a “Hail Mary” attempt at locating an inexpensive computer. It just so happened that I had just listed each of the twins’ old MacBooks (the same model that just crashed for Hugo) on Craigslist. When I told Hugo about the laptops I had listed, he said it gave him a glimmer of hope that this incredibly stressful situation he found himself in might actually work itself out.

When we met up for the exchange, Hugo said, “a year ago, you were telling me about some opportunities you have for Young Professionals and I wanted to hear about those again if they’re still available.”

I was smiling inside because I had been wondering if I should mention to him again about my role in helping Young Professionals.

On Strava, I often see Hugo hiking, cycling and enjoying God’s amazing creation with friends!

Hugo and I have now met a few times for coaching and our conversations have been really encouraging.

Hugo has been very appreciative of the opportunity to connect, learn and grow. I’ve appreciated Hugo’s vulnerability and genuine willingness to allow me to come alongside him as he continues in his professional and spiritual journey.

If you think about it, please pray for Hugo. He’s been accepted into USC’s graduate program on Public Policy but is weighing whether the cost of the program will be worth the benefits the program will provide.

This is a common issue with Young Professionals as they navigate and deal with the high cost of higher education relative to the advantages and opportunities that education provides in our current environment.

I’m continually amazed at the many ways God orchestrates circumstances in order to fulfill His greater purposes in our lives. I love how even random events and situations, like selling an item on Craigslist, can lead to an on-going relationship and meaningful connection!