Today is the Notre Dame game

Purdue is playing at home against Notre Dame this evening. No matter the result, public opinion for Purdue will be "who the hell is Purdue?" Public opinion for Notre Dame among smart people are "ugh, Notre Dame" and "NOTRE DAME IS A BCS CONTENDER" among stupid people. What I am trying to say is, at the college level, Notre Dame is a little overinflated.
Anyways, with that said, Purdue fans and grads know that we can be proud of our university and our team, because the Boilermakers have to earn everything they get. Players are less likely to get exposed at the next level, because they got there on talent, not hype.
By the way, 3 Purdue QBs are starting in the NFL this weekend, Drew Brees with the Saints, Kyle Orton with the Broncos and Curtis Painter with the Colts. What about you Notre Dame? What, no one? Not even the highly touted Jimmy Clausen?

Nope! Ridin' pine. Say, weren't you the oldest kid on Home Improvement?
How about first round draft pick Brady Quinn?

No?! And you are behind your foil while you were at Notre Dame, none other than Kyle Orton! And everybody HATES Kyle Orton! You are battling for depth chart positioning with awide receiver, man!

In conclusion, Notre Dame can kiss my black and gold ass, regardless of what happens today.

Oh look, another douche at Notre Dame

Leaving his team before the biggest game in school history all for a chance to coach at a mediocre Midwestern school? Yep. Douche.

Yes, Kirk Herbstreit, why?

Last week, after Charlie Weis was canned, Kirk Herbstreit asked the pertinent question: "Why do we still talk about Notre Dame like they are a relevant program?" I'm paraphrasing. But he couldn't figure why the media covered the Irish like they continued to be a national powerhouse, even though they have been mediocre at best for about two decades now. I think it's a question that is easily answered if Kirk looks around the office.
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, current college football analyst.
Bob Davie, Holtz's successor at Notre Dame, and now a color guy for college football.
Oh, but it doesn't stop at college football. No no no. Check out the college basketball.
Digger Phelps was a former Irish basketball coach and is now a college basketball analyst.
Former Irish great Laphonso Ellis is also an analyst for the Worldwide leader now too.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE
Of course, there is Sportscenter anchor Hannah Storm, who takes any opportunity to remind all of us that she too went to Notre Dame.
So Kirk, that's why people at ESPN still talk about Notre Dame because they are relevant. Almost everyone there spent some time in South Bend.

I don't know why this happens

A couple years ago, I wrote a post about Oregon uniforms, and the entire state of Oregon came down on me. When I wrote about how Eric Devendorf is and looks like a douche, all those fans of Syracuse decided to tell me that I'm a bad person. This time, however, it's Steve who has become the object of someone's scorn. Back in September of 2007, Steve penned a piece illustrating his disdain for a certain university in northern Indiana. A Notre Dame supporter issued a timely response on Saturday, that called Steve all sorts of bad names:

You are pathetic. Not only are you absolutely wrong as regards your recitation of history, your perspective is warped by your own blind jealosy. What happened, did you apply and were not accepted? Don't even get me atarted about Purdue - one story concerning the athletic recruitment of my son back in 1995 and the pride Purdue's head coach (track & field) showe when explaining how the Purdue scholarship athletes did not need to worry about classes as everythign would be taken care of for them. This was enough to turn off my son (a stellar and heavily recruited athlete) as academics were important to him. He is now a physician after having competed for four years for Notre Dame and being ranked 5th in the Big East in his event. Purdue and academics do not even belong in the same universe when discussing scholarship athletes. Get a clue.

Pathetic. Absolutely wrong. Blindly jealous. Clueless. Angry blog comments are the best. But let's break this down, shall we? First, Steve, I can assure you, did not apply to Notre Dame. As he mentioned, he went into his college search already hating Notre Dame. He said that, but I doubt you actually read any of his post. You see, Steve wanted to be an engineer, Purdue's forte, not a lawyer or douchebag, which is apropos of a degree from Notre Dame.
Second, I don't understand this whole thing about the Purdue track and field team. Did Steve even mention the Purdue student athletes? No. He talked about hypocrisy in the Notre Dame hype machine. But good that you decided to drag Mike Poehlein's (thats the track coaches name, by the way) name through the mud, even though he hasn't ever been tagged for any violations in 25 years on the job. But you're right, if that's your point. Student athletes aren't always the best students. We admit that, but Notre Dame doesn't. Actually, wasn't that Steve's point?
It's too bad you posted anonymously, sir, because with your mastery of the English language, from syntax to spelling, I would want to know your name, if just so I could avoid going to your son's practice, in case he has your attention to detail.

But back to the title. We here at the Times are pretty easy going folk. I get livid about some stuff, but frankly, I don't have a problem with anyone. Why do so many have a problem with us? I think I'm getting a complex.

Don't Fret Charlie....

There's absolutely no shame in losing to both Michigan State and North Carolina. Tom Izzo and Roy Williams are 2 of the best coaches in college and oh....wait....this is football. At least you'll get another chance to prove yourself against Jim Boeheim later this year....oops my mistake again. Nice schedule, enjoy your Gator Bowl ass-kicking.

What? Purdue lost on the road? No!

The title of this post is best deemed as "sarcasm". As our friends at Boiled Sports point out, Purdue just doesn't win when they are underdogs. I can't remember the last time Purdue truly had an upset. Notre Dame in 2004, maybe?
Truly, you can divine the status of the Big Ten every year by looking at the Boilers record. Figure they never beat teams they shouldn't and beat teams they should. If they have a good record, therefore, it's not because they are particularly talented, and if they have a poor record they aren't necessarily bad. The Boilers just float along in the Big Ten, making almost no noise. I should get used to this, but I can't.
At least to make me feel better, Notre Dame lost to Navy for the first time since the 60's, and it's always fun to make fun of Notre Dame. In that spirit, a hot topic at work was Charlie Weis, and specifically, what does he shove in his pants? It's one thing to be chubby. It happens. But Weis. Just unnatural. The common theory is that it's a young child down there.

A note from Boilerdowd

As many of you have probably picked up on, we here at the Victoria Times have come to enjoy Boiled Sports. The other day, Boilerdowd fired an e-mail in response to Steve's Notre Dame hate post last week. It turns out that HE hates Notre Dame too! Bloggers have so much in common. In any case, he like me, is a graduate of a Catholic high school and shares this anecdote about the frosty relationship between Notre Dame and Catholics who don't have gold coin swimming pools

My high school was sued by UND last year for using the leprechaun logo. CLC(Collegiate Licensing Corp.) now has control of UND's licensing. At one time, the priests and brothers at UND had an agreement that CHS could use the same leprechaun if they turned it the opposite direction. This "handshake" pact existed for about 50 years. Why? Because at one time, Cathedral and UND were both run by the same order of Brothers.During this period, in the early 1900s, there was a lot of cross-pollenization between the two institutions. In fact, Rockne supposedly coached a football game for Cathedral in 1918 or '19. In the early 1900s, UND was called the Catholics, and later, the Ramblers (their logo was a terrier). Rockne really liked Cathedral's use of the name "Fightin' Irish" and asked if his football team could adopt it...Without hesitation, the request was granted. Later, UND borrowed a CHS icon to go along with the name they had taken...the logo evolved into the leprechaun that UND now claims as solely theirs.I'm not sure how the Irish brigade legend came about, but I am pretty sure it's an example of revisionist history by UND.

Ah yes. Stay classy Notre Dame.

P.S., we will defintiely have something on the MLB postseason up tomorrowish.

Why I Hate Notre Dame

As Ryan mentioned a few days ago, I'm a graduate of Purdue University. Purdue grads tend to dislike Notre Dame for many reasons. First, they are located in the same state, and no, Notre Dame fan, Purdue is not located in West Lafayette, PG (for Pearly Gates). Second, they play each other annually in football in what has developed into a pretty good measuring stick game early in the season for both teams over the past 10 years. Purdue fans get a little more excited for this game than Notre Dame fans, especially when they can potentially knock off a team that gets as much national attention that Notre Dame does. Purdue fans also have a problem with Notre Dame's arrogance that exists on many levels, whether it is their so-called superior education (Purdue is comparable or better in many majors), affiliation with the Catholic church, or the fact that their tuition is so high it almost forces them to be so arrogant to mask how stupid they are for going there in the first place. Now, I'm not from Indiana, so the in-state rivalry doesn't mean much to me. I also don't hate Notre Dame just because of the fact that I went to Purdue. This is a hatred that's existed since my childhood. Let's take a trip back to my grade school days in the early 90's.....

I'm from a southwest suburb of Chicago that is dominated by Catholic parishes and is predominantly Irish in ethnic background. I'm also Catholic, but my nationalities are Italian and Polish. The street we lived on was infested with die-hard Notre Dame fans, one of which actually went to college there, even though we were about 100 miles away from South Bend. Why were they such huge fans? Well, because they were Irish! And Notre Dame is the Fighting Irish! Also, the local families were so competitive with each other that it seemed like a lot of actions that were taken were an attempt to raise their social status, instead of help the community. Being the great Catholics that they were (even the alcoholics, abusers, and adulterers at home) it was natural to have God's team, Notre Dame, as the team of choice. They didn't just love Notre Dame, but they forced it down your throat...Notre Dame merchandise being worn everywhere, ND flags waving outside houses...hell, even my grade school fight song was set to the tune of Notre Dame's. A visit to a neighbor's house usually involved being forced to talk about the development of Ron Powlus, and being asked how it could be that I never visited "The Campus" as they called it with an arrogant tone. Keep in mind that maybe 2 people in my whole suburb actually went to school there, and not many more went to ANY college. Being Italian and Polish, and with my family not having a social status identity crisis, I didn't feel obligated to cheer for a college in a small town in Northern Indiana. With my apologies to Holden Caulfield for stealing his outlook on life, I eventually got sick of the arrogance and phoniness of these certain people in my neighborhood and the love they shared for Notre Dame was tied to my disgust with them.

So, with the basis of hate for Notre Dame laid out in my childhood, there are a lot of other factors that have enhanced my hatred for the Fighting Irish over the years. First, their nickname and logo and the fan base that loves it so much is pretty laughable. Notre Dame is French for Our Lady, which refers to Mary, mother of Jesus. French. There is a famous cathedral in France called Notre Dame. The University was founded by priests from a congregation in France. So why are they even called the fighting Irish? I didn't care to read the whole story, but apparently it has something to do with one of the presidents of the school being a part of an Irish brigade from New York during the Civil War. What a great reason to give the team that name with all of its history tied to France, though I guess the Fighting French would be kind of an oxymoron. Also, why is "Fighting Irish" not considered derogatory like the Fighting Illini of Illinois? For many years, the Irish community has faced the very negative stereotype of hanging out in pubs, getting drunk, and starting fights. So what did they pick as their logo? A drunken leprechaun with his fists up ready to fight. If I was Irish, I would probably be offended by this, but my neighborhood embraced it. That would be like if there was a University of New Jersey Shooting Italians and the logo was a mobster eating pizza and holding a machine gun.

Next, let's get into Notre Dame's scheduling practices. They're always touted for having such a "tough" schedule, because they play USC and Michigan, and maybe occasionally a Penn State or Florida State. But they always schedule some of the absolutely worst programs in the nation where there is no way they could lose (unless they are as bad as they are this year). For example, this year they play Navy, Duke, Stanford and Air Force (who are better than the 3 previous, but still a service academy). They usually fill out their schedule with teams that traditionally range from terrible to just below average such Army, Rutgers (absolute garbage until recently), Boston College, Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Purdue, Syracuse, and BYU. Speaking of Purdue and Michigan State being some of the "easy" games for ND, they recently decided that they will no longer be playing those teams every year to make room for some other schools they agreed to play, which is an interesting coincidence with both programs showing improvement and no longer being complete pushovers over the past decade. Sure each conference will have their crappy programs *cough* Indiana *cough* too, but no conference game, especially on the road, is a guaranteed win. Notre Dame has the luxury of hand picking as many cupcakes as they want instead of 3 or 4 for the conference teams.

I have two more quicker points. First Charlie Weiss is an arrogant jerk, which makes him perfect to coach this team. Also, according to Ballsiest, he looks like Sloth. I wonder if his transformation surgery was actually disguised as "stomach stapling." He makes this team easier to hate, especially after the respectable Ty Willingham coaching ND before him. Also, Notre Dame apologists like the bring up the "high standards" that Notre Dame has for its student athletes, as if they turn down blue chip prospects because they don't meet the usual standards for acceptance to the school. That's just a load of crap. A few years back there was a report floating around with the average ACT/SAT scores of incoming freshmen football players by school, and Notre Dame was in the middle of the pack. The top scorers on that list were some of the worst programs around at the time, such as Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. It's impossible to have a national championship caliber team without bending the admission rules for certain people, and all colleges do it. The ones that don't are the ones that finish 2-10. I will say though to Notre Dame's credit by the looks of this year's team they might actually be near the top of the test score ratings nowadays.

I probably have more reasons to hate Notre Dame that didn't come to mind as I write this, so this might need to have a part 2 some day. All I have to say is I'm excited to see the Boilers march over the Irish this Saturday at Ross-Ade. Boiler Up!