What are they saying in South Bend

[jwise0022 1]

here is the link

http://www.ndnation.com/boards/showpost.ph...;pid=120;d=this

I will post the article below. I think they actually have a good point. I read the article from the college football news page posted earlier and it made sense. Notre Dame lost to a worse team (Mich St) than Auburn (GTech) and the others who have a complaint with the exception of Oregon whose sole loss is to USC. But, is it there fault that the system is so F'd up? Whose fault is it that West Virginia or South Florida will get an automatic bid in stead of Auburn or another more deserving team? Not theirs. What did you guys think?

Here's the article:

The Rock 11/21

The annual season known as bowl whining, which usually starts about the same time the first Christmas decorations appear, is upon us. Here’s how it works: teams that don’t get it done on the field turn to their conferences, the media and their talking head connections and whine and wail with the hope of influencing bowl representatives. The blame lies not in the stars, but with the greedy conferences.

Conferences have made a giant power grab over the last decade (sometimes at the expense of each other) and have monopolized the BCS allowing teams like a 7-4 Purdue squad into the BCS, and in the process, taking a spot from a deserving school. And by manufacturing revenue generating conference championship games (with the sole purpose of making money) they've added another wrinkle to the mess. An undefeated conference team could lose to a three, four or five loss team in the championship game, giving an undeserving and low ranked champion a BCS bid and by definition leaving an deserving team out in the January cold. The conferences want it both ways, to make money coming and going and they will bully anyone in their paths to make it happen.

Here’s how omahadomer breaks it down:

The predicament of Oregon, OSU, Miami, Auburnand every other team from a BCS conference that didn't win its conference is entirely a function of their (that is to say, the conferences') decision to protect conference champions at all cost. It's easy to say that Cal got left out unfairly last year because Texas passed them up because of Mack's lobbying, but the truth is that the team that took Cal's spot was Pittsburgh.

In past years, this BCS system has placed an FSU team that ended the year with 5 losses in a BCS bowl, last year's terrible Pitt team, and this year will put a weak W.V. or U.S.F. team in. And, don't forget, a bad F.S.U. squad could get back in if they upset V. Tech. in the conference championship game.

There are 4 B.C.S. bowls, so obviously there are 8 slots. Right now the top 8 teams are U.S.C., Texas, P.S.U., L.S.U., V. Tech., O.S.U., Oregon and N.D. I would have no problem with placing those the 8 teams in B.C.S. bowls. But that's not the system the conferences wanted.

The conferences signed on to a system that is going to give W.V. (#11) or U.S.F. (#33) a slot no matter what, and might give Georgia (#13), UCLA (#12) or FSU (#24) spots if they can win their conference championship game (in UCLA's case, a de facto conference championship game).

Teams like Oregon, Ohio State, Miami etc. all readily accept the benefit of being in a conference, which is to say that if they get hot in conference play they'll happily take their spot in a B.C.S. game even if they're 7-4 or 8-3. N.D. has no such benefit; we must win 9 games and be ranked high enough no matter what. We cannot claim a spot based simply upon a subset of our performance.

So when Oregon or Ohio State or Miami is crying in its collective beer about being left out, there's a simple answer: Either win your conference or agree to a system that rewards merit rather than conference champions. Either way, your beef is with your conference commissioner, not N.D.

Word brother omaha.

If your team doesn't get invited to the bowl you want or expect, you’re not getting ripped off and your team is not getting gypped. Bowls exist to make money; they aren't prizes like smiley faces given out to good performers in a fourth grade class. The bowl system is a moneymaking junket-peddling dinosaur run by the same said reptiles. To play with the big boys you need to prove your team can provide a sufficient following to bring in the necessary money for the bowl slush fund. That takes years of consistent winning.

Bowls are in the business of putting together the most attractive match-ups for fan attendance and television. That's their job; it is not to reward WAC U. for their first eight-win season in ten years.

If you think that's unfair, go cry to Dr. Phil. You want an equitable system? Tell the conferences to give up their guaranteed spots. The conferences are self-perpetuating monoliths. Pressure your school president to junk the junkets, drop the guarantees or get a real playoff system. Until then, if you're not in the BCS championship game you haven't earned the right to complain. You're just a school that’s had a decent year but not good enough to get into the championship game, which is the only game designed to match the best teams. Every other bowl is in the business of making money and that means sometimes having to compensate for an undeserving conference team that they're forced to take via a tie-in. The law of unintended consequences is a bitch.

Back to the game.

Sure last week wasn’t a stellar performance by the Irish, but when’s the last time a Notre Dame team had a bad day and still led 34-3?

And if you listen or read about visiting fans, you realize that Notre Dame should never, ever join the Jumbotron world of in-your-face game day production. Here are some entries from syracusefan.com on their experience at Rock’s House:

1) ND gets a lot of crap on this board, but I must tell you..... their fans are about the nicest opponent fans one will ever meet. Every place we went today on campus, ND fans would greet us, say "welcome to Notre Dame, glad you are here" and offer to answer questions.

2) Contrary to the early forecasts, the weather was spectacular. So nice to be OUTSIDE at a football game in late November with a clear blue sky and warm temperatures (at least until the sun went down).

3) The stadium is fantastic. Wide concourses and not a bad seat in the house. We (the syracusefan.com gang) were up high, behind the back of the end zone, and the seats were great (even though you felt like a mountain goat getting to them).

4) Great, great college game day atmosphere. Tailgates everywhere... many of them quite elaborate. The stadium is surrounded by parking lots, and the police have access and egress down to a science. No delays coming or going.

5) ND band must have more than 400 members, including either 22 or 24 tuba players. In a neat gesture, they played the SU fight song just before the game started. Some of us even knew the words. Really a great band. Enjoyed listening to them all day.

6) ND student section is HUGE. Their tradition is to STAND the entire game and sit only during hafltime. They all wore the same yellow shirts. Very impressive.

7) Looking forward to returning there in 2008. Seriously, if anyone wants to enjoy a game=day experience reminiscent of the old sis-boom-bah days, this is the place to go. Having been there, I cannot imagine why any visiting recruit would ever choose another school.

8) There is no commmercial crap from the PA announcer. Not a single pitch for washer fluid or storm windows. All he reported was the game...... and out-of-town scores.

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It was an amazing experience to me going to this game. cto pretty much covers it, but I'll ramble anyway.

We stuck around after the game to see ND's tradition of having the players stand in front of the students while the band played. They played the fight song and alma mater. Then the entire band just turns around, faces the SU sideline and breaks into our fight song. It sounded great actually having a full band play it. I thought it was a very classy and awesome tradition.

Everyone should see a game here, it's a great experience. Nowhere near as loud as the SEC stadiums, only the students make any real noise when the ND defense is on the field. But just a cool place where the appreciation of just watching their home team play is kinda unbelievable.

One last thing about ND's band. The halftime show of them playing Journey and Def Leppard was yet another stroke of genius. I never knew a marching band could provide such entertainment. And they are appreciated by their fans in the midwest more than anywhere else.

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Yes, today was a pilgrimmage, and quite an enjoyable trip, that game from the 2nd quarter on not withstanding.

That campus and the gameday experience was unique, classy, traditional in all the right ways, the people were warm and wonderful, the Basilica and Grotto breathtaking.

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I just got back from the game as well. Fantastic campus, great fans, better than michigan as a venue which is saying something. CTO is correct the weather was perfect and outside of the army navy the best sense of tradition that i have ever seen.

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As CTO mentions, the fans at ND were the classiest I've ever encountered. I'm a lifelong ND-hater, but it may be time to let that die. From the bus driver chatting with us about SU hoops to the many fans who casually said "good luck" or "welcome to Notre Dame" as we walked by, to the ushers and concession people who said the same thing, it was a very welcoming experience. I've been to places where we were treated nicely, but nothing like this. The ND band even played our fight song prior to the game to very nice applause. I'm sure that the arrogance is there somewhere, but I sure never saw it.

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The take-home here: Stay classy, Notre Dame.

Makes you appreciate what you have, doesn’t it?

And while the molder of men’s team participated in an ugly post game brawl in Seattle after an uglier loss, Weis actually created another moment. The Mooney pass to O’Hara wasn’t just a great Rudy moment of walk-on to walk-on, it looked like two NFL players playing pitch and catch. Great stuff.