Sorry Man, I'm Still Really Sick of Notre Dame

Notre Dame fans do in fact abandon the team when there's a down year. That's nothing to be ashamed of, most teams' fans are like that, and the Irish are just another team nowadays.

For a long time the Irish were a consistently very successful team that pioneered the forward pass, had some of the best teams, players, and coaches ever, was famous for traveling the country more than anyone else (and picking up fans everywhere in the process), and was located near the geographic and ethnic center of football popularity in an era where professional football took a back seat to the college game. Although Western teams like California had been playing football since before Notre Dame, it was a largely Midwest and Northeast sport that was most popular among white people, many of whom were Catholic.

But things could hardly be more different today. Notre Dame hasn't been among the most successful teams for decades now. They got a championship 21 years ago (considered an upset iirc) and they've still mostly been a good team, but nothing to put them among the top tier most successful programs (and obviously the last couple years in particular have been terrible). Pro football now largely overshadows college football in regions with both, including Indiana. Notre Dame hasn't been among the pioneers in plays or formations for a long time. Football is now a fully national game with a center of popularity that's shifted south and west and with fans and players of all colors. Religion is no longer a useful predictor for college football fandom.

Yes, the Irish have a national tv deal. But a single google search says that when Cal, just a regular team in terms of national popularity for major schools (or maybe less than regular, even), has been on national tv, at least some of its games have had similar ratings to those of Notre Dame's. The Irish just aren't the draw they used to be. I don't see why anyone who's grown up in the last 2-3 decades would think the Irish are special in any way.

I'm not claiming that Notre Dame's schedule is always easy, it's definitely not. But this year they're only playing 3-4 legit teams and only a couple who could reasonably be ranked in the top 25. Going 9-3 against that is not spectacular. This Navy thing is ridiculous, though. The Cal-Stanford rivalry is one of the oldest in the country, but right now Stanford is down. Does that mean Cal should drop them? No, like any program Stanford has its ups and downs; they were good in the 90s (and much earlier), have a bunch of hall of famers, and actually have a pretty bright future right now. But Navy is dead, they simply cannot be good in the modern era, and yet Notre Dame clings to them.

And really, when you get down to it, it doesn't seem like Notre Dame's talent level is that amazing either. I mean read this preview, it's like someone is playing a joke. "This is the best team in the five years under Weiss;" "a veteran quarterback who really is that good;" and "a kicking game that gets everyone back." But! "The team will be better if... Jimmy Clausen stops throwing interceptions," and "a couple of missed kicks from finishing the regular season 8-4." The offense section concludes "At the very least, the veterans are in place to give it a shot." The defense section talks up its fancy new linebackers after mentioning that those guys are from this year's recruiting class, ie they're freshmen. So the team is top 25 because we hope its QB will throw fewer interceptions, it gets a kicking unit back that lost games, its offensive guys might like totally give it a shot for reals this time, and its defense got some high rated teenagers. I mean, really? Better than Michigan State, Texas Tech, Kansas, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Miami, Oregon State, etc?

Again, I think this team is only ranked because its name means something to the 50 year olds who voted for them. These are people who remember when Notre Dame was a great team with an excellent reputation and one of the biggest fanbases in the country, and they impute that onto the program still today. For me, the Irish are irrelevant, and until or unless they actually get good, I kind of wish they'd just go away.