Below are the five most expensive college football tickets as of August 10th:
1 Penn State vs. Notre Dame September 8 State College, Pa. $1,100
2 Michigan vs. Ohio State November 17 Ann Arbor, Mich. $1,000
3 Notre Dame vs. USC October 20 South Bend, Ind. $950
4 Michigan vs. Notre Dame September 15 Ann Arbor, Mich. $696
5 Notre Dame vs. Boston College October 13 South Bend, Ind. $661
Now I don't mean to beat a dead horse (leprechaun), but I am both amazed and (after a great deal of soul searching) envious of a team that can manage this kind of following despite having not won a bowl game since 1994.
A couple of points:
1)I am an avowed Irish basher. Some because of living in Chicago, some because I have a number of friends that are alumnae(Great route runner) and some because I hate bandwagon fans. (A full disclosure of fandom below).
a)I do not mind ND fans that did their undergrad in south bend.(Law school only fans are the worst, particularly if they gave up allegiance to another school).
2)The Ty Willingham termination. I am not saying this had anything to do with race, but I am looking for an adequate explanation why Charlie Weis is not on the coaching hot seat for essentially the same performance as ty.(Burke or Urda looking at you).
3)The we graduate more players and that is why we don't get better recruits argument. Serious pet peeve. Several points:
a)The graduation rate percentage at ND is significantly higher then other BCS schools(except Northwestern and Duke). True, but the percentage is lower then the total student body.
b)At Ohio State, for example, the football graduation rate is much lower then the same stat at ND, however it is right in line with the normal graduation rate(53% and 55% respectively)((Using a six year limit and no one graduates OSU in less then 5 years)) . This percentage when broken into race demographics shows african-american football players are 20% more likely to graduate then the non-athelete african-american student population.
c)Thus, stats can prove anything you damn want as long as you can argue and (shockingly) the schools have different missions. Private school vs land grant, etc. d)Finally, really the school recruits on academics. Really! Yet, ND still gets top 5 recruiting classes.
I am hoping nothing said here keeps from the Burke household in Ann Arbor on November 17th.
Fan Affiliation:
College: The Ohio State University (I made it a goal to see a game, match or meet of every varsity sport at OSU, yes I went to rifle match).
NFL: AFC:Bengals NFC: Bears (If the two were playing Bengals)
NBA: Eastern: Bulls Western:Spurs(I almost went to the USNA, loved Mr. Robinson and now the big fundamental)
MLB: Reds (I'll go to cubs games).
MLS: Fire
EPL: Liverpool (You'll never walk alone).
Rugby: All-blacks and London Harlequins
Cricket: Pakistan(Thanks to the GAME).
Glasgow Rangers above everything if you don't understand(and can't figure out in a couple of google searches, well you don't know me).
