Top Five
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).
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).
posted by pbgipper at 8/10/2007 08:31:00 PM
5 Comments:
Pakistan sucks.
you're kind of all over the map with your criticism, but let me address 2 specific points.
first, while i'm not among the converted who are ready to chisel weis's bust in the college football hall of fame, he's been much better than willingham, particularly in light of context.
after two seasons, weis is 19-6 and willingham was 15-10. weis may have underachieved relative to expectations in his second season, but willingham had a freaking losing record - 7 losses. that's faustian. the difference is more stark when you look at point differential - after two seasons, willingham's teams were +2, weis is +242. worse still was willingham's propensity to get blown out. after two seasons he had lost 5 games by more than 21 points, while weis has lost 2 games by that margin. thats not even a close comparison, weis has been good, willingham was abysmal.
weis's teams have underachieved in big games, no question. but, they've at least been competitive. moreover, they've handily taken care of the patsies while willingham was losing to the likes of boston college, syracuse, michigan state and purdue weis's losses at least have come at the hands of elite teams - usc, ohio state, michigan and lsu.
willingham added insult to injury by recruiting miserably as well. when weis was initially successful, the idea was that willingham had left him a great deal of talent. that was patently false - there was one good class (the one that just graduated) and two years of utter mediocrity. the current senior class is willingham's greatest misdeed. of the 15 recruited, 8 remain. 2 are useful starters. 5 have seen the field some, but have been bit players at best. one is a freaking punter. none of them are offensive lineman. weis, on the other hand, has recruited his tail off and so far has cashed in solid classes and looks to continue to do so. by next year, we'll be fielding teams that don't have to overcome a substantial talent gap when playing top 5 teams. willingham was a shitty recruiter who was the beneficiary of the fact that davie's one skill was as a recruiter.
weis may not prove to be great, but willingham was miserable - after two years there is no comparison. after his third season his career record was 21-15 and he had come off of two seasons with a combined record 12-12. if weis ever loses 12 games over two consecutive seasons, i fully expect he'll get canned.
second, your argument about academics comes off as somewhat hollow. notre dame clearly lowers its standards to get football players in the door. but, it can't get anybody in the door. in any given year, the recruiting gurus estimate that of the top 100 kids in the country there are at least 30-40 who wouldn't clear academics at notre dame. this isn't a crippling disadvantage as witnessed by weis's solid classes thus far - but its a disadvantage nonetheless.
similarly, football players take on the whole easier class loads and graduate at a rate lower than the student body. however, compared to its football peers, notre dame can uniquely tell a high school kid that he is likely to take real classes, have a real major and get a degree regardless of race. simply, if you want to graduate with a real degree while you play football, its vastly more likely to happen at notre dame than it is at the places we recruit against. this is a meaningful difference and its factually beyond dispute.
I agree I am a bit over the place. Hope this doesn't sour the possibility of a stay at our favorite Ann Arbor B&B.
I always enjoyed how 'patsy' Boston College would go INTO South Bend and wreck the Irish's season, 1993 and 200 especially. And yes BC has won the last four meetings, and yes, the last three were on Willingham's watch.
i shouldn't have called bc a patsy. the point i was trying to make was that weis has beaten the teams he should beat and only loss to elite level teams. willingham lost a lot of games to teams with less talent than he had. thus far, every game weis has lost has been to a team with no worse than comparable talent. realistically, all the teams he has lost to with one exception have had significantly superior talent.
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