Notre Dame Bowl Troll

There is a very large number of Notre Dame fans that have expressed their opinion about Notre Dame’s bowl future. In fact, most of them want there to be no future. For whatever reason they may have, for them, it would be sacrilege for the Fighting Irish to go bowling in 2014.

The reasons range from COWARD-ASS BITCH all the way to ELITIST DESPITE ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. A few examples are:

• “I don’t want to see another loss.”
• “This is Notre Dame. It should be Playoffs or bust.”
• “They don’t deserve to play another game.”
• “Absolutely arbitrary. A bowl game offers this team nothing more than ridicule.”

Let me just say a few things here…

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!

This all comes back to a perception thing. Remember how a lot of us have accused the media of being biased against the Irish? This is how that bias continues. No program in the country would turn down a bowl game. If Alabama, Oregon, Auburn, Florida State, Auburn, or any other elite or borderline elite program had a similar season- NONE OF THOSE TEAMS WOULD TURN DOWN A BOWL GAME. The backlash would be ridiculous. The most common theme would be, “who in the fuck do you think you are?” You play by the rules and you play the game until the end, and the end is a bowl game.

Some have questioned whether or not the 15 extra practices and the game that follows helps in developing the team for the next season. In fact, a lot of people are calling “bullshit,” and think it is merely a “money grab” despite most mid-level and lower level bowl games actually putting the athletic department in the red due to the extreme costs that come along with a bowl game. Bullshit? Well then, every coach in America must be wrong. Saban, Meyer, Mullen, Patterson, Stoops, Gruden- and anyone else on Joe ND Fan’s list of dream coaches for the Irish must all be completely full of shit, right? Wrong. The more time a coach has to develop a team ESPECIALLY WITH A TEAM AS YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED AND DESPERATELY IN NEED OF SOME TYPE OF CONFIDENCE HEADING TOWARDS THE NEXT SEASON the better.

Notre Dame has turned down bowl bids after disappointing seasons before, with the most recent coming in 2009 after a 6-6 season. It was one of the few cases where I would actually agree with the decision to bypass a bowl game. Notre Dame fired Weis, and most of the reasons a team would go to a bowl game were basically voided out. Notre Dame has not and will not fire Brian Kelly this year. So, unless someone goes straight demon and possess the body of Jack Swarbrick, Brian Kelly will coach Notre Dame and coach them in a bowl game this year.

Seriously- man the hell up (or woman the hell up depending upon your particular sex). You play fuck around and lose more games than what is acceptable by some invisible standard- you meet the standard that the rest of the nation has in place. You play your shitty bowl game and you play to win. Deal with it- or walk away from the internet and sports television for the next month or so.

Your argument is invalid (whichever argument you want to make) because Notre Dame’s place among the elite in college football over the past 20 years has basically been invalid. This isn’t apathy, this is survival. You do the things you don’t really want to do to survive in any bad situation. This isn’t any different.