[NU Sports] Season (was: Hoeppner)

[John Labbe]

>
> I'd echo that - especially with our schedule. I hear
> pundit after pundit on TV yap on and on about how
> "tough" and "challenging" Notre Dame's schedule is
> this year. In reality, ND's schedule is **HALF** a Big
> Ten schedule. If they were like the 11 teams in the
> league, their schedule would STILL include trips to
> Madison, Columbus and Iowa City instead of the three
> service academies and UNC. Gimme a break, aside from
> the Big Ten teams and USC, this is cupcake city for
> the Domers! A mediocre schedule at best.
>
> But I digress:) ... our schedule has so many big-names
> that it's tough to look at it any other way than one
> week at a time or you feel overwhelmed. Beat EMU!

Digress, you do.  Actually, I've often been puzzled about why it is 
that so many of your posts somehow manage to say something negative 
about Notre Dame, even when it doesn't seem to have anything to do with 
the subject at hand.  What does the strength of Notre Dame's schedule 
have to do with our chances for a successful season?  If Notre Dame 
were in the Big Ten, do you think that would help us have a more 
successful season?

The fact that nobody's talking about the strength of our schedule and 
everybody's talking about the strength of Notre Dame's schedule has to 
do with the fact that Notre Dame is a legitimate contender for the 
national championship whereas we are not.  Last Saturday Notre Dame 
soundly defeated one of the best teams in the country; on the same day 
we lost to a division I-AA team.  While I would agree that our schedule 
is tougher, it's not really going to come up in the media unless we 
start to win some big games.

It's also worth noting that most of the commentators who are 
emphasizing the difficulty of ND's schedule are the same ones who are 
predicting that they will NOT win the national championship.  On the 
other hand, the commentators (like Lou Holtz) who think ND might win 
the national championship point out that their schedule is actually not 
that tough (because the hard games are interspersed with a few 
cupcakes).  Having said that, I wouldn't call all of ND's non-Big-Ten 
opponents cupcakes, like Ga. Tech, UCLA, and USC.

In any event, what I've always found puzzling is that as Northwestern 
fans I don't really see why we should be critical of Notre Dame.  Notre 
Dame is able to have one of the most successful football programs in 
the nation while at the same time maintaining relatively very high 
academic standards and graduating nearly all of its players.  Isn't 
that something that we applaud as Northwestern fans?

Whether Notre Dame wins or loses, all I would really like to see is 
Northwestern win the rest of its games this season.  Not very likely, I 
know.  But that would get the media talking about us in a hurry.  
Personally, I'll expect a Northwestern victory each week, regardless of 
who we are playing that week, and regardless of who Notre Dame is 
playing that week, for whatever relevance that may have.

(One final technical point, although Notre Dame won't be playing road 
games in Madison, Columbus, and Iowa City this year, nor will any other 
team in the country, not even in the Big Ten.)

John Labbe