But those last two are references from the Old Testament, which was really just the warm-up act for the New Testament headliner. And after Him came the sequels…whom we know as the Saints. Interestingly enough, the Church kicks off its canonization season also on this Sunday. Canonization is the process by which the Church declares someone a Saint. Many people do not properly understand the canonization process – they’re called Catholics. Even more people have no idea what it is or how it works. So, seizing upon this happy coincidence of our season opener falling on the same day as several canonizations, I will explain the process of declaring a Saint in terms everyone can appreciate: College Football.

Becoming a Saint and Winning Championships

Step 1 This is really critical: you have to be dead. Sounds morbid…literally. But you can’t go to heaven unless you die first – real simple. This is just like the off-season. The previous season, whether good or bad, is laid to rest in January, and is either celebrated or mourned. But we have faith that the new season will come again in September. And it might just be heaven.

Step 2 Wait five years. This is so that the Church can determine whether a person has an enduring reputation for holiness. This is like the media deliberating about the enduring significance or relevance of a given team, and whether or not that team has a chance at winning the Championship. However, recent Popes have waived this five year waiting period, making it rather arbitrary…just like the media’s judgments.

Step 3 Opening of the cause for beatification and canonization; at this point the person is called a Servant of God. Just like being ranked in the preseason polls.

Step 4 The informative process, when stories about the person, writings, important actions, are all gathered and considered. The regular season begins – is the team living up to the preseason praise, the early ranking.

Step 5 Evaluation of this information by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. And they’re just as secretive and opaque as each other. And their decisions are often just as inscrutable. And sometimes swayed by undue influence and politics.

Step 6 Declaration of Heroic Virtue, meaning the person led a remarkably holy life and is now considered Venerable. No one really knows what is taken into consideration and what isn’t. No one really knows what exactly is required to be declared Venerable. Congregation – Venerable; Committee – ranked.

Step 7 Declaration of a miracles. If a person is really in heaven and really tight with God, he can ask The Boss for favors. This is proof that the person is worthy of the title Blessed. On the other side of the equation, if a team beats an opponent ranked significantly higher and does so in spectacular fashion, they move into the Top Ten (and it’s often miraculous).

I pause here to note an anomaly – some would say an inequality – in the process of canonization. The majority of people need two miracles to be canonized. But some only need one. For instance, if a person has been martyred for the faith, only one miracle is required to be declared a Saint. If a person merely led an extraordinarily holy life, two miracles are required for canonization. But not in every case – some holy folks get in with only one miracle…just because. Sure, if you got killed for Jesus, you deserve a break. But sometimes living a long and arduously holy life is a lot harder. It’s not mine to judge. I simply point out that if a team is in the SEC, it only takes…

Step 8 The Congregation votes to recommend that the Pope canonize a person, just as the Committee votes on the four teams to enter the playoffs. The Congregation does not proclaim a person to be a Saint, just as the Committee does not declare the Champion…though they so desperately want to.

Step 9 Pope thinks about it = semifinals.

Step 10 Canonization = Champion.

For four people, Sunday is their championship in Rome. For the Fighting Irish, the process is underway, but swings into high gear in Texas on the same day. Though we’re not fighting for canonization, there is one last similarity: certain Saints are called Athleta Christi Nobilis – Noble Champions of The Lord.

EFS CSC

*These are both in Chapter 5 of Matthew. If Jesus was capable of miracles, he was also capable of metaphors.

**Solomon sacrificed 22,000 cattle. We only need to sacrifice a few Longhorns. God was really pis upset with the Hebrews who worshiped the Golden Calf; we don’t hate the worshipers of Bevo, but that’s not going to stop us ruining their day…and their season.

Padre’s book Father Sorin Says: The Founder Comments on Today’s Notre Dame is available in the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore or from Amazon. Like the Old Testament, it talks a lot about smiting enemies…and occasionally tells you how.

The post Good Fridays w/Padre: Sunday Services appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

I’m told this fellow attended no fewer than three colleges. Though he learned about criminal justice at one of them, he obviously did not major in communication studies at any of them.

I understand that newspapermen can be a tough crowd. Plenty of Notre Dame officials and student-athletes have had to face the glare of the bright lights and the shouted questions of the rabble, defended by nothing more than a podium and their wits. As an educator, I will take this opportunity to show how one should handle the loyal opposition…er…I mean the media. I present to you a hypothetical press conference.

[We enter in medias res.*]

Coach Kelly’s contract was just renewed for another five years. Since he hasn’t won a championship, hasn’t produced a Heisman winner, and lost his most recent bowl game to a far superior coach whom you couldn’t lure to Notre Dame, isn’t it clear that you’ve settled for annual mediocrity and given up on Irish football greatness?

You must have graduated from the University in the 1960s. Brian Kelly is an excellent coach. He has over 200 victories, 55 of them with the Fighting Irish. We competed for the National Championship in 2012, a season in which we were ranked first on the football field and first in graduation success rate. That had never been done before. He is a good family man, a pillar of the community, and a snappy dresser with a dazzling array of tartan sport coats. Though in the past he may have toyed with the idea of coaching a professional football team, he has come to appreciate what Ara Parseghian knew, Dan Devine experienced, and Lou Holtz learned the hard way – it’s far more rewarding to stay at Notre Dame than to go anywhere else. The NFL isn’t for everyone…just ask Nick Saban.

I have a follow-up screed. But Kelly obviously can’t recruit. He had a lackluster class this year, falling far behind the likes of Alabama, Florida State, and even Michigan. By the way, did you see the glory and majesty that was Michigan’s “Signing of the Stars?” You must admit that Jim Harbaugh is indeed touched with the purest magic.

Since there was no interrogative sentence in there, I can’t really answer a question. But I can reflect on your flight of fancy. Coach Kelly recruits what he needs, and develops what he recruits. Isn’t that the goal? Coach Kelly does not oversign, does not revoke scholarships, and does not deceive his players. They will have to work as hard in the classroom as on the field, and graduation is their ultimate goal. After all, this is Notre Dame, not Alabama.

Since I’m fixated and rude, I’ll continue my panegyric to The Harbaugh, blessed be he. How could Notre Dame have fallen so far, that no less than Lou Holtz joined The Harbaugh on stage to serenade the Michigan recruits and fans with a ballad to the greatness of Big Blue? Clearly Notre Dame’s shameless and dastardly cancellation of the series with Michigan caused one of its most devoted acolytes to convert to the one true faith in The Harbaugh, all praise and honor to him.

While you befoul yourself in ecstasy, let me point out once again, that scheduling difficulties on both sides of the Notre Dame-Michigan series necessitated a temporary hiatus. It is out of the ordinary that Notre Dame initiated this pause in the action, since it was Michigan that created the original 33-year rift after Fielding Yost became inconsolable in the face of his first defeat by Notre Dame. But Michigan fans really need to have some self-respect and stop acting like jilted lovers who hate their former paramours so much that they can’t stop thinking and talking about them. Harbaugh should be happy that he has had the opportunity to get his (clay) feet under him without having to fight the Irish. The series will commence again, and Harbaugh will have his shot, since his electronic leash doesn’t allow him to be farther than 50 feet from his Michigan keepers.

As for Lou Holtz, he was returning a favor as any man of integrity is expected to do. Michigan had him for a day, but since Holtz has a reservation in Cedar Grove, we have him for eternity. Besides which, Holtz was talking about his experience coaching against the Wolverines; he had no part in recruiting players for Michigan. He remains loyal to Notre Dame, but he is free to participate in events of his choosing. That said, I will not be joining in Jesuit Vocation Awareness Week.

Since my colleague from Ann Arbor has collapsed in a spittle-flecked trance, I’d like to redirect our focus to Notre Dame’s real rival, USC. Pat Haden is stepping down as athletic director, meaning that the momentary stumble before Notre Dame in football will immediately return to a decade of Trojan victories. Ready?

Allow me to wish Pat Haden well. He is a gentleman and a scholar. For several years he called Notre Dame games from our press box along with that older Hammond lady who, I presume, is his wife. May they both have a happy retirement together. Pat did the best he could at USC, but he was truly like Daniel in the Liars’ Den. I would need medical attention, too, if I tried to do that job. As for a replacement, I understand the Manziel fellow is looking for work these days. I know he doesn’t have a college degree, but let’s face it – USC athletics has never been about education. And Manziel’s lifestyle would fit quite nicely with the USC campus ethos. In the alternative, Urban Meyer could take over as USC’s athletic director, since he’s been at Ohio State for four years, and that’s far too long for him to remain at any dream job. Besides, if Urban left the Big Ten, Harbaugh would sleep better…in whichever recruit’s bunk bed he is camping out.

A junior on the football team has just been elected Student Body President. How can he do both?

If Knute Rockne could teach chemistry; serve as athletic director; run the business office and the ticket office; coach track and football; design football equipment, uniforms, and the Stadium; write newspaper columns and books; broker stock and sell Studebakers, all while raising four children, I think our Robinson lad can make the Dean’s List, make the catches to score the touchdowns, and faithfully execute the office of Student Body President all at once. That’s why we recruit scholar-athletes – they’re just more interesting.

Back to Harbaugh. Michigan will be holding football practice over Spring Break in Florida. Isn’t that a hoot! How brilliant of them! But the University of Florida is saying that’s not fair. What’s their problem, and why is Notre Dame so backward?

After a long and cold first half of the semester studying and keeping themselves fit, our scholar-athletes have earned a week’s respite. The University of Florida is angry because it is school policy that Spring Break is for lewd and lascivious behavior, hospitalizations, and arrests, not football practice. And Harbaugh needs to get a life and let his players have their own – one of them is going to take out a restraining order against him sooner or later.

At a recent basketball game, your students stormed the court after defeating top-ranked North Carolina. But don’t Notre Dame students rush the field and storm the court too much? Isn’t it too dangerous?

It’s a game, it’s excitement – deal with it. If we have rules for when and how to spontaneously express emotion, we’ve really gone way too far (though I wouldn’t put it past the Oberkommando der Student Affairs). Games are for cheering, yelling, and when you come from behind to win, running onto the court to celebrate. If you don’t like that, betake yourself up to that quaint little club overlooking the court where you can enjoy a genteel aperitif and canapés without those obnoxious students and fans. And just wait until we open the Decadence Boxes in the Stadium addition – fainting couches and intravenous booze delivery will make it more silent that a church on Good Friday.

How can a supposedly Catholic school permit an event like the Keenan Revue which annually manages to insult everybody and crosses every boundary of taste and decorum?

It’s vulgar, obscene, and bawdy. It’s just what this place needs. For those offended, I have extra Holy Water to use as eye-wash and ear-rinse. I would make the Holy Oils available, but the dancing lads would just grease themselves up for that smutty kick-line. It’s filth…but it’s our kind of filth.

That’s all the time I have for now. Your questions have been patronizing, condescending, and offensive. I have tried to respond in kind.

And now I’m going to drink a lot of Budweis cheap red wine.

EFS CSC

* This is Latin, students. You would be able to translate it if we still required you to study the great Classical Languages. If you don’t think it’s cool to study Classics, I would remind you that the Englishman who sang at halftime of the Super Bowl graduated with a degree in Latin and Greek…trusa illud in fistulam tuam et id fuma!

Padre’s book Father Sorin Says: The Founder Comments on Today’s Notre Dame, is available from the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore and Amazon. Don’t give it to a Michigan or USC fan…or may be you should…

The post Good Fridays w/Padre: Bad Question appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

* There is no such thing as “Bracketology.”  On the presumption that this is an attempt at creating a very academic-sounding word meaning the “study of brackets,” you can’t shove an English word and a Greek suffix together and sound smart.  Keep the ology part, but start with αγκύλη.  This is the Greek word meaning bracket.  Hence, the proper term would be “Agkulogy.”  Sure, it’s a mouthful…but so is Gonzaga.

* A tournament with 64 places for competitors should have – wait for it – 64 teams.  Perhaps I’m being too literal; but adding four ghosts to begin the competition is rather ridiculous.  First, 64 is more than enough.  Second, where do we stop with the ghosts?  If the principle is something along the lines of  “the more, merrier” or “giving more teams a chance to compete” then we’re on a slippery slope to a 96-entry 64-team tournament.  Hell Heck, at that point, forget the regular season, and just play a year-long tournament.  I’m sure Bracketologists could figure out how to do it.

* In a certain regard, the tournament can be rather surreal.  For instance, our team just defeated a direction and will next play the head of the household staff.  Elsewhere in the tournament are playing: a Great Plains bovine species, the center of ancient Jewish worship, God’s loving watchfulness, and two dead Jesuits.  Ahhh, I hear some say – you are being a hypocrite, Padre, for isn’t playing Notre Dame rather surreal as well?  If you know anything about my University and our teams, you know very well that when you play the Fighting Irish you are also playing against The BVM…literally.

* Finally, I can never fill out these brackets, because I always loyally put the Fighting Irish as Champions.  This is our Faith, this is the Faith of our University.  Thus, may I sternly remind all of you Loyal Sons and Daughters who have filled out one of these brackets: if you have failed to put the Fighting Irish as the Champions, you have sinned against God and His Mother.  And when They fill out Their brackets-of-life, you’ll most assuredly want to be a Champion…or at least in the Sweet 16 if you went to a Jesuit school.

EFS CSC

The post Good Fridays w/Padre: Break-Its appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

And you know what such a letter deserves? A hypothetical, tongue-in-cheek, smart-ass response from Notre Dame. I’m more than happy to oblige.

Dear ACC,

Thanks for reaching out to us. It’s been a little awkward not hearing from you in a while and, after we’ve gone 7-1 in conference play in basketball, we thought we’d never hear from you again.

Oh wait, your letter was about football. Sorry, we’ll try not to let that #8 ranking get to our heads with Duke coming into town.

But let’s talk about that number 8. It seems to be really important to you for some reason. After all you voiced some displeasure to us for having the audacity to win “only” 8 games this season, a mark that only 6 of your 14 non-complicated friends hit. In fact, after the bowl season concluded, had Virginia Tech not pulled out a victory in their bowl game, half of your conference would be sitting below .500.

Ouch.

Anyways, this is about us right? So let’s talk about us. Quite frankly, we agree. We thought those 8-5 seasons would be a thing of the past too to be honest. After all those are soooooo 2010 (have fun looking for our 8-5 seasons before then).

We have no excuse for Northwestern…or the month of November really. However, after starting the season undefeated, as you state, we got rather pissed about how everything ended, changed a couple of things up for the bowl, and beat LSU. That leaves us and Georgia Tech tech as the only ACC super-friends to beat SEC West teams, for the record.

Oh, but that bowl win didn’t help your strength of conference schedule? Normally, we’d feel sorry about that, but you can stick your strength of schedule concerns into a pocket where a certain offensive pass interference flag should’ve stayed. Yeah, we’re not forgetting about that special welcome into ACC territory.

No seriously, we won’t ever forget that. Brian Kelly called that same trips right rub play against Louisville with ACC refs on the field just to prove a point.

And you were worried about poor Florida State making the playoffs because we didn’t win enough football games? Uh, sure, that’s definitely our fault and not the other 12 teams that they played, one of which includes the powerhouse known as the Citadel, by the way. We suppose it’s also our fault that the Seminoles got whatever turnover disease we had as they coughed the football up repeatedly as Oregon embarrassed them in the Rose Bowl. It’s almost like there were come legitimate reasons for concern in regards to Florida State’s playoff worth. Weird.

Oh, and you’re complaining about the bowl selections for the rest of your mediocre conference? We are supposed to feel bad about North Carolina State? The same team who had two wins against FCS teams? The same team that only beat 3 Power Five teams, all of whom were in the ACC and none of whom finished above .500? Yeah, we TOTALLY screwed them over and their 7-5 at the end of the regular season is 100% like ours. Our bad, they completely deserved to be in the same caliber of bowl that we were.

We would address your Pitt complaint in full; however, we are too busy laughing at the “scramble” to find them a bowl game. After their season, you would think one additional mad, stumbling scramble would just make sense, especially considering that they blew their bowl game too…after being up by 25…with 14 minutes to go in the game.

Hang on, we need a second, we just remembered that Pitt beat Miami and we are laughing even harder. The ACC is truly a magical land of failure sometimes.

Now, for the kicker, or what we call here in our offices “the paragraph in which we knew you wrote this at 4 AM while drunk off your ass”. I must say “win more games, but not against our playoff contenders” as an official stance makes a whole lot of sense to us in hindsight (insert pissed-off OPI flag reaction here–NEVER. FORGETTING.), but does that ever sound like wanting to have your cake and eating it too.

Come to think of it, isn’t that what you and everyone else in ACC seems to be claiming we do? Look, we know you love that sweet playoff bonus if the ACC gets if one of your special children makes it into the playoffs. We get it. We like money too. But stating you want us to win more and then requesting that we strategically lose…you’re like a middle school student writing a paper who forgot what their thesis was when they got to the conclusion.

Wait, we’re sorry. That was mean. We know you got your degree from North Carolina.

Anyways, we will do our part, take your advice to win more, and file that letter in the same place that we keep all our fans’ head coaching suggestions. Know that your plea will be nested somewhere in between a request to pay Nick Saban nine figures and a threat to withhold donations until we hire Urban Meyer.

Apologies in advance for racking up more wins at the expense of your conference,

Notre Dame du Lac

The post Dear ESPN…It’s too Early in the Offseason for Clickbait appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

So the Freemasons have won.  Or the Illuminati, Rosicrucians, Elders of the Priory of Sion – let’s just call them the E-lders of the S-ion P-riory freemasoNs.  They and their Rodent Overlord enjoy a complete victory; they have taken over college football and forced the creation of the playoff system that they have long wanted, and will long broadcast, for lots of money.  I mourn the passing of an era.  Gone are the days when the leading teams from regional affiliations of colleges would compete in the top bowl games.  This year they forced us to watch a Midwestern school, a Pacific coastal school, an Atlantic coastal school, and a school from the Deep South.  It was so very different.

One is compelled to ask who are these teams and how did they get here.  We know Florida State slithered into the system like an Everglades python thanks to a little yellow hankie thrown after Everett Golson’s pass was caught.  We know Ohio State made it into the mix because Urban Meyer, wearing his earring and turban, playing his fiddle, and driving his mule and wagon, settled his caravan for a while in Columbus, where he has found his fourth and possibly final Dream Job.  Alabama returned to the fore of competition after Crimson Tide fans sacrificed sufficient numbers of vermin and unfortunate livestock to that lurching cult object known as Saban.  But I always thought Oregon was a trail.

Unlike in the past, when these teams would have to be conference champions, this year a secretive group of selectors, meeting is seclusion, using inscrutable criteria, began deciding the fate of the entire college football system half-way through the season.  I suppose this is marginally better than the BCS which left decisions to a heartless, soulless machine; but I understand Willingham was one of the selectors, so what’s the difference.  In any event, we should all instinctively bristle at the notion of a mysterious and relatively unknown group meeting behind closed doors to make weighty decisions.  Unless it’s the College of Cardinals electing a Pope.  But we all know very well that they can make mistakes, too.

The Elders gave us four teams in a playoff, of which we shall now watch the two victors fight for the Championship.  The Elders’ winged-monkeys at ESPN have been emoting so effusively about this being the “First True National Champion” that one would hope they invested in some extra-absorbent loincloths.  One must also ask if this ludicrous First-True declaration somehow invalidates the last century-or-so of so-called College National Champions.  In the case of Alabama, I heartily hope some of their self-awarded crowns are removed.  But for every other team never graced by this miracle of a playoff system, some allowances should be made.

For Notre Dame, certainly.  Do not misinterpret me: the Fighting Irish had no place in the playoff this year – not after our original team was taken up in a temporary rapture and replaced with Notre Dame High School.  (Thank goodness an astute coaching staff and an additional quarterback were returned to corporeal form in time to defeat Louisiana State in something other than a Spelling Bee.)  Certainly the Irish have suffered grave injustices at the hands of championship awarders in the past.  But who would ever trust sports writers to vote without bearing long-standing grudges against colleges that either beat their alma maters, or never admitted them in the first place.  And who could ever say coaches voting on other teams was anything less than asking the Germans to choose which country to fight and in which order.

Ultimately, every system will be flawed.  Yes, even this playoff system is flawed, though the ESPN chatterboxes adamantly refuse to admit this as they sit in their own lukewarm pools.  How do I know every system will be flawed – because any system depends on humans, who since Eden, live in a fallen state, and who sin.  Also, because there is a small Christian school in Texas that should very well have been included in the playoff, yet was not.  “But they would have taken Ohio State’s place, and Ohio State won,” say they Elders as they sip their fine vintages and eat their delicate canapés in the luxatorium overlooking the field at Jerry Jones’ Temple to Mamon.  “But we’ll never know if Texas Christian also could have beaten Alabama,” say I, as I sit contemplating this mystery in my frozen office under Our Lady’s Golden Dome, wondering simultaneously whether my tongue would become permanently affixed to said Dome if I licked it when the temperature is this far below zero.

So come Monday, I will be cheering for neither Ohio State nor Oregon, and certainly not for the Elders.  I will be saying a prayer for small Christian schools everywhere that they may never again be unjustly excluded from this playoff system with which we are now yoked.  And by small Christian schools, I mean that Jesuit colleges are specifically NOT included.

EFS CSC 

The post Good Fridays w/Padre: Era’s End appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Cordell Broadus, son of Snoop Lion a/k/a Snoop Dogg, and four-star wide receiver recruit, is among several players suspended for a fight that occurred during a game between Diamond Ranch and Diamond Bar High Schools. Broadus, a junior at Diamond Bar, allegedly cheap-shotted an opposing player, fomenting the fracas. The original story, from TMZ. com, can be found here.

Now, if you decided go to Bleacher Report, you find the headline: RAPPER SNOOP DOGG’S 4-STAR SON, NOTRE DAME RECRUIT SUSPENDED FOR FIGHTING (which I won’t link to restrict traffic to the click-bait). Below the headline? A photo of Cordell flashing his UCLA gloves.

Notre Dame is one of several schools to have offered Cordell. Yet, it’s the only one deemed “headline worthy.” UCLA’s appearance in the photo appears accidental, as most of the lettering, and his hands, are cropped out…because that’s exactly what happened:

Cropping photos is fun, isn’t it B/R?
(Via @bangulo & Unedited)

Interestingly, Broadus has offers from Southern Cal, LSU, and Nebraska, too. But they don’t bait clicks so much, do they?

The post Peep this Relevance: USC Recruit Punches Opponent, Notre Dame Implicated appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

1879 – A devastating fire rages through Notre Dame’s Main Building.  Young men from the University of Michigan rush to assist the firefighting efforts, by train, horse, and on foot (for they’ve always been extraordinary athletes).  Arriving in the nick of time, the Michigan men douse the flames, saving countless lives, as well as the surrounding campus buildings.  In profound gratitude for this valiant effort, Notre Dame agrees to form a weak and feeble football team for the express purpose of playing the University of Michigan every year in perpetuity, and losing to them each time.

1887 – After years of shameful delays, Notre Dame finally forms a football team and sacrifices its boys to the extraordinary athletes of the University of Michigan squad.  As a consolation, the University of Michigan writes a check to Notre Dame, to pay for the recent “Maizeing” of the dome on the new Main Building.  The Holy Cross Priests perfidiously accept the money, but proceed to call it the Golden Dome.  Holy Double Cross (the only time Gordon Gee was right, if only he knew it).

1909 – Decades of tolerating the biting, scratching, eye-gouging, and hair-pulling of Notre Dame’s weaklings, proved too much for University of Michigan head coach Fielding Yost, ranked #1 and poised to capture his ninth National Championship.  Yost orders his players to hold back, rather than use their extraordinary athletic prowess to hurt the Notre Dame gals boys.  As a result, Michigan loses its first game to Notre Dame.  Out of fear for what his players and fans might do to Notre Dame’s players and fans in 1910, Yost takes the gentlemanly step of suspending the series in the name of sportsmanship.  He could have sought revenge, but he did not, for he was a true victor valiant.

1924 – Ranked #1 and poised to win his 24^th National Championship, Fielding Yost is foiled by an upstart Norwegian named Knute Rockne who had been rejected for admission to the University of Michigan, but still maintained that he went to the more expensive and less prestigious Notre Dame of his own volition.  Rockne, a shameless self-promoter of the P.T. Barnum stripe, had orchestrated a media campaign of Biblical proportions with a complicit national press intent on selling more papers, and had managed (with press collusion) to steal a Rose Bowl berth from Michigan, where he easily defeated a senile Pop Warner and his remarkably unathletic Stanford Indians.

1927 – Ranked #1 and poised to win his 26^th National Championship, Fielding Yost quits as head coach at Michigan, disgusted by the gutter tactics to which the nefarious Norwegian Rockne was now stooping.  Having decided to honor the waves of Irish immigrants helping to build America into a great industrial nation and a world power, Yost was within days of announcing that the University of Michigan football team would be known forever as the O’Wolverines.  In a shameless act of thievery, Rockne (and his accomplice Fr. Matthew Walsh, Congregation of Double Cross), made a hasty preemptive announcement that Notre Dame would henceforth be known as the significantly less-creative Fighting Irish.  Yost could take no more deceit from the impoverished school the University of Michigan had once saved from oblivion, only to have its extraordinary athletes dishonored so high-handedly.  This final act of betrayal would kill the great man…19 years later.

1931 – University of Michigan head coach Harry Kipke, ranked #1 and poised to win the Wolverines’ 27^th National Championship (Congress and President Coolidge had awarded Fielding Yost the 1927 Championship for his “extraordinary contributions to the sport of football and the development of extraordinary athletes,” as well as in recognition of the bitter pill Notre Dame had forced him to swallow) is prepared to renew the Notre Dame-Michigan game, despite the fact that Michigan in all its glory needs no such charity match.  Kipke initiates talks with Knute Rockne, his protégé and dear friend, during which Kipke learns of Rockne’s precipitous decision to entrust his personal safety to air travel.  In tears, Kipke rips up Rockne’s plane ticket and gives him more than enough cash for train fare.  Rockne’s arrogance would be his demise.

1939 – On the first day of September, as the University of Michigan and Notre Dame are about the play their first game in 30 years, on the hallowed turf of the 12-year-old but already historic Michigan Stadium, President Alexander Grant Ruthven is handed a letter by Notre Dame’s Fr. John O’Hara cancelling the game and repudiating all ties with Michigan both now and forever, Amen.  O’Hara had taken the trouble to enclose the letter in a paper satchel full of dog excrement that he also set alight.  This act of treachery was a ripple on a very unstable pond – drawing encouragement from such double-dealing and arch tactics, Germany promptly invaded Poland, initiating the Second World War.  The University of Michigan has ever tried to make amends for its inadvertent role in this extraordinary disaster.  John O’Hara, CDC, was made a Cardinal.

1942 – In the spirit of peace-making, the University of Michigan agrees to play Notre Dame.  The Fighting Irish fall to the extraordinary Wolverine athletes.  Fielding Yost’s sacrifice has been honored, all has been put to rights, a temporary armistice is declared on the Western Front so the Germans and French can listen to the game together on American Armed Forces Radio.  This is a blow stuck for the cause of righteousness and good.

1943 – Ranked #1 and poised to win the University of Michigan’s umpteenth National Championship, head coach Fritz Crisler feels honor-bound to invite the mountebank Frank Leahy to the Big House for a rematch.  Not knowing that Leahy had already struck a backroom deal with the United States Navy to cream the best talent off the top of the swelling ranks of America’s fighting sailors, Crisler sacrificed his extraordinary athletes to Leahy’s longshoremen in the desperate hope that harmony could be achieved with Notre Dame, an institution that the University of Michigan had fostered from its foundation and loved dearly.  Crisler’s dreams were smashed over a cackling Leahy’s Irish knee.  Notre Dame had done it again.

1964 – University of Michigan President Harlan Hatcher has offered the head coaching position to a little-known and rather unsuccessful Armenian man named Ara Parseghian.  This was a gesture toward multiculturalism (of which the University of Michigan was a leader before its time) as well as a handout to a man in need of a job.  Fr. Ted Hesburgh, CDC, sensed that his parent-institution, the University of Michigan, was onto something.  Hesburgh hurried to waylay Parseghain en route  to Ann Arbor, and threatened the salvation of his Lutheran soul if he went to work for the University of Michigan.  (In Hesburgh’s defense, it was all he could do, since no one has more money than the University of Michigan).  As a result, Parseghian went to work for Notre Dame, and promptly cancelled the 1964 game between his saviors from the University of Michigan and the shameful pirates from Notre Dame.  One must ask, how could Notre Dame do such a thing to a fellow Catholic institution like the University of Michigan.

1978 – In a gesture of extraordinary magnanimity, the University of Michigan extends an olive branch to Notre Dame and offers to play the Fighting Irish again.  Notre Dame, having won just seven (7) National Championships in the modern era by playing such unworthy competition as the University of Southern California, Michigan State University, Purdue University, and the University of Pittsburgh, was in desperate need of a powerful rival — an opponent that had captured all of one (1) National Championship in the modern era.  If only some extraordinary team would come forward and lend its credibility and its assistance, Notre Dame might, just might, retain its relevance in college football.  The University of Michigan answered that call for its beloved Notre Dame and the two team have played twice a year ever since…until…

2012 – It should have come as no surprise that, after putting Notre Dame back on its feet in 1978; helping them to their 1988 Championship; granting them their legendary 1989, 1990, and 1993 seasons; willingly losing Davie once, and Willingham and Weis twice each; the University of Michigan would, once again, be betrayed by Notre Dame.  A bag of flaming dog pooh being insufficient for the highfalutin and utterly Machiavellian Jack Swarbrick, he wrapped the rejection letter around the hilt of a stiletto and tried to slip the blade between David Brandon’s ribs.  For shame, Notre Dame!  The University of Michigan will never play you again…until you’re ready to…which is totally cool…you know, whenever you want…just call.

EFS CSC

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Since today is a day for predictions here at HLS, let’s try to predict what shade of yellow narratives our friends in the press will conjure about us all too soon.

2013 Will be the Season When the Luck Runs Out for the Irish

Has any college football program ever built a less convincing 12-0 regular season?  The two highly improbable overtime victories were just part of comic opera that saw the Irish stumble and fumble their way to 12 wins that could have gone either way up to the very last second.  It is safe to say that Notre Dame’s much-vaunted 12-0 could just as easily have been 0-12.  And that poses a troubling question: Who exactly helped the Irish in the critical moments when they “miraculously” fell into specious victory after specious victory?  While the highly superstitious (and some would say, religiously fanatical) Notre Dame fan base points to a discredited former entity known as god, sources within several conferences are 80% certain that the luck of the Irish really is green – as in greenbacks.  As in there will soon be a push to investigate not just the patently bribed officials from the Stanford and Pittsburgh games, but all the referees, umpires, linesmen, and judges, many of whom are known either to have family in the State of Indiana, or to have actually stayed at hotels in or near South Bend itself.

Irish Need to Shake off Demons before they Shake Down Thunder

After a shaky 12-1 season, plagued by scandal after scandal, Notre Dame needs to place the focus back on the football field if the Irish hope to do better than their usual 6-6 and meaningless bowl appearance.  The perjurious Heisman campaign built on a non-existent dead woman (about whom Notre Dame’s administration has shown scant concern) is as nothing compared to the massive cheating scandal that felled the only player with any talent on their offense, quarterback Everett Golson.  The unseemly haste with which the administration sacrificed Golson makes it clear that the plagiarism, ghost test-takers, and handing out of answer sheets to football players before exams, goes much deeper than just this individual, according to a highly placed source who is 80% certain the entire team is involved.

Internal Strife at Notre Dame Likely to Undermine Irish Season

Notre Dame football may have returned to glory last year, with an undefeated regular season and an appearance in the national championship game; but the notoriously fickle (and some would say, religiously fanatical) Irish alumni have already written Brian Kelly’s obituary.  It’s not just that he conducted a half-year-long affair with the Philadelphia Eagles – a flirtation that began before Notre Dame’s plane even touched down in Dublin.  It’s that Kelly, the scion of a famously corrupt Boston political dynasty, has spent more time recruiting cronies inside the Notre Dame administration than he has recruiting mediocre-to-poor high school players.  What is the purpose of all of Kelly’s Machiavellian machinations within the gilded administration building: He wants a new stadium – one big enough and flashy enough to match his outsized ego.  Knute Rockne’s push to get the intransigent and old fashioned alumni of his day to allow the construction of the very stadium now in danger drove Rock to an early grave.  Now the grandsons and great-grandsons of the Judases of 1930 are sharpening their knives for Kelly who, though successful on the field, has committed the Cardinal Sin at Notre Dame: he has threatened the field itself.

In the Emerald City of Irish Football, Who’s the Phony Wizard?

Shakespeare had some disparaging things to say about lawyers, but at Notre Dame one lawyer is essential to the Irish taking the field.  How is it that star quarterback and Irish darling Tommy Rees managed to avoid an almost certain grand jury indictment for attempted murder of a police officer?  How is it that a century-old contract to play Michigan suddenly developed an escape clause that just happens to benefit Notre Dame to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue for Michigan?  How is it that a football powerhouse can get away with robbing a talented young scholar-athlete, just beginning his college career, of an entire year of eligibility, just because he forgot to dot an “i” and cross a “t” on a meaningless form letter?  Meet Jack Swarbrick, the man who wields the law like a shillelagh.  The amazing Mr. Swarbrick is the “wizard” behind the curtain in each of these underhanded – though technically legal – maneuvers to keep a gasping Notre Dame in the national conversation for yet another year.  But sources close to a bar association are 80% certain that Swarbrick isn’t even a lawyer, since he admitted in the press conference where he whitewashed Notre Dame’s shameless attempt to capitalize on the death of a fictional California woman, that he’s ‘not allowed to practice law anymore’.  An uncharacteristic slip for the cagey Swarbrick.

Notre Dame Gives Underage Players Alcohol  Every Week

In violation of State, Federal, International, and most important, NCAA law, the University of Notre Dame, founded and maintained by a secretive cult of foreign priests, reportedly gives wine to football players under the age of 21 at least once a week.  A source from the Soviet-sounding “Notre Dame Campus Ministry” reports that he’s 100% certain that any football player or student of the Catholic faith can be plied with wine daily, and that this occurs on a massive scale in student dormitories every Sunday night.  The source wanted very much to be named in this article, but the authors prefer to keep his name anonymous so that he can avoid retribution by the Notre Dame alumni who many believe to be religious fanatics.

Irish Drop Michigan in order to Add Perennial Creampuffs Florida State and Virginia Tech

Dangerously Overweight Squirrels Cause Many to Question Notre Dame’s Commitment to Proper Rodent Care

 How Long Will Notre Dame be Allowed to Exploit Downtrodden and Poverty-Stricken Irish Americans with Racist Leprechaun Mascot?

And just you wait – it’s only a matter of time before one of these sports writers discovers the unspeakable scandal that we’ve been covering up and keeping quiet for a very long time now…

Notre Dame Keeps Physically Disabled Bell Ringer Imprisoned in Church Tower

EFS CSC

The post Good Fridays w/Padre: Scandal Us appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

What I am referring to is this need to find moral outrage in the situation. Whether it is blaming ND, the NCAA, the NLI, Eddie Vanderdoes, or anything else, there is a need to point the finger at someone. Disagree with where the finger lands and additional outrage piles on top of the initially manufactured outrage.

There should be no villain in this entire situation. Vanderdoes signed a contract and Notre Dame is holding him to it. Vanderdoes and his family think he should be released and they are appealing, which they have every right to do. This situation should be allowed to play out, allowing the two parties to go their separate ways once it’s all over. However, this doesn’t seem sufficient for the majority of the media and even some fans.

Then it dawned on me: people require a heel, even when one shouldn’t exist. College football seems to thrive on the face/heel dynamic much like the WWE and pro wrestling does.

Forgive me for the pro wrestling analogy (hey, it’s better than using a cat and dead birds a la Doyel), but this is the only way I can wrap my head around the matter and articulate this. Plus, the more and more I think about it, the more and more it makes sense.

Without someone to boo, jeer, and hate, pro wrestling becomes incredibly boring. Back in its earliest days, pro wrestling once actually featured legitimate matches. The problem though was that they were long, tedious, and, after a while, people realized they didn’t care about the two men in the ring. Eventually, people stopped showing up.

Reacting to waning interest, pro wrestling then began to morph into what we know it as today. Promoters created characters to “work” shorter matches. These characters eventually took “sides” as good/evil (face/heel), giving fans a reason to watch, react, and become better invested in the entire show.

College football never really suffered the lack of interest that pro wrestling once did; however, the sport, and its resulting coverage, is now bigger than it has ever been before. 24/7 coverage is now the name of the game. New dedicated networks are now emerging and even earlier than that message boards and fan blogs rose into popularity.

While there is analysis to be done with the actual game on the field, the face/heel dynamic is the fuel that drives the more casual fan into consuming the 24/7 product. And, let’s admit it, it’s damned fun. Rivalries, the lifeblood of college football, feeds on it.

As an example, let’s take a look at the dynamic between Notre Dame and Michigan.

ND recently cancelled the series by handing Michigan a letter right before kickoff. “A true heel turn by the Irish!”, Ann Arbor cried. Brady Hoke cuts a promo and calls us chicken. We respond, cut a promo of our own, and claim this is simply long-awaited justice for all the crap they put ND through.

We bicker back and forth. Other fans with no real affiliation pick sides. The end result: hype machine goes full-force, pushes all the angles and everyone tunes in for our showdown under the lights, live from the Big House.

It practically sounds like the WWE is pushing a PPV when it’s broken down like that.

But the fact remains that drawing on this divide makes the victories sweeter and the defeats more infuriating. It brings people into a game they might not otherwise care in, even if it’s simply to hope for the demise of the team they have now manufactured enough hate against.

And I love every minute of it. I don’t ever want that to change. Detaching emotion from college football would be the worst.

But the Eddie Vanderdoes situation isn’t a college football game. It’s a contract dispute. That isn’t to say the entire situation should be absolved from debate, but there is definitely no need for anyone to assign anyone as the heel.

And there is plenty to debate. From the ND side:

• Eddie wants to be close to home because of a his sick grandmother. Fine, why pick a school that is eight hours away when there are plenty of closer options around?
• Why remain so quiet about it for so long?
• The NLI has been rejecting the appeals, doesn’t this mean they, and not ND, see Eddie’s claim for release isn’t sufficient enough?

From Vanderdoes’ side:

• Had no control over a family member for being sick, why not release him from NLI?
• Family issues are and should remain private.
• The NLI system is entirely broken and punishes athletes far too much. This should change.

Now there are certainly other points on both ends, but I feel like I got the highlights. Notice that each point is a topic that is very much up for debate. Nowhere in any of those points have I slung mud in one direction or the other. No one is a clear heel or a clear face for that matter and that’s how it should remain.

But it hasn’t.

And that’s my entire issue with how this whole situation has been covered at large. From the very start, Joe Davidson of the SacBee, started pushing heat (wrestling lingo for trying get the crowd to hate the heel) onto Notre Dame by telling a tale of broken trust with ND’s Signing Day gaffe. Later, he released an old story about Mike Brey recruiting a kid in a classroom and continued to release non-updates, but made sure to mix in notes about Notre Dame fans being horrible and racist to Eddie on Twitter.

It wasn’t that these stories weren’t true. We know full well we have a group of lunatics in our fanbase (as do all schools), but it was all so unnecessary. Davidson can forever claim it wasn’t his intent to make ND the bad guy, and it could even be true. In the end, the intent matters little — the heat was applied, immediately putting Notre Dame and all its fans on the defensive.

Inevitably, someone would pen the hackjob determined to push ND into full heel territory and Gregg Doyel was more than happy to fulfill the task. Gregg continued to push the angle, responding to any logical Notre Dame defense by calling us a bunch of message board parrots.

That too, is a complete WWE-style maneuver. Logic can be easily spurned and thrown out the window at any moment via scathing insult, joke, or catchphrase just to ensure the narrative remains and the proper heel/face relationship is maintained.

The Rock is particularly famous for this little maneuver:

http://youtu.be/pgBNBGAGJsk

It’s immediately divisive. If you love The Rock or hate the guy he just shut up, you are cheering. Otherwise, you are just hoping the person on the other end of it punches him square in the mouth.

The other layer to the “it doesn’t matter” bit was that The Rock would do this to everyone, no matter how famous or legendary they were. In other terms, if you’re going to be a loudmouth, you might as well go find the biggest dog in the yard to pop off to and make the biggest splash. Once you’ve done so, all of a sudden you find yourself with loads of other little minions/fans ready to back you up because somewhere in the back of their minds they are thinking “YEAH, FINALLY SOMEONE TOLD THEM!”

That’s exactly what the Eddie Vanderdoes coverage has turned into.

Davidson applied the initial heat. Gregg popped off to the supposed “big bad” that is Notre Dame. The rest of the media takes sides, either jumping on the illogical dogpile or trying to actually apply logic, not emotion, to the situation.

Further, if the school in question wasn’t Notre Dame and Eddie Vanderdoes wasn’t an elite, 5-star recruit, it doesn’t even receive nearly the amount of coverage or attention that we’ve seen. Does anyone blink an eye if a similar situation happens at say, North Texas with a 2-star recruit?

Or, better yet, what if only the sport changes? Does anyone even blink an eye if Notre Dame has NLI issues with the top-ranked fencer of 2013?

Of course not. The Rock doesn’t become famous if he only goes full throttle against X-Pac (if you don’t know him, that’s the point), but shies away when Stone Cold Steve Austin is staring him down. Likewise, Doyel doesn’t get nearly the level of pageviews if he spews out his verbal diarrhea in a similar situation with a different school, recruit, or sport that barely moves the needle.

College football is full of passion. The illogical emotion that we can apply to it can seriously be one of the best aspects of following the sport.

But applying that emotion to situations, like Eddie Vanderdoes, where it doesn’t belong? The worst.

Media types decide to both apply that emotion and feed on it in an attempt to further their own careers? The absolute worst.

The post The Eddie Vanderdoes Saga Goes Full WWE appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Loyal readers, I give you Gregg Doyel (only linking so you don’t think I’m making this up) and his well deserved destruction below.

Nothing golden about Kelly playing hard ball with waffling recruit

Nice title — manages to take a shot at Brian Kelly and an eighteen year-old kid that you’ll later defend. Granted, a copy editor may be to blame for this, but the stupid starts so fast it’s amazing.

The system is broken, and not by accident. It’s broken on purpose. The system allows coaches like Brian Kelly to switch schools as they please — and for more money — but players who want to switch schools are at the mercy of those same coaches. Because the system sucks.

Actually, Vanderdoes was at the mercy of the National Letter of Intent, a contract, but who needs minor details like that in a scathing lede?

Funny thing though, Brian Kelly is also subject to a similar contract. Coaches leave for more money not just for a pay raise, but to cover that whole buyout thing that protects the former school financially.

But Notre Dame doesn’t have to follow the system. Notre Dame, leader that it considers itself among institutions of higher learning, could refuse to follow along. It could allow the system to work for an 18-year-old high school senior, but it won’t. Notre Dame is playing hard ball with five-star recruit Eddie Vanderdoes, which means Notre Dame is part of the problem.

Headline if Notre Dame released Eddie from his NLI: “Notre Dame Sets Fire to College Football Recruiting, Screws Everyone”.

You can’t be serious here, Gregg. Notre Dame is a leader because it is one of the few schools that prides itself in following the system better than everyone else.

Oversigning? Nope.

Treating scholarships as only a one year commitment? Nope.

Following the rules that govern recruiting? WHY YES!

So it’s not just the system that sucks. For playing along with the system, Notre Dame sucks too.

YOU SUCK FOR FOLLOWING THE RULES, NOTRE DAME!

Visceral language, right? You offended?

Nope, I’m laughing.

Be offended.

YOU CAN’T TELL ME HOW TO FEEL, GREGG!

Know what offends me?

Writing this piece of crap?

/sees you wrote more

Oh, guess not.

That a school like Notre Dame, and a coach like Brian Kelly, would stick it to an 18-year-old kid like Eddie Vanderdoes.

Again, Notre Dame followed the rules of the NLI program. I suppose by not making an exception we are “sticking it” to Vanderdoes. This is a pretty big statement, hope you can back this up, Gregg.

True, he’s an enormous kid. He’s about 6-foot-3, 300 pounds. He looks like a man, and given that he’s 18 years old, technically I guess he is a man. But he’s 18. Just graduated high school. Still lives with his parents. He’s a kid, is what he is. A kid faced with a bigger decision than most of us faced at such a young age, and a kid who clearly was overwhelmed by it all. He committed to Southern California. He signed with Notre Dame. He wants to attend UCLA. He’s 18, you know?

Point #1 is that Eddie is just a dumb kid? Are you trying to defend Eddie here or insult him?

Gregg, you have just said that both Eddie and his parents (who must sign the NLI as well even though Eddie is 18) are too stupid to enter into a binding contract. You also point out his first decommit, which is pretty much a base insult for any dumb college football fan to hang their hat on.

Deciding a college is scary, but it definitely helps that Eddie knew that, no matter which school he picked, he would get to attend for free. In my case (and you brought everyone into this straw-man for some reason), I told my parents that I wanted to attend Notre Dame, turning down other scholarships and the chance to continue my baseball “career” at other schools (with scholarship assistance).

I signed the dotted line well before I was required to, much like Eddie did. I was nervous about it at times, but before I did, my parents did this crazy parenting thing and had a discussion with me to make sure I was 100% positive about this, even though I was sold in my mind a month or so prior.

I’m not sure how we survived this process, but we managed.

Empathy would help, and while I don’t expect it from many Notre Dame fans,

And here comes another drive-by insult without anything to back it up. Somehow, we are devoid of empathy because reasons.

I like to think the rest of you are capable of putting yourself in the shoes of a high school senior being pursued by famous men at famous college football programs, and the mind-blowing whir that must pass for a normal day when Lane Kiffin is calling you and Brian Kelly is texting you and Jim Mora Jr. is pulling into your driveway.

We are also capable of putting ourselves in the shoes of hundreds of other athletic departments. You know, those people that would be pretty furious at us for setting the worst recruiting precedent ever by declaring a NLI worthless.

That’s a problem we’d all like to have had in high school — but wouldn’t you also like to be given a break if you picked one school, a school 2,000 miles away, a school in a different climate, and then changed your mind? Wouldn’t you like to be excused if you were Eddie Vanderdoes from Auburn, Calif., and you decided after signing with Notre Dame that you’d rather play for UCLA?

Yeah, I’d like to.

I’d also like to have hacks like you fired for writing crap like this instead of being praised for the amount of pageviews you brought in.

Unfortunately, I can’t get everything that I want in life. There are rules, sometimes they are dumb and make no sense, but life sucks. Get a helmet.

If that were me, I’d like that break. If it were my son, I’d like that break. And you know what? If it’s Eddie Vanderdoes, who I wouldn’t know if he knocked on my door, I’d like that break.

See above.

You are still employed by CBS, right? CONGRATS BIG BREAK TO YOU, SIR!

Because it’s the right thing to do.

Gregg Doyel logic: Breaking rules = good, Following rules = stupid, immoral.

But this is the NCAA we’re talking about, and it’s college football we’re talking about, and it’s Brian Kelly and Notre Dame we’re talking about, and the right thing doesn’t always get done in those circles.

Let’s just bypass the fact that Doyel thinks Notre Dame is in the business of being shady and marvel at the fact that he equated ND, the NCAA, and all of college football into one gigantic pot of similarity because that makes sense.

Kelly’s a self-serving phony, is one way of saying it. He flirted with the Philadelphia Eagles after the BCS title game, which was his right. A person should have the freedom to pursue his options, and Brian Kelly exercised that freedom. He pursued the NFL. Then backed off.

But Eddie Vanderdoes cannot flirt with UCLA. Cannot pursue that option. Cannot decide to go to school there — not if he expects to play football this season, or for the four years entitled to college athletes.

Brian Kelly’s contract requires a buyout should flirtation turn into another job. I suppose we could fine amateur student athletes instead, but I guess the NCAA and NLI folks decided that using another valuable commodity common among all student athletes, years of eligibility, was a better way to go.

And this is where Brian Kelly is a complete phony.

You already said that.

How can I say that? You wouldn’t believe how easy it is for me to say that.

SPIT IT OUT ALREADY.

See, on National Signing Day in 2012, Kelly had this to say about receiver Deontay Greenberry, who was committed to Notre Dame but signed instead with Houston:

“I used to have a saying [about situations like this one],” Kelly said on Feb. 1, 2012. “I’d rather play against him four times than have to have him with us four years if he’s not the right kind of fit.”

Not a bad saying (though after the comments appeared, Notre Dame’s P.R. department implausibly claimed Kelly wasn’t talking specifically about Greenberry). Hell, I like that saying — and Kelly’s right. If a player doesn’t want to be on your campus, better to deal with him four times a year as an opponent than have to deal with him every day for four years.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.

Only, Kelly didn’t do that with Vanderdoes. He’s not going to have to “play against him four times” — because he didn’t release Vanderdoes from his National Letter-of-Intent. Vanderdoes can still go to UCLA this fall, but he can’t play. Worse than that, much worse, this year will count as a year of eligibility, meaning he will have four years to play three seasons at UCLA starting in 2014.

Brian Kelly is screwing Eddie Vanderdoes, an 18-year-old who wanted to stay in his home state. Why? Because he can. Because the system sucks.

Gregg, if you published this for say, Bleacher Report (where it belongs), I have a feeling CBS would be pretty pissed at you. They’d probably point at a lot of clauses in your contract and some consequences would come your way. If CBS didn’t, they’d be opening Pandora’s Box and other contracted writers now have precedent to the same.

It would be the same with recruiting. The NLI becomes nothing more than a verbal commitment which already means little these days.

Now I’m sure someone is saying “But Tex, that isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison”. Well…

When Kelly was at Cincinnati — I live in Cincinnati, not that it matters; Mark Dantonio of Michigan State left Cincinnati in 2006, and he’s my favorite football coach — he left for Notre Dame. And he didn’t leave at a good time, either.

He didn’t leave, for example, in June.

Kelly left Cincinnati in December 2009. After Cincinnati had gone 12-0 in the regular season, but before the Bearcats played Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Cincinnati had a shot at perfection, at magic, but Kelly was gone. Why? Because he could. Because the system let him. Because Notre Dame was a better job and who cares if Cincinnati was in the middle of its season?

Brian Kelly didn’t care.

Gregg did it too.

Again, when Kelly did that, there were consequences for it in the form of a contract buyout and you bet your ass Cincinnati is going to make sure they get every penny of that money for the early contract termination.

Further, do you think Cincinnati is going to say in December (or June for that matter), “Well coach, thanks for the time here. Have fun at ND, no hard feelings because we know it’s where you really want to be. We’ll just pretend the contract never happened.”?

Of course not, that would be beyond stupid yet it is precisely what you are asking for here.

Now Eddie Vanderdoes would like to play this season at UCLA. He told Notre Dame in June. That gives Kelly time to find another defensive lineman, if he feels he needs one for the 2013 season. Will that lineman be as good as Vanderdoes? Of course not. Vanderdoes is considered the best recruit at his position in the country.

And now we get to my favorite part of this inane load of bullshit.

Forget the fact that Kelly won’t find a lineman as good as Eddie, he isn’t going to find any recruit at this point. The scholarship now left void by Vanderdoes will likely go to a deserving senior walk-on that is already on the roster.

Why not another recruit beyond a walk-on level? Because, and what a surprise, they are all signed and accounted for at this point. Why not give it to a younger walk-on? Because we need those scholarships for the class of 2014 since they are few in number and ND doesn’t oversign.

The only way Kelly could conceivably get another recruit at this point would be for another recruit to ask for a release from their NLI. Had Notre Dame done the “right thing” as you prescribe, Gregg, do you seriously think any other school would be so gracious after we just screwed them (and everyone else)?

In short, this post of moral outrage is brought to you not just by a man that fails to understand contracts, but recruiting in general.

Not the point.

What? Just your previous load of crap or this entire thing?

Point is, Kelly thought it was fine to leave Cincinnati between games, but he doesn’t think it’s fine for Eddie Vanderdoes to leave Notre Dame before he even reports to Notre Dame. So Vanderdoes can’t play in 2013 for UCLA. And he loses the year of eligibility.

I really hate repeating myself, but since you can’t seem to stop doing so, let me slow it down for you: Brian Kelly broke contract, paid buyout. Eddie Vanderdoes broke contract, paid with year of eligibility.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!

Kelly wins, but only because of a broken system that rewards craven men like himself, and punishes confused kids like Eddie Vanderdoes.

This is the grand conclusion? Seriously?! Basically the tl;dr of this whole thing is: System sucks, ND sucks, and I offer no rational reason as to why or how to recitfy the glaring issues I see and will just sling mud for about 1,000 words?

I just…well, I think this sums it up:

The post Nothing Golden About Gregg Doyel’s Hackjob appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.