Follow TSS on Twitter @TheStudentSect
People are angry about rules again. It’s shocking, I know. This year’s college football political coup de foudre is Notre Dame and their ability to play for a college football playoff title while existing in their own little Independent world, doing things (mostly) how they prefer to do them.
The snarkiness smacks of the guy who gets up every morning at 7 a.m. to go to work and comes home at 5 p.m. worn out, while his neighbor is just getting back from the golf course with a beer in hand having made a king’s ransom trading stocks in his sandals until noon before going out to the links.
There are two reasons why complaining about Notre Dame has become as fashionable as those hideous skinny jeans (which should be outlawed for men … punishable by 5 to 10 years in lockup).
1. It’s self-righteous politicking: it’s genuinely difficult to look at ND’s schedule and suggest that it’s not whole like everyone else’s in Power 5 conferences simply because they don’t belong to a conference. Notre Dame will play 9 Power 5 teams and then Navy (who is really good) and then UMass and Temple. That’s easily a more difficult schedule than most P5 teams will play, yet with a straight face, coaches are going all middle school puberty and suggesting their teams have the upper hand simply because ND doesn’t wear the same style of shoes as they, so to speak.
2. The enemy of my enemy is my friend: strength in numbers goes farther back than the dinosaurs for crying out loud, so if you get a bunch of people together and they shout loud enough about the same thing, in today’s society it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. If ND stands to possibly squeeze one of their conferences out, the smart play is to gang up.
Where was all of this last year? ND played by the same rules, but because there wasn’t a conceivable threat to them making the playoff, no one really cared. This year, they look talented enough for a run, so the kvetching comes forth.
It’s a crap-tastic double edged sword that can barely cut a sandwich, though. ND doesn’t get the luxury of playing in the assumed all-important conference title game, so they’re in the same disadvantageous position as the Big 12, unable to really have that guaranteed last weekend platform to tilt voting minds.
On top of that, if being Independent is so great, why doesn’t everyone go out and do it if that’s the Get out of Jail free card? Truth is, because they can’t. There are a few programs who probably could go independent and still keep their heads above water, but 95 percent of them cannot generate the revenue Notre Dame does by hoeing their own row.
Anyone that plays a suitably tough schedule and navigates it with a certain success level should be eligible for the playoff, be they Missouri, Notre Dame, or Ball State. And Missouri is mentioned because Gary Pinkel was one of the coaches who called out Notre Dame recently regarding how Independents shouldn’t be in the playoff.
The CFB Playoff committee has already shown the gravitas to move teams around based on their schedule, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Unless you’re Baylor, I suppose.
But someone forgot to tell Gary that ND actually plays more P5 teams this season than Mizzou … 9 versus 8. But let’s not waste our words and time with minor details …
The truth is, anyone on the anti-ND wagon mostly wants the committee to give them one less hurdle to go over, because there’s no way anyone is forcing ND into a conference. That would be legal hell, as well as just fundamentally and morally wrong. If the system ever changes to the point where it is too arduous for the Irish to be Independent and challenge for a championship, I’m sure the discussion will be had.
But ND has played well over 100 years of football and in every conceivable era, championship system, and set of rules and has managed just fine. They’ll be okay.
As for everyone else, a good general rule of thumb is to mend your own fences and not worry about everyone else’s. I’ll do me, and you do you.
Regarding Notre Dame, everyone should mind their own biscuits and life should be gravy.
