As we mentioned yesterday, we just passed our 5-year anniversary since the creation of 18 Stripes and I’ve been covering Irish football in one degree or another for about 14 years now. When I started on this journey I was 25 and next January I’ll be 40 with 3 kids aged 4.5, 2.5, and 3 months old. Time flies and my life couldn’t be more different today than in 2007.
Obviously, my passion for Notre Dame football has changed a lot through the years and I’m curious how everyone else has dealt with changes throughout their life, too. As we celebrate our 18 Stripes 5-year anniversary I thought it was a perfect time to talk about how and why we all participate in this internet world and where Notre Dame football fits into everything within your life and happiness.
Scale of 1 to 10
Question: How much Notre Dame content do you consume? Let’s say 1 is someone who basically checks out for most of the off-season, isn’t reading much on social media or message boards, and maybe not even watching most games. Let’s say 10 is absolutely all in, reading everything, keyed in on recruiting, and making comments all over the place on a daily basis. Probably multiple subscriptions to Notre Dame websites. Rate yourself.
I think I’m somewhere in between a 6 and 7 these days. Our Slack chat for our writers and friends helps so, so much to stay on top of things, though. Without it, I’d be far less informed and it would take so much longer to catch up on news. It’s a tremendous help for crowdsourcing information.
One big thing for me was that I cut out a lot of recruiting time in my life. It was a combination of added responsibility becoming a father and Irish recruiting settling into a bit of a boring funk in that 2016-21 which Marcus Freeman has injected some life into lately. I’m involved with our team in the background but mostly looking at things from afar.
With kids now, my off-season has to be more chill. It’s forced me to cut out a lot of the peripheral news and especially message board drama in the Notre Dame world. During the season, I’m locked in and find a groove. I enjoy the football obviously but the schedule and weekly grind is something that is so familiar to me now. It’s like second nature for me.
Midlife Crisis
Question: How many of you have gone through a midlife crisis and tried to balance that with your Irish fandom? I’m talking less about emotional crisis (which of course is important too!) and more about Life™ getting in the way whether it’s through work, children, relationships, travel, and just generally being more busy as you approach midlife. And if so, did you end up bouncing back into a former level of fandom or plan to at some point? How did the program’s success on the field (or lack thereof) play a part in this tug of war relationship with sports?
This fascinates me today because Notre Dame is in the strongest place its been in 25 years but they’re still stuck below the true elite programs. For me, I think this engenders some apathy, especially if you’re not under 30 anymore. The urgency isn’t quite there and I think with more age and experience those “what though the odds be” feelings turn more into cynicism and acceptance of the current landscape. There’s also less drama with not sucking as much. The program has a nice streak going against unranked opponents and there’s something to be said about the cruise control nature of winning all those games.
I’m also sometimes lacking personal time, which can be difficult running a website! I definitely feel like once I become an empty nester the passion will crank up a couple notches, but how can you ever really know? I’d have a hard time completely walking away but I also couldn’t guarantee if in 20 years Notre Dame is in year 9 of being absolutely terrible that I’d actually get more passionate simply because I had more time on my hands.
Also, I’ve always pinpointed why Rock’s House on ND Nation suffered from such anger and rejection of Notre Dame. Many of the worst offenders just happened to graduate in the late 1980’s. By the time the Irish are really struggling on the field post-Holtz the anonymity of the internet is taking off and message boards are elevating excessive levels of abuse just as this generation of Notre Dame grads and fans are hitting their own midlife crisis. The perfect storm.
My fellow Generation Y people seem different as we hit middle-age and I’m sure the Generation Z will be even more different still. I don’t think it’s solely about upholding standards (Baby Boomers and Generation X people would likely disagree) on the field as it is being more comfortable with change, supportive of technology, more inclusive, and not as rooted in ideals that can be largely superficial. The game, especially tactically, didn’t change very much in the 1950’s through 1990’s and since then a couple generations have grown up with much different sensibilities about college football.
I also think the internet fooled Boomers and Gen X into thinking their voice was more powerful and important than in reality. I can’t see my kids some day putting together a MS Paint poster for the school newspaper because they don’t like the football coach. My guess is the younger generations are going to look at Notre Dame football on the whole very, very differently as they age.
Watching Games
Question: Do you watch every second of every game live? Or, do you skip some games and maybe watch them later if you have time? Are you super serious during the games and watch them like a hermit, or do you enjoy the company of other people? Is participating in our Slack chats and strolling through Twitter part of your game routine, or do you prefer a more focused approach without social media?
I was so busy as a child running around playing sports that I couldn’t even fathom carving out 3 hours to watch games. My childhood was filled with so much angst missing ND football games. This lifestyle extended through prep school where TV’s were limited and a combination of soccer/hockey/lacrosse meant games every Saturday afternoon or evening while missing every Irish game seemingly.
Since college, I’ve been extremely dedicated to watching games. I finally got the time to jump fully into my passion and here we are today! Since the 2002 season I’ve missed the following full games:
2007 UCLA – Not my choice, this game infamously was not on TV anywhere back in the dark ages of cable.
2013 Rutgers – I gave my soon-to-be wife a Christmas present to a Duke basketball game (don’t judge me she’s a hardcore Blue Devils fan) and missed this barn burner of a bowl game. I waited until dinner that night to check the score and it was a big step for me not to be too bothered to wait that long to find out the result.
2019 Bowling Green – I was standing in my brother’s wedding on this day and the game was over before halftime. In terms of missing games, this was as easy as it gets.
I also missed the last 35 game minutes of the 2019 Michigan game with a finicky sleeping child which in retrospect saved me my mental health.
I vividly remember when we first held our open threads for games to begin 2011 and trying to juggle that with Twitter updates. It’s tough to do all season long but I’m used to it now even if it’s not my preferred way of watching games. It forces me to be alone as much as possible during games.
I’m at peace knowing with kids that missing games is coming, and in bulk quantities. That was not how I felt before having kids but we mature as parents.
Ebb & Flow of Beliefs
Question: I’m always interested in how fan beliefs and desires wax and wane as the years pass. More specifically, the issues surrounding Notre Dame football that stick with you forever and those that eventually fall away in importance. What still matters to you and what has changed for you as time has progressed?
Notre Dame is weird and probably stands alone in college football in the number of traditions you’re supposed to adopt whenever you become a fan or enroll on campus. For most of us, this was passed down from a relative or you learned very quickly on your own, “okay here are the 500 traditions for Notre Dame and they are non-negotiable.”
Turns out, they are pretty negotiable!
Wasn’t there a quote from Jack Swarbrick several years back that was paraphrased to say something like, “Notre Dame has so many traditions that it can be difficult to start new traditions?” He caught some criticism for that comment, but I don’t know, it might be the most precise quote that encapsulates Notre Dame football in the history of the sport.
I used to care about the atmosphere and entertainment package inside Notre Dame Stadium a lot. I cared before I even saw a game in person. Just over 9 years ago I wrote THIS article as my magnum opus on the topic. Today, I really don’t care all that much! When that article published it was seen as heresy and we received the most childish email about it explaining we were banned from having links publicized on Rock’s House at NDNation.com.
You could argue I don’t care as much anymore because things have changed in my favor inside the stadium, and you’re right. However, I think it’s important to point out a couple things:
1) What topic surrounding Notre Dame could I get so upset about 20 years from now that I could conceivably rage against someone in their 20’s? As I mentioned above, I’m not sure anyone around my age or younger will view Irish football this way.
2) Notre Dame does have so many traditions that you can’t get too upset about certain ones fading away, even if you think they’re crucial to your fandom.
I like to think I’m pretty progressive and open-minded really abhorring becoming an angry old man yelling at kids for changing precious traditions. Well, maybe uniforms are an exception! Otherwise, if it’s still a Catholic school putting in a good effort at educating kids, treating players right, and trying to win a National Championship I don’t think there’s enough room in my soul to get too upset about other changes.
I’m in a pretty similar situation to you. Just turned 36, have 3 kids almost 6, almost 4 and 18 months. A decade ago I would have never guessed I just wouldn’t watch cardinal baseball. But I no longer get mlb.tv and might watch 3 games a year. ND football hasn’t quite gotten that treatment but I left 247 just to get out of the daily grind. Football games I still do my best to watch but it’s much more multi tasking than previously. Literally right after book fumbled in the Clemson game i had to collect myself and go put the 3 year old to bed. Luckily I do have the oldest getting really into sports right now.
Still have a subscription to the athletic and obviously here. Try and listen to some podcasts. But the day to day of it all fades a bit. Given what has happened with me and cardinal baseball there could be a scenario with football as well but luckily the fandom is just much less labor intensive. 12 Saturday’s vs 162 games…
I reeaaaaaaaaaaaally had to force myself to keep watching after Book fumbled. Glad I did, but I know exactly what you mean.
Since the title game against Bama I’ve started just turning off the blowouts (which are fortunately few in number these days). Just no reason to watch that; I saw ND get blown off the field many many times in the 90s and 2000s.
Once a got the 3 year old down I did get back out but I missed a good chunk of game time thereafter. And yes 100% on blowouts. Didn’t watch second half of bama or Clemson. I live in Phoenix so hard to justify watching blowouts when I could take the kids to the park
I was putting my then-3 year old down during the 2019 Michigan loss. Spent the entire second half pissed about the 1st half, wondering if I was missing an epic comeback, but mostly breathing things out knowing it wasn’t going to be a fun game to go re-watch. So I played it cool.
ND content: maybe 6-7 in the offseason and 5 during the season. During the season I stick to watching the games and just reading an article or two about the game if I can. I have less time during the season so during the summer I read more. Almost entirely on 18s. Though I’ve also added in Jamie U’s Thursday thoughts now.
I think I started reading ND content less than 10 years ago primarily with OFD and then moved to here. Before that, growing up I got a blue and gold illustrated subscription (you know the newspaper they sent). But in between I don’t think I read a whole lot about ND football – it probably wasn’t worth it anyway! (roughly between 2000-2011)
I used to keep spreadsheets on our recruits and current talent-level but just don’t have time keeping up with that anymore. Thankfully 247 have some easily available data to look at and others write articles comparing overall talent now.
Crisis: the last two years I’ve had new jobs (so more time than usual) and so, at 37, with the kids it’s been tough to have time to watch the games. Though my kids are more interested to watch now (2 or 3 of them anyway) – but they rarely watch a whole game (they just go play at some point). I suppose since the team was so good there were more games I tried to watch while getting some kind of work done (usually the games that were against lesser opponents). That didn’t go well and both suffered as a result. I’m hoping to have a little more time to enjoy the games this year especially since I expect us to be pretty good again.
Games: I’m definitely one of those guys who likes to watch every second. Though lately I’ve had to give some of that up. O, we up a bunch and the backups are in? I need to get to work then. I only find it enjoyable to watch with others if they are actually watching the game. It’s not social hour! But even this I’m softened as I have gotten older/have a bigger family.
Beliefs: I don’t know that I’ve had any strict beliefs other than appreciating that ND football also included a real education. I’m just trying to enjoy a high-point of ND football since this is a rare commodity in my experience.
I appreciate your attempt at labeling yourself as “Gen Y” rather than “Millennial”. Don’t agree with it, but I appreciate it.
Ha, as someone similar in age to Eric, I agree with his assessment. I mean, I never had an iPhone in school, most kids even when we were in college either didn’t have a cell phone or it wasn’t glued to their hands if they had one…So I don’t really think people who are like 35-40ish are real millennials even though that’s where we are categorized as the older end of that generation.
I fall squarely into the 35-40 category and didn’t have a cell phone until my sophomore year of college. But, we all have similar touchstones of being in school during 9/11, getting hosed in one way or another during the Great Recession and recognizing the sound of a 28.8k modem. {I can’t articulate the next sentence as well as I want to, but it is fully formed in my head} I think as a whole, comparing the millennial childhood to our parent’s childhood has had the most differences than most other parent/child splits since the industrial revolution.
I hear that modem sound too, ha. I think everyone will get that one.
On your last sentence, I don’t know, I guess I just disagree. I’m 37 and imagine I have a LOT more in common and shared developmental experiences with a 47 year old than I would a 27 year old. The older millennial IMO doesn’t really fit with the younger end of the generation. But, IDK, maybe that holds across the board as a rule for all.
Yup, there should be another generation in there, somewhere. I know they break up Gen Y into two sides.
I’m a 1982 and grew up playing outside, rode our bikes everywhere, Atari was the only game platform, trading baseball cards, etc. The look and feel of everything was still very 1970’s around where I lived: large cars, brown and green interior design, giant tube TV’s, etc. Not too different than what my parents experienced.
I grew up with a computer since 1988-ish but the internet wasn’t in my life until 13-ish and my first cell phone was a tiny Motorola as a senior in college. Way more in common with my parents, I feel.
The term y’all are looking for is “Xennials”. It’s part of the millennial generation but missed a lot of what makes a millennial. Thus, the naming of a micro generation that neither side wants to claim as their own.
Scale: Probably an 8…Fairly recent subscriber to 247 (first time I’ve ever paid for content really, besides The Athletic, which is worth it for the total breadth of many different sports). Will see a lot of social media stuff, more than I care to really, it feels like more of a disease to keep caught up with info. My DVR is also set to record anything “Notre Dame football” which includes picking up like a 30 minute recap show during the season on a random NBC Sports Washington daytime, that pretty much is just propaganda from Jack Nolan and Brian Kelly…But I like it!
Watching games: I go out of my way to watch all games live, but will find compromise. For instance, I didn’t schedule a deep sea fishing trip that some buddies and I have been dreaming about and the only weekend available is 9/25 (aka the Wisconsin game). I’m still going on the trip. DVR helps. Probably 1 game a year there will be some scheduling conflict like that for me, but I’ll go back and watch it when possible.
Beliefs: Some things ebb and flow, but I’m still pretty much the same I think for ND football. This isn’t the same for all sports and teams, I’ve noticed for like the Steelers that in the past 5-10 years my interest in them (and the NFL) has fallen off big time. Probably because I got spoiled in the days of Bettis, Hines, Troy, Heath Miller, Faneca, Keisel, etc that were all good players and interesting people…Now the players as a whole are a lot less likeable, which I’m not sure if that’s them changing or me growing older (or both!). In general I find that interesting about what attachments remain strong and important and what kind of fades away as time becomes more limited and things change. I still feel more engaged about ND Football the same
Will see a lot of social media stuff, more than I care to really, it feels like more of a disease to keep caught up with info.
I’m in the same boat. The last couple years I’ve given up Twitter for lent and it’s been really great then I try to make it last. 2020 I lasted until nba playoffs. This year I lasted until about Easter Sunday
Logged in for the first time in years to respond.
I’m probably a 5-6 on the scale. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m ok with zero subscriptions (other than here, of course) as kind of a natural way of keeping me from spending too much time with my sports fandom. The 3 sites I visit daily are 247, 18S, and Irish Envy (for recruiting news). I’ve been a faithful reader here since 2011, except for the few weeks it took me to find everyone when the site moved. Had a mini heart attack when that happened.
I’m 28, and just got married a couple months ago, but I’ve definitely felt the change in priorities over the last 10 years that just naturally happens with maturity. On some level, I suppose it could change even more, but my amazing wife is also a massive CFB fan (uGa), and we both make it a top priority on fall Saturdays. Obviously, kids could change that dynamic down the road.
I do occasionally miss games live when weddings or other important events come up. I always go back and watch the recording, though.
Mostly, I just wanted to comment to share my appreciation for this community. I rely pretty heavily on 18S for post-game analysis and macro views of different topics. I’ve always considered this to be the most level-headed of the many ND sites out there. I used to comment occasionally back in the OFD days (I think my handle was IrishColts17?), but as I’ve matured a bit, I’ve been more ok with just reading other people’s opinions and, like Eric, feel less of a need to yell at people that are wrong on the internet.
Also, that article you linked really brought back a lot of memories. I had forgotten what it was like to read an article of Murtaughian length lol.
Great memories!
Scale: Probably a 5 or 6. I don’t follow recruiting at all. Frankly, there just isn’t much offseason news about ND to follow, which is a good thing. I do not miss the annual offseason drama of 5-10 years ago.
Midlife Crisis: I’m 34 and my emotional investment has ratcheted way down from where it was 10-15 years ago. Partly because college football as a whole is pretty boring right now, and partly because I feel less connected to ND than I did back then. I hope the team does well and I’ll watch most of the games, but that’s about it.
Watching Games: I skipped 4 straight games in November 2019 (Duke, Navy, BC, Stanford) due to real life stuff and lack of interest. This would have been unthinkable to me 10 years ago, but I think it’ll be the norm going forward. I’ve seen a bazillion games against Navy and not one of them has been fun; I don’t need to go back for more of that.
Beliefs: As noted above, I’m pretty dispassionate and straightforward at this point. Win football games, don’t cheat. That’s about it. The only other thing I consider to be non-negotiable is independence. I think we should be looking for the exit sign from the ACC and figuring out a return to true independence — and under no circumstances should ND ever even consider joining the B1G.
Since I’m one of the writing team here, it stands to reason that I’m pretty darn high up on the scale. I don’t make comments left and right, but the combination of Twitter and our Slack means I see just about everything within moments.
In terms of missing games, I have missed watching several games live over the past few years because of my day job, but if we win I always go back and rewatch the whole game. If we are getting our butts handed to us I usually turn it off and step away, and if I miss part of the game and we lose I don’t sweat about watching it back. Outside of a couple of 2007 games, there are very few games I’ve seen almost none of going back a long way.
I think the only thing that could ever happen with ND football – ruling out wildly unrealistic scenarios like changing the team colors to purple and orange or something – that would make me rage against a twentysomething would be if they gave up independence without being forced into it by the playoff system (and it doesn’t look like they’ll ever be forced).
I remember back when I was younger and Saturdays were dedicated to watching multiple games every week. Since having kids a few years back, I have gotten into a routine of DVRing ND games and watching them later that night after the kids have gone to sleep. The drawback is that I have to avoid checking any sports sites/apps so that I don’t see the score — but the big benefit is that skipping the commercials and halftime brings the game duration down to a much more reasonable length.
18S is the best site for level-headed analysis, discussing trends with ND football (or college football in general), and assessing recruiting. I don’t have any subscriptions besides the Athletic, so I love the recruiting and board updates on 18S.
The biggest game that I missed was the 2012 Oklahoma game because of a wedding.
I should’ve mentioned, I have cut back my non-ND watching a lot due to kids. Also, my wife is a huge hoops fan and she’s (somewhat stubbornly) severely curtailed her viewing of college games which makes me feel guilty about attempting to watch football from Noon to 11 PM.
Very true. With family now, I mostly just watch just the ND game and *maybe* one other prime-time game whereas before I may have had something on from noon-11. I also watch the NFL a lot less, and basketball barely at all now.
When you guys miss games and watch it later, do make sure to have no knowledge of what happened or do you check the final score beforehand, and then watch?
From the few games I’ve missed I do check. It’s not realistic for me to stay off Twitter and especially our Slack chat for that long of a period.
When I record it for later, I try my best not to hear anything about the game. It can be tough sometimes, though — for example an unexpected text from a friend like “rough game today” or “it looks like ND kicked some butt” will give me an idea of what to expect.
I keep up with what is happening. Too much trouble for me not to between all the people who text me about it, Twitter, etc.
Not bothering to try to avoid spoilers saved me a lot of heartache when I had to cover a banquet the night of the 2017 Miami game.
I’m probably a 4-5 range.
I’m going to reply to myself to say that the only thing that would really make me rage is if they ever changed the “Fighting Irish” brand for some woke reason. That I would not abide.
NGL, that would really, really bug me too.
On the other hand, the frothing anger of dudes five generations removed from Ireland would be hilarious to watch.
Why?
Agreed C.C. on changing the name.
That 2007 UCLA game was awesome. I remember seeking out the broadcast at some Lincoln Park Notre Dame bar and we basically had the back room to ourselves. Dan Fouts did play by play? Anyway, the season was a joke by then and there was no pressure since we’d assume we’d lose. And we won! UCLA had to play their backup, McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who was one of the most inept DI players I’d ever seen at any position, but he went on to a long pro career somehow, bouncing around endlessly, and is now still playing for the Toronto Argonauts.
I had to listen to that game on the radio. It was a ‘regional’ telecast, but the other game was Purdue/Ohio State and I believe both teams were ranked at the time, so basically no one outside of South Bend or LA got the game.
Is Dan Fouts the worst play-by-play guy to ever do a Notre Dame football game in the ‘every game on TV’ era? I wouldn’t even know who to put up against him.
Wait have you forgotten about Flutie?
Was Fouts really that bad? (I genuinely don’t remember. And maybe didn’t know enough at the time to know that he was bad.)
Flutie was the color guy, not play-by-play, but he is far and away the worst.
Hammond would get my vote for worst play-by-play.
My memory is that Fouts was just kind of a dour turd who didn’t seem to enjoy the game very much.
Wait I thought Fouts was always the color guy too?
He was, but he elbowed his way into doing play-by-play there for a little bit. You probably never saw him because this was still the era of regional telecasts and they basically shoved him onto unwatchable Pac-12 games like that one.
Ahh, that makes sense. I can’t imagine him being a very good play-by-play guy at all.
Scale: in mid-30s with no kids, so one could reasonably question my life choices. Relatedly, I’m either an 8 or a 9, depending on whether one can be a 9 without having multiple pay subscriptions. I only pay for 247, and I always cancel before it switches over to being full-cost. It’s not worth that to see Tom Loy talking about how the 3-star we signed has a totally-real Bama offer.
Mid-life crisis: see above re: life choices. I spend more time on ND football than I probably should. I will not schedule Life Events around games, nor generally will I prioritize football over the Life Events of my friends. But only once in my life have I gone on a vacation without ND game access, and that was a gratis trip to Italy. It would take that level for me to miss a game for a vacation.
Watching games: I’m impressed by and jealous at Eric knowing exactly what games he has missed. I missed games as a student! Even in South Bend! (Ok, that’s a bit of an overstatement, but in 2006 we somehow had a game against Air Force which was basically impossible to get on TV). Still, if you exclude the games I missed abroad in 2007 – excellent timing – I’m probably at fewer than 10 games where I didn’t see every play live since 2005. And I always DVR, even when watching live, just in case.
Beliefs – I think independence is our raison d’etre, and our leverage over everyone to maintain that independence is that we’re the most important team in the sport. If we don’t project that attitude, what’s the point?
I almost missed AFA 2006, too. I think that was on CBS Sports back when roughly 14 people in the United States had the channel. Me and a buddy took our girlfriend’s to Tully’s (shout out to them chicken fingers) which was the only local place we could figure out had the channel. There were 3 Brady Quinn touchdowns early and no one paid much attention to the rest of the game.
That channel wasn’t even CBS Sports yet – at the time it was called College Sports Television (CSTV). The only reason I saw that game was that by some random twist of fate it was on the cable provider in my college apartment (so was Chicago’s RSN, which was a pretty nifty turn of events). That was the only time that year I ever turned on that network.
It would seem to me that anyone who is even reading a blog about ND in the off season has to be a 6 or higher. If Eric is a 6 or 7, I would hate to see what it takes to be a 9 or 10. Like Andy said, that he is “pretty darn high up on the scale”. Does a 10 have to do 100 push ups for each star a new recruit has so 500 for Vernon on top of their daily 3 hour meditation on Damsha Bua? :O))