Whether it’s the mixing of academics, athletics, recruiting, evolving conferences, high-profile administrators, or over 100 years of debauched history we know college football affords fans plenty of opportunity to act with incredulity and abrasive resolve. The internet has only magnified this game’s melting pot of dumb.
Notre Dame has cultivated a massive following in this regard. A perfect storm descended upon the Fighting Irish world in the late 1990’s. Just as the internet was expanding into living rooms across the nation, Notre Dame was faltering on the football field. Just as the last generation who witnessed a National Championship as students were becoming frustrated middle-aged fans there burst this outlet to vent all of this disappointment.
For some, they carry this history with them always. Every day they wake up and log-in thinking, “I have to remain vigilant. Do not trust the administration. There’s so much wrong. I have to fight. The C2C was the greatest movement of my lifetime causing the firing of the most lame duck coach in school history.”
Hearts forever stuck in 1988, minds forever stuck in 2003.
So you can imagine the collision that has occurred with the rise of social media. No longer are press conferences and rare interviews with ESPN being parsed–now the football program speaks every day! Across numerous platforms! Schools can now promote themselves and their brand like no other time in history. As we’ll see below, this aggression simply cannot stand without rebuttals and refutations.
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Stop that Tweeter Nonsense
There are 127 FBS football teams for 2016 with Coastal Carolina currently a transitional member. Every school has a bevy of employees who tweet out positives of their program. It’s called promotion, for a reason. Most fans skim over these tidbits but dear friends not everyone.
Paraphrased tweet: “Hey, we’ve won a lot of games recently. We’re pretty cool.”
There are real-life human beings out there, eating breakfast, driving to work, co-existing with people in the office, taking their kids to soccer practice–somehow, someway in the middle of this they’ll lose their minds over the most harmless, run-of-the-mill tweets. Here are some real comments as evidence:
It’s also unseemly and insulting to have the propaganda team at ND trumpet Kelly’s achievements as if they’re extraordinary or even noteworthy.
…when it’s obvious those ‘achievements’ are massaged statistics, it grates.
Imagine living in a world where you’re upset about positive words from your school. Where normal people doing their jobs and encouraging a positive message becomes propaganda. The closest I can think of anything of the sort bothering me is THIS and that’s only because it laughed in the face of the college football gods. Notre Dame could go 0-12 and I can’t even fathom getting worked up because someone at the school tweeted a player tallied a career-high 85 receiving yards instead of how much we suck.
That’s just exhausting to type.
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Tape the Truth!
There are a lot of humorous subjects out there but nothing, and I mean nothing, brings out the laughter like the reaction to practice videos.
Still, I don’t get the sense from seeing the few highlight clips that we get that ND and Kelly spend too much time working on the run game. Some things never change.
…the practice reports coming from ND
[are seen] as being as overly optimistic as a report from Pravda. The thought being more propaganda than truth.ND is controlling the message.
…carefully crafted highlight video not a real practice video.
State sponsorship censorship at its finest.
This stuff is the best. It just doesn’t get any better than consternation over practice videos. To add further comic relief I like to picture crusty alums getting pissed off at university videos and commercials aimed at academics and research.
“Of course they show professor Edwards, what about professor Green? They don’t want to show that chem lab on the fourth floor, those liars. They’re promoting the 12th best school in the country like that’s an accomplishment to be proud of it’s just amazing what they will stoop to these days to put lipstick on a pig.”
But it’s sports so I guess the craziness is accepted in some quarters.
The curious part is the disbelief over the authenticity of these videos. Trickery! Full of sunshine! People might think this team is good when they are not!
[watches video]“Oh, we’re throwing the ball in all of these highlights. Never mind this is entirely accurate.”
Criminy, man, Professor Green? Green is a hack on the best of days, at his worst he downright falsifies his research conclusions. That chem lab on the fourth floor is a travesty–he doesn’t even have his beakers organized by size. How anyone could do serious science in that pigsty is beyond me. Oh sure he had some great papers back in the late ’80’s, and won a few research awards, but that whole “just run the chemical reaction” approach just doesn’t cut it in today’s chemistry game.
If they’d go ahead and sack Green like they should (@damn the tenure system!@) and get another rising star like Edwards, they’d be able to raise that paltry #12 ranking for the chem program to a top 5 ranking like Notre Dame deserves!
Wake up Sheeple!
No, I mean John Sheeple. He’s always sleeping late. I think he’d have something to say about all this.
John Sheeple is a son of a bitch. How is that bastard these days?
For many people, sports, like politics, is just a (somewhat) socially acceptable excuse to hate.
… or an excuse to see a bogeyman behind every remote-controlled tackling dummy. Some of those quoted comments read like “InfoWars for sports”… I am slightly in awe at the mental effort required to construct such a thorough “alternate narrative” like that.
Yes, it would make so much sense to put most of the actual practice on video for all opponents to see. We want to see the full route tree! We want to see where we’re weak! Show it all! We should be able to tell our opponents what we’re going to do, then succeed at it anyway. Harrumph.
Even better, if they’re going to edit it might as well use the powers for good and only show the ND mistakes made in practice so opponents under-estimate “us” and make it easier on Saturdays. Come on Kelly this is simple stuff.
It has worked in the past. Opponents used to think Cam McDaniel wore a helmet based on this footage.
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Eric, you complete me.
😎
I think you misspelled “completely suck and should just go watch the video to see Kelly not even practicing his purple rage face so how is he going to be ready for gameday.” I think that’s how it’s spelled anyway.
Purple rage, purple rage
Purple rage, purple rage
I only wanted to see you screaming with the purple rage
My search is over. Been wandering since you left OFD. After 40 days and 40 nights, my brain can again savor your commentaries. No more locust ridden drivel. Thank you, Eric.
Did you see the locust swarm on The Planet Earth? Locusts are no joke.
I saw locust ridden drivel open for the Bad Brains once
“Locust Ridden Drivel” should go into the Random Handle Generator…
Welcome back!
You know, I was just wondering the other day…Eric, have you emailed NDN board ops to see if you can get a direct link to 18S set up on their page?
Well I’m sure this article will help smooth things over.
I did notice OFD popped back up on the link page at NDN.
Yeah, that’s kind of funny. Josh is pretty antithetical to everything they hold dear – loves jumbotrons, thinks the Shamrock Series unis have been too tame, etc. – so it’s hard to imagine this is anything other than a vindictive swipe at the previous regime. I wouldn’t know for sure, I haven’t visited NDN since the spring of 2013, I think. And I’m better off for it.
Just to be clear, there are plenty of good people there. This isn’t an “everyone there sucks, hahaha,” it’s just my opinion that the tone the board ops have allowed to become dominant is not a fun one to be a part of. It sort of mirrors the current state of political debate in our great country – the Excluded Middle is a given, and only idiots inhabit the other end of the spectrum.
In case it wasnt clear, my post on this topic was meant as a jab to NDN. Not really a serious suggestion.
I love the old dude scowling at his computer screen. Get off my virtual lawn!!
Brian Kelly will resurrect his excellent QB Platooning skills, made famous by his time at the University of Cincinnati when he successfully played both Zach Collaros and Tony Pike, and play both DeShone and Malik against Texas.
Brian Kelly: Both Kizer and Zaire will play against Texas
RIP Murtaugh
I am looking forward to Murtaugh’s piece on this. Everybody else got one on this…
IT’S COMING.
Haha, I only wait so eagerly because the quality never fail to disappoint! Carry on…
I’m so thankful that you guys didn’t totally disappear after OFD. This is a fun piece.
Meanwhile, OFD is going full NDN.