Perhaps my favorite topic to discuss is how much more difficult it is to win at Notre Dame today, or should I say if it’s more difficult to win at Notre Dame. Deep down I ultimately believe how someone reacts to this topic is the best litmus test to how one views the college football world and how they are able to suggest Notre Dame can improve on the gridiron.
Before we dig deeper we should state that to the outside world it has definitely become more difficult to win at Notre Dame. In some ways the outside world doesn’t matter (and they could be wrong!) but no one can live in a bubble without outside pressures and opinions exerting influence on a program and culture. In this vein, if the outside world thinks things are more difficult–even if they truly aren’t–well they probably will become that way.
Unfortunately, the discussion of whether it’s more difficult to win today at Notre Dame quite often hijacked by the “excuses” train that blows through these talks, in my opinion, for fear of truly confronting the current situation. When you refuse to believe it’s more difficult to win today every little thing becomes an excuse which leads to an inordinate amount of emphasis on coaching and leadership. It can become incredibly difficult, even damn near impossible, for people to not solely blame coaching.
We see this all the time in the numerous off-field areas that Notre Dame tries to improve. This quote found recently sums the position up nicely:
The issue isn’t Notre Dame itself or college football. It might be marginally more difficult to win at ND now than in the early 1990’s, simply because of the scholarship limits, but everything else in college football is better-oriented towards ND.
…It’s just that the coaching, leadership, and program design has sucked. They care too much about stuff that shouldn’t matter and don’t care enough about things that should.
Let’s take a bugaboo field turf, for example. Somehow, the natural grass was viewed as an excuse made by Brian Kelly and therefore field turf was needed to win football games.
Or, maybe the field was a distraction? Maybe it was a waste of time, money, and resources to continue with a natural field? Having a field turf simplifies the process and we never have to worry about its condition. How is this not preferable? Dicking around with a natural grass field is quite literally caring about the wrong stuff AND makes life more difficult for Notre Dame.
Here’s what I will never, ever, ever understand about this mindset. Let’s assume that everyone in a position of power at Notre Dame is either grossly incompetent when hiring football coaches, or even don’t care to the point of mailing in any coaching decisions. Just for the sake of argument, let’s just assume the absolute worst.
Why would you want to pair that with archaic facilities and the same awful leadership with off-field issues?
“Man, our leadership absolutely sucks and can’t even trip into a good coach it’s probably best to freeze improvements anywhere else. That should help.”
I get it, a new athletic director and head coach could potentially do wonders and are an overwhelmingly large percentage of found football glory. But, remember we don’t live in a bubble. The reason why some don’t want to admit that it’s more difficult for the Irish in modern times is because it allows those same people to live in said bubble.
“We don’t need to sell Notre Dame, the school sells itself, and all we need is the right coach.”
This stuff sounds awesome when Notre Dame fans talk to other Notre Dame fans. It doesn’t take much to convince some that things could stay the same (like when we were in college!) if not for those handful of leaders. You can even double down and think that what ultimately sells for Notre Dame is a World War II idealized version of football as seen in the former plain and unadorned stadium.
Of course, the biggest problem with all of this is that when you’re talking about coaches and doing interviews you’re not dealing with Notre Dame fans. There isn’t a single coaching candidate in the country who wouldn’t push hard for constant off-field improvements at Notre Dame. There isn’t a single coaching candidate in the country who is confident enough in their success to take on Notre Dame without a ton of money for off-field resources and control.
It’s pretty obvious that it’s more difficult to win at Notre Dame today and once you accept that it’s kind of a freeing feeling. The Irish really can’t do anything about the scholarship limit, tougher academic environment, and eroding traditional recruiting base. Notre Dame can control coaching and off the field resources and the latter is far more permanent in the long run when you think about the permanence of things like Crossroads and the fleeting nature of humans and the pressures of college football.
If you want to oppose changes due to tradition or personal taste that’s a little different. But to oppose on the grounds that it’s wasted time that should be spent on finding a new coach is super short-sighted.
Lastly, the general population has likely forgot just how awesome of a run Lou Holtz had at Notre Dame. I know most Irish fans haven’t forgotten. From 1988 to 1993 the 64-9-1 record with the dead bodies of many great teams strewn everywhere is a cherished piece of history.
As goofy of a bastard as he is today Holtz was an awesome coach, someone who came in and struck nearly all the right notes at the exact right time. Then, he finished his career on a 23-11-1 run for a .657 winning percentage, just ahead of Brian Kelly’s .655 win percentage at Notre Dame.
Holtz lot his magic, dealt with neck surgery, fell out of touch with players, couldn’t recruit at the previous high levels, squabbled with several assistants and administrators, and grew tired of the grind in South Bend. As much as he walked on water previously he seemed to struggle adapting and as we know now it’s crazy to think of how people legitimately wanted him fired.
When that type of mediocrity can befall someone like Holtz–and we’re almost a quarter century away from his last great season–don’t sit there and tell me things aren’t more difficult for Notre Dame today. The Irish are best served to learn that coaching is super important and most important, but even the best coaches are preciously fragile and many resources are needed to acquire and maintain coaches and football success.
Running from this modern challenge and believing it’s not more difficult for Notre Dame today only condemns the Irish to an assured slow and painful death.
As I listened to the latest Irish Ill. recruiting podcast last night, I said to myself, “Wow, how things have changed. Where as once it seemed we were 50/50 going against any school for a kid we wanted, now we lose the battles consistently to TOP programs.” (Eweh and tOSU looking to be the latest example) An elite Def. lineman could walk in and start right away at ND, yet it seems the best would still rather fight for playing time at Ala., Clemson, tOSU, etc. Even the Eweh kid, an “ND fit” for sure at a position of great need, looks to be heading elsewhere.
It seems the pool of great players that are good “ND fits” dries up pretty quickly. If ND loses out on 3-4 five and four star kids there seems to be a steep drop off to the next level of talent interested in ND. Listening to the II podcast, it seems there 2 or 3 positions of need, in the 2018 class that ND after losing out on a few kids, is scrambling to find high talented prospects to fill.
TOP programs have their talent bases pretty much locked down and go national for elite talent. I have to think it’s way easier when you’re recruiting 80% of your talent from 150 miles or less away. ND might have 4 kids in Indiana they like, otherwise they’re fighting State U for their local kids. Maybe this has always been the case to some degree. It just seems the Elite kids have more options no. For instance, who knew ND would lose so many battles to Stanford and Oregon? That didn’t happen in the 80’s. You can’t put it all on bad recruiting. It’s just harder now. Which means it’s harder to win now.
Well it’s a vicious cycle too right? We never lost out to Oregon and Stanford in recruiting in the 80’s because it was laughable to suggest that their football programs were on par with ND’s. Fast forward to a 4- 8 season and why not just stay out west? People always point to ace recruiters and say that winning doesn’t correlate as strongly with recruiting as you might expect. The counterpoint is that there is still a pretty strong correlation and I think it’s especially important when you are trying to convince someone to go to a school that is a thousand miles away.
Right. It’s not just that “we’re losing the battles” – there are people who are losing those battles. One could argue (and I’m sure Eric would, and somewhat rightly) that we started losing these battles because Oregon especially and Stanford to some degree started putting more resources into football where ND did not ramp up as much. But it hasn’t helped that the coaches haven’t been good.
The short version of my view is that it is harder to win now than in 1988. But it’s not as hard as they’re making it look.
MD and nd, I don’t disagree with either of you. None f these arguments are 100% of the problem and some of this stuff is chicken or egg. I don’t mean to put none of the blame on this staff or any previous staff. Certainly there is no excuse for 4-8 at ND and certainly last years record has not helped recruiting.
“The short version of my view is that it is harder to win now than in 1988. But it’s not as hard as they’re making it look.”
I could write 10 paragraphs of my thoughts and not explain it as well as this two-sentence statement. Well done.
I’ll also chime in here that for often as nd09hls12 and I butt heads (cordially, of course), I completely agree with that statement. Completely.
It takes a special talent to make defense and special teams look that incompetent
Very true. But at the same time ND went 35-32-1 over a 6 year period in the 80’s with no season better than 2 games over .500 and still there were several #1 classes in there.
Forget Oregon and Stanford imagine playing .500 football for half a decade today and still out recruiting Alabama and Ohio State.
Right, Stanford and Oregon were just the 1st two schools to pop into my head. There are plenty more teams that would fit that profile.
I think that’s true if you’re talking about 1 or 2 seasons but when you’re talking about 2 decades of ineptness(2011-2012 notwithstanding) then that criticism starts to become true. As an 18 year old kid, you have your teammates and friends and people in town seeing you committed to a team that’s always in the back of the top-25 or getting smashed in big games and it’s hard to ignore the jeers. Why would a kid want to put up with that his Sr year of HS when he could go to Bama and have everyone cheering him about what he’s gonna do when he wins a NC?
Isn’t part of it that ND was THE program which meant not only prestige but also a change at the NFL? Now there are a lot of top quality programs. Now if you are good enough it doesn’t matter where you go you will make it to the NFL, be seen on TV, etc. The unique advantages that ND had (that others could elaborate on better than I) are gone.
I also wonder whether Catholic schools drying up makes any difference. Did most Catholics go up dreaming of going to ND to play football? Now one may argue, there are less Catholics (or at least less Catholics going to Catholic schools) and so the Catholic connection is a lot weaker. This would have been another distinction compared to other schools that has been lost.
On the other hand, if your a Catholic and want to play D1 football at a Catholic school, your choices are ND or BC.
We all know that is really no choice at all.
I started to put a post together a while back, and I should probably finish it, about how we’ve done head-to-head against Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Stanford over the last several years. From the 2011 to 2014 classes, we kicked Stanford, Oklahoma, and Michigan’s asses, close to broken even against USC (46% win rate), and were respectable against Ohio State given the way they typically lock down Ohio (38%). From 2015 to 2017, the BVG era, we’ve broken even with Stanford and Michigan, gotten killed by Oklahoma and USC, and treaded water against Ohio State – and we really got clobbered on the defensive side, not surprisingly. Those last three years of recruits saw seasons of 8-5, 10-3, and 4-8, plus a DC who put almost literally zero effort into recruiting. Winning and effort. Those are the main ingredients.
To the larger point of the article, it’s absurd to think the landscape in college football as a whole and at ND in particular is the same as it was in 1988.
– The scholarship limit hurt. Not entirely coincidence that our decline really began in earnest when the limit dropped from 92 to 85.
– We’ve always expected our players to behave and go to class, and not everyone on the team now is a Rhodes Scholar candidate, but admissions obviously tightened things up dramatically in the early 90’s. I doubt more than a handful of Holtz’s 1988 starters could get through admissions now.
– The landscape as a whole has changed as the ranks of the independents have dwindled and the conferences have become more and more powerful. In 1990, Miami, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Boston College, Florida State, and Penn State were all independent. In 1991 the bulk had joined the Big East, while Florida State joined the ACC in 1992 and Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993. In a span of a couple of years, Notre Dame went from having multiple top-shelf programs to help fend off conference power to being essentially alone.
– We can’t say “You want your family to see you on TV every week? We’re the only school that can do that!” anymore.
– Our traditional Midwest recruiting base has shrunk as the US population shifts from the Midwest to the Southeast.
It’s not impossible to win. of course, but it is harder. You need to get just the right mix of admin, AD, coach, assistants, and roster to get it done. What I’d like to see is consistent 10-win seasons with occasional dips to 8 or 9 wins when the team is young or something, with the occasional title run mixed in. I think that’s realistic and achievable if we pull all the right strings.
In the last decade, Stanford has basically filled the niche that ND used to. They recruit the same young men and play the hard-nosed RTDB style of football that many would like to see ND play.
I’d be curious to see a list of top recruits in the past 10-12 years that we’ve lost to just Stanford. I would guess it is an impactful list.
Not as impactful as people tend to think, and in fact I’d argue that overall our list of wins against them is clearly better than our list of losses. Our problem with them has really been recent defensive targets. From 2011 to 2017 we’ve won 33 of 63 (52%) head-to-head battles with them. From 2011 to 2014 we won 15 of 24 (63%) offensive battles and 6 of 14 (43%) defensive battles. From 2015 to 2017 we won 8 of 11 offensive battles (73%) but only 4 of 14 defensive battles (29%).
The thing that hurt us is a couple of key losses – most notably Solomon Thomas and Justin Reid (and the other DB’s from the 2015 cycle, but Reid seems to be a cut above the others). But we also won Sheldon Day, KeiVarae Russell, Brandon Wimbush, Equanimeous St. Brown, Josh Adams, and Darnell Ewell, among many others. So it’s not like they’ve been stealing our lunch money and sticking our head in the toilet.
Thomas, Reid and Lyon were the ones on top of my head on defense. There were a couple stud OL too.
Other than the now and the Walsh era(s), I don’t even think Stanford was ever a peer on the recruiting trail though.
I also believe the issues have been largely self-inflicted — so no, they aren’t stealing our lunch money! LOL.
I think our OL record with them has pretty much been a wash – for every Foster Sarell there’s a Tommy Kraemer. RB/WR/TE too; McCaffrey is better than our best head-to-head win with them so far but Adams has time (and potential) to catch him yet, and WR/TE recruiting isn’t even close.
I almost counted Wayne Lyons but I don’t think he was an irreplaceable talent. Solomon Thomas obviously was. It’s early to put Reid in that category but at the very least I’m pretty confident he would’ve locked down the starting job at ND and made us feel much better about the deep middle, so he definitely makes the cut.
There are a bunch of defensive guys we lost to them but either didn’t do much or haven’t done much yet, so I don’t know how broken up to be about them. The main problem, as you note, is that most of the damage has been self-inflicted. If we had been more consistent on the field and done a better job with a couple of guys’ recruitment, the script would likely be flipped.
This is a gross over-simplification, but I’m curious to see if things start to look up for ND now that a big problem – BVG – has been jettisoned. Did BK lose a few games that he should not have before BVG was here? Yes. But when BK had a competent DC (Diaco) who tried just a little with recruiting, the team had a 12-0 year that led to the NCG appearance. BVG was a black hole that hurt both recruiting of defensive players and defensive performance on the field. With a new DC, I am hoping to see an uptick in both recruiting on defense and improved play from that side of the ball. Through most of the Kelly years, the offense has been pretty good – both in recruiting and performance.
Of course, I could be completely wrong by making BVG into the scapegoat, but I started making this argument and I’m going to stick to it (for now).
Ehh… Diaco didn’t really try that much with recruiting, especially his last year when he was already mentally moving on to being a head man somewhere. However, he was very charismatic and definitely a competent DC, and he kept putting reclamation projects and position flips in and/or apparently on the path to the NFL (Harrison Smith, Bennett Jackson, Mathias Farley, Keivarae Russell, etc.).
VanGorder was absolutely a big reason for our defensive recruiting troubles – both because he put no effort into it, and because linebackers and defensive backs didn’t want to play in his crappy system. There’s a lot of buzz around Elko, which helps, and he’s busting his proverbial tuckus on the trail, but kids still want to see it on the field. If he delivers early results, I think things could get very interesting in this cycle. We’re going to hammer Temple, so if we get through Georgia… Look out.
BVG didn’t help, but it’s not like Brian Kelly was doing a great job before he got here.
VanGorder was sort of a defensive Willingham. Not quite as bad, because he was at least trying on the field, but his recruiting acumen and roster effect were similar. A huuuuuge reason why we lost Caleb Kelly to Oklahoma is that Kerry Cooks convinced him – appropriately, as we’ve seen – that VanGorder’s system was a disaster. Defensive backs saw Redfield, Russell, Luke, Tranquill, etc. all regress and wanted no part of his system. Have you ever wondered why we couldn’t get corners and safeties interested even though the path to early playing time was so clear? Yeah. That’s why.
Now, Kelly absolutely holds all the blame for (a) hiring VanGorder in the first place, which was a defensible but questionable move, and (b) holding onto him after 2015, which was indefensible. I’m not absolving him of any blame for that, and I’ve said before that I think more than anything else those might ultimately be the two decisions that doom his ND tenure. At the same time, the move from VanGorder to Elko, who I really think is a Dave Aranda-level talent, gives me enormous hope that that side of the ball can turn around. If he can’t pull it off, no worries, we’ll have our new head coach. If he can, we could have some big years ahead.
I think most of our reasons for it being harder to win at ND are self-imposed. We refuse to give greater athletes a chance because of test scores. To an extent, I’m fine with that but I think once or twice per team you should at least try to get one 5-star guy with sub-par test scores and just try to keep him eligible because it makes your team better.
Not accepting JUCO transfers…again, just about every program in the NCAA does this and it really gives them a leg up on development of players.
These are all administrative in nature and really needs the help of a football-supportive President to enact. The FOOTBALL part of it that I think we really can control is our attitude, motivation, and scheme. This is where Kelly and Swarbrick have let us down. They’ve allowed ND to be a place where it’s great to have the name on your resume but you dont have to work to keep the legacy alive. Letting teams hang around in games instead of throat smashing inferior opponents, coming in scared against top ranked teams, falling apart in rivalry games…that’s on the coaching staff and AD. This needs to be fixed
The issue is that test scores for players are already pretty damn low and going much further just doesn’t work. Plus the vast majority of these guys, like JUCO’s, simply will be swimming academically at ND.
Either you start cheating (keeping them eligible) or deal with the flunking out and transferring. We already deal with plenty of academic casualties, there’s really not a ton of room to dig deeper.
How did this work before then under Holtz when he was allowed some more questionable academic recruits? Did those players not cut it academically?
There have been rumors for years that there were a lot more academic and general off-field issues during the Holtz era that got kept under wraps and didn’t make it to the press.
This led to Monk running a tighter ship and the beginning of what would become the much stronger student affairs arm willing to dole out strict punishment.
I’m with Eric here. Unless you create a true football-specific academic track, I don’t see that letting kids with lower scores in would work. I would guess that the kids already here have SAT scores 300+ points below the student body average, and yet we want to (and should, IMO) integrate them completely with the regular student body. They get a ton of support to help them out, but still, if you let in kids who are 500-600 points lower, you’re asking for problems. It’s not fair to anyone, including the kids. They just haven’t been remotely prepared for that kind of environment.
I think the Amir Carlisle and Alohi Gilman transfers are very interesting, as I think both represent a pretty substantial departure from previous practice. I’d like to see us do more of that, take underclassmen transfers who are easier to profile from a survivability standpoint.
I, for one, would be fine with creating an athlete-specific track: let “in-season” athletes drop to 8 or 9 credits per semester. Also, do athletes get credit for doing a varsity sport? I think it’d be fair to give 3 pass/fail credits per semester when they’re putting in 40+ hours of work. FFS, I got 3 graded credit hours my senior year for doing “First Year of Studies Peer Mentoring”, which *maybe* took like 10-15 hours a week.
Per NCAA rules they have to be full-time students, which means at least 12 credits. So you have to bump it up a bit, lol.
Where I think we really miss the target is putting pressure on these kids to finish their degrees in three years. That’s just dumb. I’m not saying put everyone on a five-year track from day 1, but be open to it with certain kids and certainly don’t put everyone on a three-year track. It just intensifies the already significant academic pressure on them.
Wait don’t you mean finish degrees in four years? Why would they have to finish in three?
Seems like about 1/3 of every recruiting class TRIES to finish in 3 years. I’m not sure how much pressure there is but it’s a lot more common nowadays.
Is it because with EE and summer classes it’s a little easier to get a degree in 3 or 3-1/2 years ?
Yup, definitely.
See, now you’re starting to think about it AND propose solutions. I like where this is going
I, for one, would be fine with creating an athlete-specific track: let “in-season” athletes drop to 8 or 9 credits per semester. Also, do athletes get credit for doing a varsity sport? I think it’d be fair to give 3 pass/fail credits per semester when they’re putting in 40+ hours of work. FFS, I got 3 graded credit hours my senior year for doing “First Year of Studies Peer Mentoring”, which *maybe* took 10-15 hours a week.
I haven’t heard too many people argue that it isn’t harder for ND to win today, but obviously there are some. I think the better question is, what is the best course of action for ND to win (consistently) in today’s college football landscape? This is where I think that ND has made some mistakes from a program perspective. Most rational people would agree that ND is never going to be Alabama, Ohio State, or Florida State. So why try? If I were heading up the athletic department I would want to separate myself as much as possible from those programs, because ND can’t compete in that arena. We are never going to do “giant state school” better than an actual giant state school. For me, that was one of the reasons that I was against the stadium changes – I would think that we would want to try to be as unique as possible, not just like every other program. This does not mean that I endorse leather helmets. It means that ND should be unique with regards to the structure, environment, and priorities of its football program. If ribbon boards gave us any on field advantage I would be all for them. The don’t. Spend all of the money you want in updating the Gug, other facilities, or competitive coaching salaries – things that actually translate to on field performance. If you want to improve the in game experience then take a cue from soccer with organized chants, have the students march in with the band, or any number of other things. Do something unique that ND can own as its identity, don’t just copy what another successful program is doing in the name of “progress”.
The same goes for the on field identity of the football program. Again, I’m not saying that ND needs to go to the Wing T, but I think that we should have a recognizable football identity. What is the on field identity of the football program? A team with spread principles that often suffers from offensive and defensive execution/time management issues? Oh, and below average special teams. Other teams have an identity, Stanford – tough, Alabama – defensive, Oregon – fast paced, Virginia Tech – outstanding special teams. Even if on any given year those teams don’t live up to that reputation, they still have that mindset ingrained in the program. We haven’t seen that from ND in years (I guess since Weis, when ND was known as an “offensive team”).
Is it harder for ND to win today? Yes. How do we overcome that? That’s the question that we need to focus on.
Alabama scored 30 points in all but 2 games last year. I think their identity is just “really good at everything.”
ND is doing something unique in its stadium upgrade. They are also doing things that could impact the game. In fact, I can’t think of anything they are doing that qualifies as copying giant state schools. Just because it is unique to have an out of date stadium, does not mean that we are copying others by making basic updates.
Unique:
1. They aren’t trying to build the biggest stadium possible.
2. They are expanding the width of the seats for a more pleasant experience for everyone, decreasing capacity.
3. They are incorporating student and academic life into the stadium.
Potentially beneficial to results:
1. The extended press-box/luxury suites along the sides should keep more sound in, making it a louder environment.
I agree, Crossroads in its essence is pretty damn unique when taken as a total package.
I didn’t like the lack of uniqueness with the video board but that could always change, like building additional buildings in the northwest and northeast corners with a couple more video boards facing the stadium.
Hi all – I am actually in South Bend/ND this week, vice France – just checked in to 18 Stripes and as noted above, delighted to see the exchange is well-spoken, informative and worth while as always.
While here pursuing a documentary I am putting together on the French origins of ND I have been fortunate to spend some genuinely quality time with persons very closely linked to the output from the video board. Without drinking too much kool aid, I am pretty well convinced they are on what could potentially be a very good path. This to such an extent that it could be another validation of aspects of Crossroads, in line with above comments.
In fact, I am so impressed that I am looking to come back for Georgia to make my first personal assessment.
I would very much like to seek input on how the video board and its relations with the broader game day picture come across during Temple. Is there anyway that the board could have a feature that would elicit such comments from those attending the Temple game?
If you’re interested in Notre Dame’s stadium being unique a lack of technology or keeping up with the times certainly does that.
I just don’t know how that really benefits Notre Dame as the years march on. IMO, the people who find that unique in a good way are getting older and older.
Also, I don’t think we really need to go crazy trying to be super unique inside the stadium. In this way, just being “with the times” with a touch of ND style is fine.
You’re right, ribbon boards, jumbotrons, field turf dont sell recruits to come to your school….but they WERE a reason to not come to ND. You could look at ND stadium and think “old fashioned, outdated, boring.” The ribbon boards, jumbotron, field turf were needed just to get us back ON PAR to where ribbon boards, jumbotrons, and field turf werent even discussed, they were just how football at D1 was expected to be played.
Some really good, thoughtful posts here. Just thought I’d point that out to you guys. Carry on.
Is there anywhere on the interwebz where you can see how many scholarship players were at ND every year? My google skills were not sufficient for that undertaking. However, I think that is a big difference for ND between now and earlier eras. I remember reading once that Joe Montana was one of seven (7!) scholarship QBs on the roster.
So, my cynical take…ND used to be able to lock up the wheelhouse of high school talent but that wheelhouse has moved on, and the rules don’t allow that to happen anymore anyway.
Ps – lots of handwringing about crossroads over at TOS. Dorm rooms used to be tiny but now they’re building 450mm lego stadiums!!! Everything is awful.
On your last point, I’ll just note that Plato’s writings included some “kids these days” remarks and leave it at that.
To the rest of it… Let me issue a disclaimer before I start: ARA WAS AN AMAZING COACH, CLEARLY ONE OF THE BEST EVER IN THE GAME AT ANY SCHOOL. There. Now… He also took about 30-35 scholarship players per year, and he did it by rounding up every kid in the Midwest who had any talent before anyone else noticed; at any given point in time he had well over 100 scholarship players in the program. McKay did the same in California, Bear did the same in Alabama/Mississippi, etc. It was how things worked back then. The bluebloods had a natural stranglehold on regional talent, and that’s why the same 8-10 schools were on top of the pile year in, year out. The end result was that while the games against each other very competitive, their games against the next tier of teams tended to be much easier.
Fast forward 30 years, and the scholarship limits that were put in place *specifically to address that lack of parity* had their intended effect. Further, advances in technology – digital game tape, Hudl, etc. – have made it much easier for kids to get noticed quickly by programs around the country, before Local State U can throw a fence up around them. Yes, Alabama, OSU, USC, Florida State, Clemson, etc. are around the top of the polls every year, but you also get teams like Washington, TCU, Oregon, Baylor, etc. making appearances in the top five.
Just to put an exclamation point on your disclaimer. Stockpiling talent doesn’t explain 1964.
Some good points.
I think broader shifts in higher ed explain part of the story, as a few comments mention or allude to.
1. Notre Dame is a lot more selective as an institution than it used to be and gets more so every year. This makes it tougher to make exceptions for athletes (or anyone with lower grades/test scores) and to keep everyone eligible and on-track. This is happening across the board at top schools. Many schools seem flexible on this, but a handful, like ND, are less so, and that makes a bigger difference today than it did 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc.
2. Culturally, ND is increasingly a place full of wealthy kids. This is possibly due to population growth, the rising costs of college, greater income inequality, more globalization. There’s something like 50% more students who come from families in the top 1% of the income distribution (approx. 15% of students) than there are students from families from the bottom 60% (approx. 10% of students).
3. A lot of the buzz in terms of higher ed and the labor market is in the tech sector. Stanford and other West Coast schools have a natural advantage here. ND does not. On the margins, that makes a difference for the “40-year decision” that ND tries to emphasize.
This might tie into how ND seems to end up with talented guys like Corey Robinson, Max Redfield, Jerry Tillery, Andrew Hendrix, Steve Elmer, etc., who have a lot of interests outside of football in a way that’s maybe a little different from other schools.
Great stuff!
Does anyone have a sense of the number of academic casualties Michigan suffers on average and why they are able to draw from a bigger recruiting pool? Obviously, i have a bias in the fact that I pay much closer attention to ND football news, but I feel like I never hear of a Skunkbear being suspended or academically ineligible. ND is a step-up from Michigan academically, but I’d have to imagine that their classrooms are pretty competitive.
Not sure but we should always be suspicious of the schools who claim to be high on academics but almost never suffer any causalities (hi, Stanford!).
I don’t think anything has changed at Michigan, which has always been more football factory than anything when it comes to academics. The list of their grad and senior majors for 2016:
Grad Players
General Studies 4x
Economics
Sociology 2x
Sports Management
Environmental Studies
Seniors
Sociology 2x
Undeclared 8x
General Studies 4x
Afro American Studies
Economics
Psychology
American Culture
Sports Management
Harbaugh himself ripped Michigan over this 9 years ago and was absolutely vilified for it. Now, they couldn’t be happier he’s coaching their team. That’s Michigan.
The American Culture major takes the cake for me. But what angers me is that there are presumably non-scholarship students taking loans out bigly so that they can get a degree in American Culture.
Actually, some of those majors aren’t readily available for non-athletes. A few years ago someone released the numbers for some of these majors at Michigan, and general studies was like 90% athletes, and I’m sure the other 10% knew what they were getting into.
When Harbaugh was at Stanford he took some serious shots at Michigan and said they essentially forced him into General Studies when he wanted to study something like history. They implied (or stated) he basically wouldn’t be able to devote enough time to football in whatever he wanted to major in.
It is that athlete track, as mentioned here, that allows them to get in academic risks and actually keep them eligible. The classes are still being taught by UM professors, so there are certainly opportunities to improve your mind and learn some good stuff, if you want, but you don’t have to. ND has made it very clear they would never go that route.
As to Stanford, and with many Ivies, the hardest part is getting in, after that you are set. Harvard Business School doesn’t even give out grades. I highly doubt Stanford has an athlete track to the extent UM does. I doubt they have a general studies major. But I am fairly confident that the academic pressures, especially in season, aren’t as intense as at ND.
Juicebox, why would you assume Stanford has easier courses for athletes to take? Is it based on the fact they don’t have the same amount of academic issues year in and year out as ND, or do you have some hard evidence to support it?
I’m not trying to defend Stanford, I’m just curious about it is all.
It was a fairly big story a few years back.
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/stanford-athletes-had-access-list-easy-classes-9098
Thanks Alstein. That’s the first time I’ve seen that article.
Let’s not pretend like ND Athletes don’t know the easy classes either. I’m not saying there are made up degree programs, but I sure as hell noticed the entire basketball team in my Intro to Jazz class and half the class being football players in Latino Spirituality.
If it’s more difficult to win at Notre Dame than it used to be, then it’s more difficult for everyone. But I’m not convinced. There’s no reason not under the football program’s control that Notre Dame can’t play at the level of Alabama or Ohio State. I don’t buy the academics argument, either. We haven’t raised our academic standards since we were one of the top teams in football.