The haters want you to believe Notre Dame doesn't matter. Every year Notre Dame struggles, the haters race to anoint the Irish irrelevant.
"They don't matter," say the haters.
The haters are wrong.
The Irish may not be 'mattering' for the right reasons in the last decade, but they still matter.
Why else was it a huge story when Notre Dame axed coach Tyrone Willingham after three seasons because of poor performance and even worse recruiting? The haters came up with every racist excuse in the book to try and get on the Irish for the firing. Never mind that the 2007 season - when the players Willingham recruited (and didn't recruit) were the upperclassmen - was an exercise in futility, due mainly to the fact that the Irish were forced to play a talented but not-ready-to-play-these-games freshman and sophomore class almost exclusively. The haters don't care about that. The haters didn't care that Willingham didn't even bring the team's best running back (true freshman Darius Walker) on the trip to BYU for the 2004 season opener. ND lost, a humiliating performance. A week later, Walker ran for over 100 yards in about a quarter and a half when a desperate Willingham pulled him off the bench against Michigan. He led the Irish to an upset win.
That was the thing about Willingham. Even when he brought talented players in to ND, he didn't know how to handle them. Jeff Samardzija didn't catch a TD in his first two years at the school - under Ty. Brady Quinn, who only came to ND after Quinn's HS teammate Chinedum Ndukwe's father convinced Willingham to look at him while recruiting Ndukwe, was a 50 percent passer his first two years at ND. Walker saw the second-most carries, behind Ryan Grant, even though every Irish fan could plainly see Walker should be getting the bulk of the work. Walker went on to be one of the best backs in Irish history in '05 and '06.
When Washington axed Willingham halfway through his fourth season at U-Dub for hideously pathetic performance - the Huskies went 0-12 in his last season - there was almost no talk. No one dared call Washington racist. Because just like at ND, he basically ran the program into the ground with horrible recruiting and bad in-game decisions. It is a mark of Steve Sarkisian's skill as a coach that he has taken Willingham's players and beaten USC. Although the Huskies are 2-3, their losses are to LSU, Stanford and ND - the latter two on the road. All three are solid teams, and all three will probably play January bowl games this year.
Anyway, I could talk about Ty Willingham for hours. This article is not about him.
Why else does Notre Dame matter?
The Irish have essentially decided four Heisman Trophies this decade. Unfortunately, none have been ND players.
2002: Carson Palmer. Palmer shreds the Irish, then ranked top 10 under Willingham, to separate himself from the field (Brad Banks, Larry Johnson, Willis McGahee). If you ask me, just looking at the numbers, Banks or Johnson would've been better picks. But the media hype machine surrounding ND and its opponents carried the day.
2004: Matt Leinart. Leinart shreds the Irish in Willingham's last game as ND coach to separate himself from the field (Adrian Peterson, Jason White, Alex Smith, Reggie Bush). If you ask me, Peterson should have won, but he was a freshman, so he was basically ineligible. Once again, the voting distribution was small enough that one can assume that the media hype machine surrounding ND carried Leinart to a Heisman.
2005: Reggie Bush. Bush ripped ND to shreds in the biggest game of the regular season, USC's 34-31 escape at South Bend. Media pundits, once again, caught up in the ND hype machine, basically announce the Heisman decided. Vince Young and Matt Leinart never have a chance, and Brady Quinn, the best quarterback on the field in that ND/USC game, is eliminated for his defense's failings. Now, this season, Bush probably is the best player. One can make an argument for Young, but Bush was phenomenal. But is he good enough to justify the biggest voting differential from 1 to 2 in Heisman history?
2006: Troy Smith. Smith didn't play ND in 2006. But he did play the Irish in the Fiesta Bowl the year before and enjoyed a solid performance thanks to ND's pathetic defense. The hype machine began for Smith almost immediately. Because Ohio State didn't lose a game in 2006, Smith was given the Heisman by a ridiculous margen over Darren McFadden and Quinn. Smith, facing actual defensive pressure for the first time all season in the BCS title game Jan. 8th, submits one of the worst performances in the history of the quarterback position against Florida.
In addition, Notre Dame made JaMarcus Russell the No. 1 overall draft pick by allowing LSU receivers to get wide open against them in the Sugar Bowl following the 2006 season. Russell, despite doing nothing but chuck the ball deep for wide-open receivers the entire game, despite the fact that LSU's own fans wanted Russell benched for Matt Flynn at points in the '06 season, is made the No. 1 pick by the hype machine. Brady Quinn struggles against a real defense and free-falls to pick 22. Russell is currently one of the biggest train wrecks of a quarterback in the NFL. Quinn...well...let's not talk about it.
Notre Dame still matters. They're still on NBC for all their home games. They still get talked about, year in and year out, more than any other college program. Not one, but both of ESPN's studio analysts for college football coverage are essentially there to wage war about ND (May and Holtz). And when an ND signal-caller plays as well as Jimmy Clausen has this year, they are (albeit bedgrudgingly) placed in the thick of the Heisman race.
No, Notre Dame is not irrelevant. The day the Irish win a game and no one complains or whines about it except the opposing team, or the day ND loses and the only team fan base that's happy about it is the opposing team's - that's when they'll be irrelevant.
Don't hold your breath.
