For Notre Dame fans, as with many fans, the good often comes with the bad. And of course, because they're Notre Dame, it's usually magnified in both cases.
Selection Sunday was slightly different, because the good involved the Irish hoops team, which has been much less polarizing than the football team due mostly to its lack of historical success and its conference membership. The bad - Brady Quinn's trade, which may or may not signal the death knell for his starting hopes - was played down somewhat due to its proximity to Selection Sunday.
But for me, they were the top stories of the day.
Notre Dame's seeding was truly shocking. After ND's run to end the year (see prior post), I was thinking ND was headed for a 10 or 11 seed, with some thinking the Irish needed to win a Big East tournament game to even make the field. The Irish cruised by Seton Hall to end that discussion, upset Pitt in the quarterfinals, then took West Virginia to the wire in the Big East semifinals to place themselves firmly into the field. The apparent bad news was that ND had played themselves squarely into position for the 8/9 game. A clear majority of bracketologists placed the Irish on the 8 seed line - and with Syracuse a presumptive 1 seed, that left, for most, a 2/3 chance that ND would be matched up with Kansas or Kentucky, the 2 teams I fear most, in round 2. Some people had WVU as a 1 seed (something I endorsed and believed should happen) which meant Notre Dame would've had to play KU or UK in the 2nd round.
After a lot of talk and a lot of deliberation (my own message board did a mock selection committee of a small group of people that would end up getting 64 teams correct and placing 61 of those within one seed line, much better than most of the major bracketologists, for what that's worth), the selection show was on. I, as I do every time ND makes it, sat at rapt attention to see where the Irish would end up.
And quickly, something weird became clear. The first bracket was revealed, the Midwest region. And only one Big East team - Georgetown - was in it. To this point, the committee had never placed more than two league teams in the same region (avoiding a potential conference game before the Elite 8), so alarm bells quickly began going off. I realized this after the 2nd bracket was revealed - only 3 league teams had been shown so far. This meant one thing to me: Someone got left out. Louisville, who had been mentioned in passing as a bubble team, was first in my mind, but...could it be?
After all, this is the same selection committee that placed a 14-4 Big East team on the 5 seed line. The year before, that selection committee underseeded Notre Dame to 6, THEN dramatically underseeded tournament darling Winthrop to ensure they faced the Irish in round 1. Could ND have somehow been left out?
To make a long story short, no. It turned out the goofs on the committee placed 3 Big East teams in the South bracket - one of whom was Notre Dame. The Irish, the last matchup revealed, were shown as a 6 seed against Old Dominion.
Now, Old Dominion is a good team, probably underseeded, so Notre Dame is effectively getting a 7, but still. Baylor seems pretty good for a 2nd round matchup compared to the 2 seeds ND could have drawn (KSU, Ohio St) or Kansas or Kentucky if it'd been a 1. The seeding of ND has been panned by most, although many have bigger complaints about the bracket (Cal as an 8 and Duke's ridiculous path to Indy among them). Three weeks ago, ND was 6-8 in the Big East, so a 6 seed is absolutely mind-blowing considering the big picture. I have high hopes. My bracket places ND in the Sweet 16, but I think ND could go anywhere from home Thursday afternoon to the Final Four. They're unpredictable, and so is the South region.
The bad thing? Oh, the Quinn trade.
You know my opinion of Quinn. I'm a blue and gold bleeder and always* will be, and I feel like he got the screw job in Cleveland.
(*I will - WILL - bail if the Irish join a conference, unless they truly are forced to by the creation of superconferences. If they join when no real change occurs, I will bail because the leadership will have hoodwinked us into it with their hideous scheduling. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.)
The Browns married themselves to a bad QB who had a fluky season and didn't let Quinn play until halfway through year 2. A broken thumb submarined a really bright start to Quinn's career, then the Browns fired their coach. The guy they brought in, Eric Mangini, is a grade-A d-bag (no one argues this). He didn't give Quinn any confidence whatsoever, and when Quinn floundered early on a team that had jettisoned all their talent against good defenses, he was unfairly benched at halftime of game 3 for Anderson. Quinn was then left on the bench as Anderson continued to suck, and it was clear as day that the Browns were keeping him there simply to keep Quinn's contract escalators from kicking in. Then, when he returned, Quinn showed a bit (a fantastic performance against the Lions) but mostly struggled again - on a talentless team. He would later get hurt again to end his season.
The Mike Holmgren era began as GM and Holmgren was noncommittal on his QB situation. We now know it was because he disliked both - he cut Anderson and shipped Quinn off for two third-day draft picks and a backup RB. Quite a haul for a guy you burned a first-round pick on, and gave 12 starts to before pitching him.
The trade, particularly the nothing that Denver surrendered for him, makes me think Quinn may be done as a starting QB - something that would be among the bigger injustices in the history of young NFL quarterbacks, in my opinion. (And Cleveland is now rumored to be after Jimmy Clausen - if that happens I'll start to wonder if the league has it out for ND quarterbacks, because Clausen, though more talented than Quinn, will flounder just the same way if presented with that mess.)
Kyle Orton is a beat-out-able quarterback, but he did little last year to lose his job. Quinn will now be working with a Weis disciple (Josh McDaniels succeeded him as Patriots' offensive coordinator), but Romeo Crennel worked with Weis too and that didn't seem to be enough to give Quinn a look for quite a while. We shall see, but my hopes aren't high. It's a sad saga for my all-time favorite college football player (for personal reasons more so than on-field reasons).
Either way, it was an eventful Sunday for Notre Dame.
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