Skip Bayless Needs a Nice Tall Glass of Shut the Fuck Up

The gentlemen over at First and Ten on the WWL recently debated the question of whether Jimmy Clausen will make a good professional quarterback. This is a good debate, since there's enough munition on either side to mount an explosive attack. But Skip Bayless says some stupid ass shit in it, which I will now expose:

I watched all or parts of every Notre Dame game.

Me too. But saying this will make Skip's later comments inexcusable.

I don't like the intangibles, the late-game body language, the leadership, the charisma...

ND-Michigan State. Clausen throws the winning TD pass with 5:18 left.
ND-Purdue. Clausen, with an injured foot, throws the winning TD pass with :24 left.
ND-Washington. Clausen throws a go-ahead TD pass with 1:20 left
ND-USC. Clausen comes within five yards of engineering a 3-touchdown 4th quarter comeback when his receiver slips.
ND-BC. Clausen throws the winning TD pass with 8:12 left.
ND-Navy. Clausen throws a TD pass with :24 left to bring ND within two.

Now, there were some missed chances (Pittsburgh comes to mind), but it's pretty stupid to say you don't like a guy's fourth quarter charisma when he plays his nuts off and the other half of his team collectively sucks bigger than Uranus, which weighs more than fourteen Earths.

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

If you actually watch the video, you'll realize that Skip didn't actually say that line three times. But I have reprinted it here three times to emphasize the stupid, which is of monumental proportion.

Jimmy Clausen threw for 3722 yards, tossed 28 touchdowns to 4 interceptions, and had the second-highest passer rating in the entire country (!).

Notre Dame's defense gave up 26ppg and almost 400ypg. This unit's pathetic performance was responsible for most of Notre Dame's underacheiving.

His mobility's pretty good, I'll give you that.

He did run for a net yardage of -95 this year... with a long rush of... 11 yards.

There's a bunch of other reasonable commentary about Charlie Weis's offense and adapting to the NFL and arm strength and all that. But I thought I would record the stupid. Because it's fucking stupid.

WMTMQR: Somehow, Gregg Actually Understands Less about NCAA Football than NFL Football

And that's really saying something. Hooooooooooooooo BOY. This one is a DOOZY.

Charlie Weis and Bobby Bowden had to go -- Notre Dame and Florida State weren't winning every game! Get rid of the bums! All we heard from sports commentators, and from alums and boosters, was get rid of the bums, we gotta win, win, win.

Well yeah. When you have plenty of talent, as FSU and ND did, winning is certainly expected. Both teams went 6-6 this year. Notre Dame lost its last four games, and had embarrassing close call wins over a few bad teams. Florida State opened 2-4, and eked out wins over a couple terrible teams.

Sorry to interject,

You're not. You're writing this column.

but why? Why does Notre Dame or Florida State or any university need to win every game?

They don't need to win every game. They need to win more than 6 of their games. They need to beat Navy, UConn, and South Florida. They need to not almost lose to Maryland, NC State, and Purdue. It's not asking too much of teams that consistently have top 20 recruiting classes to do so.

Is it now official that big colleges care more about sports than education?

No. It might appear that way if your only analysis of big colleges came from a sports website. But to suggest that the firings of 105 year old Bobby Bowden and can't-coach-his-way-out-of-a-wet-paper-bag Charlie Weis are a result of that made up phenomenon would be dumb.

Don't get me wrong. I attend way too many college football games, and I always like it when the school I'm rooting for wins. But I am not so misguided as to think that a college's winning games means more than a college's educating students, including athletes.

Let's start by getting a good chuckle at the straw man TMQ has built here. Let's build up to a mild laugh by considering his assertion that schools can't care more about educating their students than winning games, and still want to win a lot of games. And then let's just go ahead and let all our inhibitions go, laughing at the idea that firing a bad coach means a school cares more about winning games than educating its students.

Maybe the sports artificial universe won't face the uncomfortable reality that the NCAA system uses football and men's basketball players to generate revenue and great games -- then tosses way too many of these players aside uneducated.

That's very true. That's a real problem; something worth writing about. Unlike, say, complaining about schools which fire their coaches are somehow betraying their students by doing so.

Perhaps you're thinking, first, football players at big colleges are not being taken advantage of because they are being prepped for the NFL; and second, academics-oriented "smart schools" don't do well in sports, so if a college wants to win, standards must be low.

No one with a brain is thinking either of those things. No one. In fact, Notre Dame is specifically not thinking the second one. They want something which is very difficult to obtain- winning a lot, while staying academics-oriented. It's going to be hard to get that, especially in the current era of college football. But should they be criticized for trying? Fuuuuuuuuuuck no. As for FSU, it's a little less serious about its academic standards. But whatever, you can tell TMQ is mostly attacking ND here.

This generated a recruiting disadvantage -- and a recruiting disadvantage caused by high standards, not Weis suddenly forgetting how to coach, is the reason for the recent records of Notre Dame football. Notre Dame alums and boosters should have been proud that high standards keep the school from going 12-0!

OK. Everyone take note of this claim- that ND's recent lack of success is not due to Charlie Weis's lack of coaching ability, but their recruiting disadvantage (which is only a disadvantage against big football schools like Texas, USC, Florida, etc.; ND still has a huge recruiting advantage over 95% of the rest of the FBS). Now, take a deep breath. And read this:

What about the other commonly heard claim -- that "smart schools" can't win in football and men's basketball? Cal, Georgia Tech, Navy, Nebraska, Northwestern, Stanford and TCU -- all academics-first colleges where football players are more likely to attend class -- are on their way to bowl games. Most of them have been in the top 20 nationally this season, and Georgia Tech and TCU even made BCS bowls.

HOLY SHIT. YOU ARE FUCKING STUPID. YOU ARE THE STUPIDEST PERSON ALIVE. NO ONE ON EARTH, NOT EVEN RICKY DAVIS OR JEREMY SHOCKEY, IS STUPIDER THAN YOU. YES, TCU AND GATECH MADE BCS BOWLS. GREAT POINT. YOU THINK NOTRE DAME, ESPECIALLY WITH THE RECRUITING ADVANTAGE THEY HAVE OVER BOTH THOSE SCHOOLS (or at least TCU), MIGHT BE CAPABLE OF DOING THE SAME THING? YOU KNOW, MAYBE IF THEY HAD A COMPETENT HEAD COACH? YOU FUCKING DUNCE. NOTRE DAME WENT 6-6 THIS YEAR BECAUSE THEY HAD A BAD HEAD COACH. IF THEY HAD A GOOD HEAD COACH, THEY MIGHT HAVE GONE TO A BCS BOWL. LIKE TCU AND GEORGIA TECH, TWO OTHER SCHOOLS WITH HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS. HOLY SHIT, AGAIN. DOUBLE HOLY SHIT. DO YOU EVEN BOTHER TO READ WHAT YOU WRITE AFTER YOU WRITE IT?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Notre Dame would be headed for a bowl game too, if it weren't for athletic director Jack Swarbrick's bizarre notion that winning "only" six games is something to be embarrassed about.

Notre Dame would be heading to a bowl game, barely, if its own players hadn't voted to not attend one. And yeah, when you have arguably the best QB, two of the ten best WRs, one of the best TEs, an experienced OL filled with heralded recruits, a defense which returned six starters from 2008 and is also filled with heralded recruits, and a fairly soft schedule, winning six games is something to be embarrassed about. At least in an athletic context.

Smart schools dominate the Directors' Cup standings of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. For Division I sports, Stanford has won the Cup 14 times;

No one is arguing that it's hard to get athletes who play volleyball, water polo, cross country, tennis, field hockey, etc., and also want to go to class and get a good degree. No one.

A college can field winning football teams and still have strict academic standards for players;

YES. YES MOTHERFUCKING YES. YOU HORSE'S ASS. THAT'S WHY NOTRE DAME IS FIRING CHARLIE WEIS.

Why does the sports universe shy away from discussing these core points?

Because, right or wrong, the sports universe (and media) only really cares about sports on the field. The NCAA is a terrible organization; many schools exploit their athletes, no question; college sports has a large number of problems which should be addressed immediately before they spin even further out of control. Bringing these issues to the attention of the sports universe is an important pursuit. But it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

We're supposed to believe that every year for 75 years, the best player in college has been a quarterback or running back -- that a lineman has never been the best player?

This is from a section complaining about the Heisman. And while his general point is correct, even casual NCAAF fans know that Charles Woodson won the award primarily as a CB and KR. (Note: this is something that even casual fans know, or would say "Hey, yeah, that's right!" if they didn't know offhand but were reminded of. Unlike which bowl Notre Dame attended in 1993. Dan-Bob, looking at you.)

And speaking of TV ratings records, what if 18-0 Indianapolis meets 18-0 New Orleans in the Super Bowl? A few people would watch. Tuesday Morning Quarterback continues to think both teams are better off losing a regular-season game -- getting the monkey off their backs, while renewing their competitive drive. A Colts loss could give the starters something to play for down the stretch -- otherwise it'll be a month before the next Indianapolis game that means anything to the Colts.

They have homefield advantage locked up for the AFC playoffs. How does a loss "give them something to play for?" It certainly gives them nothing tangible to play for, which would be the case if they hadn't clinched yet. And I think that they have a lot more to play for at 15-0 trying to go 16-0 than they would at 14-1 trying to go 15-1.

For the final Indianapolis touchdown, also from in close, the Colts had linebackers Glenn and Gary Brackett in as extra blockers. The result was a play-fake, and again no one covered Clark on a simple down-and-out.

When a talented, quick, tough-to-cover player like DeSean Jackson or Dallas Clark gets open, it doesn't mean no one tried to cover them. It means they got open. Which is what happened on this play. But don't tell Gregg that- he's busy trying to establish that everyone in the league (or THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, for all you Dilfer/Jaworski enthusiasts out there) except guys who were undrafted out of D-III schools are too dumb to play.

The CBS announcers gushed about the tackles made by San Diego linebacker Brandon Siler, a well-known player who went to Florida, a glamour college.

They did. Because on San Diego's goal line stand against Dallas, he made some great tackles right at the goal line.

The key to the three stops was that undrafted defensive tackle Jacques Cesaire of Southern Connecticut State perfectly "submarined" the Dallas offensive line, driving underneath to knock down blockers so the linebackers could move in.

That was one of the keys. The other key was the tackling of guys like Siler. It's not that hard to understand.

As for Dallas -- the same play was called four consecutive times.

No. It was not. There were four runs called for Marion Barber, but all four were different plays. All had some kind of misdirection (which Gregg has been claiming for weeks is the key to picking up 3rd and shorts or 4th and shorts), including the 4th and goal play where Barber lined up at fullback and was given a quick handoff as Tony Romo faked a pitch to the guy lined up at halfback. Why do I know so much about this sequence of plays? Because that useless piece of shit Barber is on my fantasy team, and hasn't done shit in about seven weeks. AND I'M UPSET ABOUT IT.

On the San Francisco side, the Squared Sevens tried an interesting defensive trick -- barely rushing the passer.

They also rushed the passer pretty intensely on several downs, bringing five or six guys. But blitzing is always bad (except when it works, and then Gregg doesn't write about it), so Gregg didn't write about it.

many of the NFL's officials, who unlike MLB and NBA officials are not full-time, haven't memorized the rulebook.

They may interpret the rulebook oddly at times, but on the whole they're miles ahead of MLB and NBA officials in terms of quality. The favoritism shown by both those groups to star players is flat out embarrassing at times. Oh yeah, and isn't there some kind of gambling problem swirling around the NBA officials these days? I feel like I've heard something about that.

Shameless Self-Promotion: My next book, "Sonic Boom," about the pluses and minuses of the evolving global economy, is in stores on Dec. 29.

Buy it any of your friends who happen to be both braindead and huge elitists.

Robert Goetz of Bend, Ore., notes Major League Baseball's annual winter meetings ended on Dec. 10 -- 11 days before the solstice that marks the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere.

CREEP! SUCH CREEP! They should be called the late fall meetings! That's so much more accurate, we should totally change it. Actually- better yet- let's call them the Christmas meetings.

Football snobs may look down their noses at the Wildcat -- it's not "real" offense like constant passing!

No one looks down their nose at the Wildcat. No one. No one on TV, no one on local sports radio, no one in the blogosphere, no one I've talked football with in the last year. No one. It seems Gregg's stupidity is in part fueled by his vivid imagination.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Trailing Baltimore 10-0, and coming into the contest on a 2-26 stretch, Detroit faced fourth-and-goal on the Ravens' 3. Detroit coach Jim Schwartz sent in the field goal unit, and TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook -- even though it was the second quarter.

Ah, interesting. Trailing San Diego 10-3 late in the second quarter, Dallas went for it on 4th and goal from the 1. As described above, they failed (BECAUSE OF A GUY FROM SOUTHEAST RHODE ISLAND STATE! ONLY BECAUSE OF THAT ONE GUY! NOT BECAUSE OF ANYONE ELSE ON THE DEFENSE!), and went on to lose by 3. Hmmmmmm. Innnnnnteresting.

Trailing 19-0 in the third quarter, City of Tampa punted from the Jersey/B 42. Still trailing 19-0 in the third quarter, City of Tampa kicked a field goal on fourth-and-5 from the Jersey/B 25. The Bucs went on to lose 26-3 -- but kept a shutout off the résumé of Raheem Morris.

It's back! Yes! He must've noticed I complained about this a couple weeks ago! The accusation that coaches kick field goals when they're being shut out stictly to "keep shutouts off their resume"- as if anyone cares how many times their team has been shut out vs. how many times they've been held to three points- is back! Finally! I may be wrong but I don't think he's used it this season until now.

I derided LaRon Landry for wearing a wristwatch on the field -- the zebras should make him take it off, and how can the Redskins' countless assistant coaches not have noticed that he wears a watch on the field? John Martin of Dallas reports that the Redskins' many assistant coaches not only know Landry wears a watch, they encourage this. Supposedly the watch reminds him that "it's time to shine." After the New Orleans game, he should wear a wristband that says in bright letters, "It's time to cover the deep man."

No sarcasm- probably the best line I've ever seen from Gregg. Just wanted to give some credit where credit is due.

There can be fantastically well-played, hard-hitting football games in which no harm occurs to any player. Boxing is about causing harm. The sport is barbaric, and the sooner it's banned the better.

Hooray for paternalism! Also to be banned when Gregg takes over as Supreme Commander- rugby, cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, staying up late, and watching TV.

The Lakers (a Division II NCAA football team, not the NBA team) exchanged a roughly 50 percent chance of a touchdown (at the fourth-and-2 point) for a roughly 10 percent chance of recovering an expected onside kick. Football coaches at all levels typically make the wrong decision in this situation, kicking from point-blank range and then facing a length-of-the-field problem at the end. TMQ thinks coaches do this -- even in championship games! -- because they are more concerned about being able to say the final score was close than going all-out to win.

Right. Coaches in championship games, with their legacies and pride on the line, not to mention potential contract extensions or more lucrative jobs, are more concerned with the potential margin of defeat than winning. Winning a championship game. Welcome to the mind of TMQ. It's like smoking peyote while eating asbestos.

No.

Let the Weis-bashing commence! But my goodness, please, if you say anything like this in the process, you will, and I do mean will, sound like an inconceivable jackass. You know, kind of like David Haugh.

Notre Dame lost Charlie Weis's final game to Stanford, for those who haven't seen. Stanford was driving with little time left in a tie game, 38-38. They were down at ND's 4 yard line with just over a minute to play. First and goal.

The first came with 1 minute, 3 seconds left and the game tied 38-38 with Stanford at the Notre Dame 4. During a timeout, Weis told his players to let the Cardinal score to get the ball back with enough time to drive. On the next play, Toby Gerhart walked in untouched as one Irish defender didn't even move his hands off his knees.

Even if the call could be defended strategically, any time a coach of a bunch of 18- to 22-year-olds tells his team to lie down -- to quit -- it offends the sportsman in all of us. Weis first quit on his players last Sunday when he publicly acknowledged athletic director Jack Swarbrick had reason to fire him and again Saturday night with the game on the line.

What happened to the fight in Fighting Irish?

I'm near speechless, but I'm sure I can work up a tirade for this.

Stanford could have downed the ball three times and kicked a last-second field goal to win the game. Instead, they offer a GIFT, and try to score 7 points, which would give ND's offense a chance to retaliate in the final minute. And you are criticizing Charlie Weis for not vomiting the gift back in Stanford's face for some misconstrued sense of horseshit pride and "the sportsman in all of us". You literally just said that Weis told his players to "quit" in TAKING THE ONLY FUCKING CONCEIVABLE CHANCE THAT ND HAD TO WIN THE GAME.

I love this qualifier: Even if the call could be defended strategically

You are a football coach. As long as you are following the rules, that is THE ONLY THING THAT FUCKING MATTERS.

In reality, the only real mistake was that Weis didn't "quit" one play earlier. Why tackle them on the 4 yard line? That costed a timeout and about 10 seconds (because for whatever reason, Weis wasn't feeling the need to call timeouts as fast as possible yesterday).

I am not a Weis supporter. But as for writing crap like this in one of the nation's major newspapers: It is ignorant, it is lazy, it is stupid. Get a new job, you suck at yours.

You Can Be an ESPN Personality While Stealing the Jokes of 20-Year Old Undergraduates

A recent Rick Reilly Blog post, which proves that you CAN just reprint stuff from a bunch of undergrads and put your name on it and make money from ESPN!

A few team names NOT featured in Reilly's post:

This Is Our Drinking Game
Four Cowboys and an Indian
Banana Munchers
Off Tha Heezy
Ryan Grant and A Bunch of Other Football Players
Don't Think About AJ Hawk
Kevin and the Timepieces
Club Sped
Rigor Is Gay
Timmy, Tommy, Tammy? Who's Wasted?
Harold Swanagan's Booty

Sociology and Sportswriting Don't Mix: Gregg Doyel on Notre Dame's Decline

Gregg Doyel takes on the state of the Irish and the decline in the program. I realize that this article is designed to prompt a response, but I'm going to respond to it in a thoughtful and reasoned manner, without trying to initiating some kind of yelling match, but rather making a calm presentation of several places where Gregg goes horribly wrong.

Here's his basic thesis:

Once upon a time, Army was Notre Dame.

Soon enough, Notre Dame will become Army.

Right - Army football was dominant once, and is irrelevant now. Notre Dame football was dominant once, and mediocre now. Ok, I see the connection; let's see how Gregg's going to work this out:

It's not Notre Dame's fault, so if there are any Notre Dame fans out there feeling angry -- assuming there are still Notre Dame fans out there at all -

Ok, let's see: Notre Dame, for six straight seasons ending in 2004 (I couldn't find more recent data), was voted the most popular team in all of college football. In other news, Forbes magazine ranked Notre Dame the "most valuable" college football program. (1/2/2007).

There are Notre Dame fans out there.

- don't be mad at me. Notre Dame hasn't screwed up. Notre Dame hasn't changed.

Actually, Notre Dame *has* changed; the real answer to the problem about Notre Dame's institutional decline has as much (or more) to do with internal (but not heavily covered by sports media) changes at the school.

The world has changed around it, much as the world changed around Army 50 years ago.

Well, sure, but there's really no reason Notre Dame can't be competitive right now.

Just like with Army football, the evolution of America is killing Notre Dame. The most influential person in the world is no longer the Pope.

What? Who cares? Is there some correlation between the power of the papacy and Notre Dame's winning percentage?

The Catholic Church is no longer dictating how our country acts,

What? This country has had one Catholic president in its history. While Catholics in the country have a significant political presence, they're still only approximately 1/4 of the nation, by self-identification (and it's sure that a good chunk of that 1/4 aren't active or practicing enough to dictate anything).

so what chance does it have to influence where our best young football talent plays? It has no chance.

Huh. I wonder how the hell Notre Dame's enrolled class of 2008 managed to rank... first? on Rivals.com's ratings. Notre Dame's 2009 class

The number of Catholic kids is dwindling, and their draw to Notre Dame is dying.

Apparently that didn't matter last year.

I wish I knew what percentage of ND football players in the past were Catholic, but this is still pretty irrelevant. It's still the most storied program in college football program, they still have pretty good facilities, the only national-tv contract, and a reasonably-good shot of making the NFL. There are a lot of reasons kids might go to Notre Dame.

You don't have to like it, but don't pretend it's not a fact.

Actually, in using actual facts, I have demonstrated that several of your premises are absolute bullshit, Gregg. And it took me four minutes with Firefox to do it. I don't much like any of this decline, but I don't have to pretend you're any kind of knowledgeable authority on it.

It's no coincidence that Notre Dame football was at its best before the integration of college football. According to Gallup polling research, there are 33 million Catholics in the United States -- but only 7 percent are black. What does that tell you? It tells you that back in the day when college football was mostly white, and the Catholic church was in power, that the best (available) recruits would naturally take a hard look at Notre Dame.

And yet, last year, a lot of the best available recruits did look at Notre Dame. This is the sort of stupid bullshit that gets spouted by people like Paul Hornung. Who knows what "competitive advantage" Notre Dame might had by getting this mythical "Catholic athlete" before... but Notre Dame isn't at a competitive disadvantage in getting most athletes right now. You know what Notre Dame sucks at? Getting the dumb athlete.

Tradition only lasts so long, and for Notre Dame it's fabulous tradition carried into the 1970s and seeped somewhat into the '80s thanks to Lou Holtz's creative interpretation of the NCAA rulebook.

Or maybe the early 1990s, where for the first four seasons, the Irish went 40-8 and culminated a streak of finishing in the AP top six five out of six years?

__________________________________________________________________________

tl;dr:

Notre Dame football is mediocre right now. Notre Dame football, except for a few momentary flashes, has been utterly mediocre since 1993. Yet there's really no reason to believe that this is the result of some sort of pseudo-sociological argument about the decline of the Church in America. More useful might be some thought about why ND has become so mediocre: it's NOT because they haven't gotten recruits - in fact, the talent level has remained (mostly) excellent. It's because their coaches have been objectively mediocre. The changes at Notre Dame that have resulted in this string of reasonably-poor coaches are at the higher level.

Doyel's is a stupid, un-reasoned article. The basic premise is completely illogical:

1. The Catholic church has declined in America over the last 50 years - and isn't coming back.

2. Notre Dame football has declined over the last 20 years.

∴ Notre Dame football isn't coming back.

The funny thing is, Gregg might be right. Notre Dame football might never make it bacl to the upper echelon of college football. But if ND never does, it has itself to blame, not some bullshit sociology.

Complete Ignorance

Watching the ND/Mich State game. Two things have really, REALLY made me angry.

1) The key to the game for Notre Dame: "Win on the road." Thanks a bunch.

2) With 2:42 left in the first quarter, Notre Dame recovers a fumble. The color guy says "That's the 9th takeaway for Notre Dame in their first two-and-a-third games."

Two-and-a-third.

Football games are composed of four quarters.

The first one hasn't ended yet.

Huh?

Pat Forde Passed Tenth-Grade English

As bad as the article chris w posted last week with the overextended introduction via Death Cab For Cutie was, I think this is even worse.

It's right in the middle of a slow offseason for college football fans; the recruits are settled and Terelle Pryor plans to make a decision next week, but the season doesn't start for another month and a half. So, of course, the WWL's football showpiece, Pat Forde, needs to do something to drum up interest and draw out an article. Rather than just predicting, Pat decided to go with a theme as well. I imagine Pat's final list of themes for the article looked something like this:

1. American heroes - as it's almost July 4th and everyone likes fireworks.
2. Aliens and extraterrestrials - celebrating the Will Smith classic Independence Day and a celebration of world multiculturalism and xenophobia.
3. Gas prices and the war in Iraq - for those of you scoring at home, the terrorists are currently winning.
4. Shakespeare - why not?

Because it's June, and because June is slower than an Ivy League defensive back when it comes to college football news, the boss e-mailed me with a quirky story idea.

The throwaway gag aside, I wonder who Pat's boss is, and I wonder if this is really how things work over at the ESPN Offices, which are doubtless the sort of wacky and fun offices that we glimpse in those hilarious SportsCenter commercials.

The curiosity in me wants to see this email...

He pointed out that Midsummer's Eve was upon us, and the day has a long tradition of being a time for telling fortunes. Some guy named William Shakespeare even built a story around Midsummer's Eve -- and the suggestion was that I do the same.

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal" - Eliot.

"Fuck it, man, the boss wants me to sound like a pretentious asshole while I'm writing about college football, why the hell not?" - Pat Forde

Who can turn down an offer like that?

Good question, Pat. You can't, I guess, but I'm not sure this really applies to anyone else in the world... most of our bosses don't ask us to do things like this.

After reacquainting myself with "A Midsummer Night's Dream,"

Do you think he read the play? It seems that he deliberately avoided saying that he re-read the play; I think, in this context, "reacquainted" means "read the SparkNotes".

it seems Shakespeare himself might have had football on the brain when he wrote it. You don't believe me? I have the evidence.

This is so funny!

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" -- Was that Puck? Or Tim Tebow?

Why would Tim Tebow say that? Am I missing something?

So he rambles on about some connections between Shakespeare and football and whatever. But on to his predictions:

1. Notre Dame will be better.

No shit. Notre Dame was awful last year. This is a lousy prediction.

Perhaps improved enough to lose another bowl game.

Good thing you qualified that. You wouldn't want to predict a six-win Notre Dame team. That would be really going out on a limb.

But part of the Fighting Irish fan base won't notice, because it'll be consumed with watching for Scourge of Humanity Ty Willingham to fail at Washington.

Most likely. It'll be better than watching Notre Dame play USC, for sure.

3. Rick Neuheisel won't bet on his own team in the office bowl pool.

No shit. His team sucks, and he'll never coach again if he gets in trouble. What kind of predictions are these?

4. Ohio State at USC is the nonconference game of the year.

No shit! I'm glad you predict this, Pat!

Honestly, I really want to know how long it takes these writers to write these articles. I could write this shit in like an hour. At that rate, Forde should pump out eight of these a day, but his archive suggests he gets one out every four days or so.

5. Georgia at Arizona State won't be bad, either.

What a lousy prediction. They both won 10 games last year. You suck, Pat.

There are some other predictions but they're either boring or poor attempts at humor. In sum: The article was poorly written, it has an inane and questionable theme, and the predictions are mostly nonsense. I realize ESPN has to provide some content to the college football fans who need something to read during the offseason, but this is ridiculous.

Here's what's even more ridiculous: the picure and the caption. Voila:

William Shakespeare isn't the only one who can pen a midsummer night's dream.

*&^$ the heck? I wonder what the caption writers were thinking. How many levels of irony can you spot in that statement? I'm finding at least four....

It's time to close this critique. If you haven't fallen asleep while reading it, or if I've offended you with this commentary, just pretend it was all a dream... because Pat Forde certainly chose a weak and idle theme for this article.

Ed Hardiman Needs to Drink a Bottle of Antifreeze

Again, as I've announced before, there's no way that Jay Mariotti is my least favorite writer. It's this guy, Ed. Ed is a man who pretty much sits at his computer trying to be funny about twice a week and fails miserably (not that his idiot commenters ever take note -- I bet he filters them). Here he draws up a hilarious passage about The Gipper being exhumed!

The Associated Press reports Notre Dame legend George Gipp was exhumed yesterday. Gipp, famous for inspiring Knute Rockne to coin the phrase "Win one for the Gipper" and launching Ronald Reagan on the road to the Presidency, was driven to the South Bend campus of Notre Dame where he gave a rousing speech exhorting the one-win Fighting Irish to win at least two.

While several players admitted they didn't know who George Gipp was an equal number admitted they didn't know who Ronald Reagan was either. George Weiss admitted bringing in the corpse of a former player was a desperate act but, "...The only other dead legend, Knute Rockne, was booked solid until 2010."

HAHAHHAHAHAHA! Notre Dame athletes are stupid! What a fucking retarded school, they'll just let in ANYONE if they can play football! Those MORONS don't even know who Ronald Reagan is!

But seriously, can anyone tell me if there has been any pressure on Notre Dame to lower academic admission standards in an effort to admit better football players? Has this ever been an issue before? No? Cool. Didn't think so. What a school full of retards.

Gipp gained 2,341 yards on the ground for the Fighting Irish over 3 seasons before succumbing to strep throat weeks before being named Notre Dame's 1st All American in 1920. His deathbed declaration to Knute Rockne might be the best ever given, even if its apocryphal;

"I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys — tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy."

Bob, an offensive lineman, had this to say "Yeah, um it was hard to tell what he was saying and at one point his head fell off and rolled around on the floor but it was inspirational, though I think ending the speech "Win one for the Swiffer" or something like that was kind of confusing..."

How can you possibly accuse anyone else of being stupid? I think you have the IQ of a grapefruit. And just for future reference, if you want to say college football players are stupid, try not to confuse "it's" and "its" or forget commas before quotations.

When Father Ted McGuiness-Stout was asked if bringing the dead back to life conformed to the theological mission of the school he angrily retorted "Go to @#$% you Protestant @#$%."

ZOMG priests swearing!

Wendy a perky cheerleader, or nubile enthusiasm generator as Don, the school information assistant hastily pointed out, said Gipp was "Dreamy." She later admitted she "...liked older guys cause they're way more mature and Gipp was really old." so old in fact, "...he lived in a box under the ground." After being asked if she knew what "being dead" meant she admitted it sounded a lot like what happened when her pet cat Fluffy went away forever when she was in the 2nd grade.

And those Notre Dame cheerleaders! What stereotypical ignoramuses! They're trim blonde girls with huge tits who just sleep around constantly and once performed sexual favors for the admissions dude just so they could get into the fucking school! Nothing but flies inside their heads! Hell, they don't even know what "dead" means! Isn't Notre Dame some sort of community college?

The overall impact of this desperate measure won't be known until this coming weekend. As for Gipp he plans to remain dead and has no immediate plans, though ESPN has offered him a reality show called "Fourth and Dead with George Gipp."

Wow. "Fourth and Dead?" That's the best fucking play on words you could come up with?

I have to be up early tomorrow. Now I'm too pissed off to sleep.

To recap: Jay Mariotti is someone I want to yell at a lot and just explain to him how dumb and wrong he is about everything. Ed Hardiman is someone I want to hit with a crowbar.

Sensational Stories > Sports

Screenshot of the current front page at the World Wide Leader:



If I were a fan of Florida, Tennessee, Boston College, Georgia Tech, USC or Nebraska I might be a bit annoyed at ESPN's frontpage, where none of those six teams and their important games get a bit of a mention. Three ranked-team showdowns and who's the cover story on one of the biggest websites in sports?

Notre Dame-Michigan. What sells? Not good sports, apparently!

In Other News, Notre Dame Has Sucked This Year.

God knows chris w and larry b and I have discussed the Ty bit enough. I don't know how the rest of you feel, but it's an article that merits an examination. Here's the latest from Pat Forde. who calls himself "The Dash".

Domers, Your Credibility Is On The Clock

When Notre Dame (2) trap-doored Tyrone Willingham (3) after just three years on the job in 2004, it established a precedent for the next coach: You've got three years, pal. Have it up and running at full speed or else.

Trap-doored. I guess the intent is that ND management deliberately hired Ty to fail. I don't imagine you have anything to back that up. I admit it's a possibility, but I'm not sure I can agree with that sentiment. As for the three-year bit...

Or at least that should have been the established precedent, if Notre Dame was interested in treating its next coach the same way it treated the first African-American coach in the school's history.

Nice. The race card. Third sentence. Damn racists.

But Charlie Weis (4) probably can go 2-10 in this, his third year, and still be back in 2008. Why? The simple answer is fairness -- the majority of coaches should get a fourth season, no matter how the third one turned out. But since fairness didn't factor in with Willingham (6-5 in year three, 21-15 overall), The Dash will offer another reason. Weis (0-2 in year three, 19-8 overall)

Weis was 9-3 in Year Two, Willingham was 5-7... indicating, in some sense, the improvement you mentioned in your first line, Pat. Also, stop calling yourself "The Dash". It smacks of smarmy self-image, which is exactly what you're trying to expose at Notre Dame.

was awarded a 10-year, $30 million-plus contract during his first season -- something that would make a firing very costly. He got the contract largely on the strength of a close loss to a great USC team and some interest from the NFL -- although Weis said at his introductory news conference in December 2004, "I don't come here to leave and take a job in the NFL in three years. This is not a stepping stone. This is an end-all for our family. When we come to Notre Dame, we come here with the intent of retiring here." So either Notre Dame hysterically overbid to keep an unproven coach

That was a wild shot, Pat. Ty had head-coached at the lower-D1 college level. Charlie ran an NFL offense to Super Bowls. That "unproven" was inflammatory rhetoric leaking through your otherwise tame article. If you had a case here, you'd make it. But you don't.

come who had no intention of going anywhere, or else Weis' loyalty pledge turned weak enough that the school felt compelled to overpay to keep him.

I think I agree with this sentiment. I wouldn't be surprised to hear much more from the "Fire Charlie" front if it could be done more cost-effectively. From what I've heard, a combination of factors beyond winning % contributed to the denial of that fourth season to Ty. I don't know to what extent a coach has to suck up to the surrounding community, and I don't know whether Ty was unfairly tagged for not brown-nosing. What I have heard in several cases is that Ty's practices as a football coach happened to distance him from important people in the university.

Either way, Charlie and the Irish would appear joined at the hip -- even while the Notre Dame of Weis' third season is starting to bear strong resemblance to the Notre Dame of Ty Willingham's intolerable third season.

Agree.

Actually, it's worse. Far worse. That doesn't mean it can't turn around, but the current product is dreadful.

It's pretty damned awful. But you do a shit job of explaining why.

Dating back to last season, the Irish have lost four consecutive games by at least 20 points. Last time Notre Dame lost four straight by 20 or more? How does never sound? But then again, they've only been playing football in South Bend since 1887.

In the 120-year history of Notre Dame football, they have never played four consecutive teams currently ranked in the top 15, as those last four are. Just thought that stat might be useful.

(One of the big knocks on Willingham, by the way, was too many blowout losses.)

Agreed. Though the most damning, in my opinion, was the annihilation at the hands of an unranked Syracuse team at the end of the 2003 season. Not the same as getting annihilated in a BCS bowl. Not the same thing at all.

It could turn out that the teams that ripped the Irish this year, Georgia Tech (5) and Penn State (6), are the best teams in the ACC and Big Ten, respectively.

Nice to know. Could be. I think you only threw this in to set up something else. Oh wait -

But that would only continue Weis' trend of beating the bad teams and losing to the good ones. He's 4-6 against ranked opponents (including four straight lopsided losses)

Like I mentioned before, "Dash", against what "could turn out to be" one of the most difficult stretches in recent football. Certainly no other team in all of NCAA football can claim to have played the #1, #2, #13 and #15 teams in the last four games, with only one of those at home. And don't tell me the Sugar Bowl wasn't a home game for LSU. Just don't.

and 15-2 against the unranked. Average end-of-season Sagarin rating for the 19 teams Weis has beaten: 62nd. Average end-of-season Sagarin rating for the 21 teams Willingham beat from 2002-04: 55th.

Fair points, though I find it amusing that he quotes Sagarin rating, a generally unused football statistic. I guess the Sagarin rankings help you qualify the wins over unranked teams, but is that really necessary?

Also, here's my problem with evaluating the current situation at ND: I want to compare Weis to the standards he sets for himself and the standards set at the University, rather than comparing his win-Sagarin to Willingham's win-Sagarin.

The one thing Weis was supposed to deliver was a state-of-the-art offense capable of carving up any defense. He did that -- when Willingham's players were there. The 2007 Irish have not scored an offensive touchdown, even though Weis told his players his first season they would have a "decided schematic advantage" in every game. Some advantage: They've scored 13 points on the season -- fewest through the first two games of the year since 1942. They're last in the nation in rushing offense and total offense.

Played two *decent* defenses. Have no offensive line. Surprise? This is probably the best paragraph in Pat's whole article - at this point, he's actually bringing in evidence that Charlie Weis isn't that much better of a coach than Tyrone Willingham is. Shame he goes on to make some idiotic and reasonably uninformed remarks.

The easy fall guy for Domers protective of Weis is the same fall guy they pounded in 2003 and '04: Willingham. They'll tell you his lackluster recruiting left the cupboard bare, setting the stage for this difficult season. They like to talk about the rankings of recruiting classes.

dan-bob likes to note that a mere 22 players exist in Notre Dame's current junior and senior classes. 22 - the normal size of one recruiting class. Ty recruited only 33 players for both of those classes. The Dash might hate recruiting rankings, and to some extent they're not perfect, but you can't simply throw them out altogether. Here is Rivals.com's list of Notre Dame's classes from 2002-2008. Clear disparities exist between the 2003 class (Ty's most effective) and the 2004 class, which is the current senior class Weis has to lead the team.

dan-bob also notes that a recent article by Pat Forde mentions the up-and-coming status of Illinois based on the quality recruiting done by Ron Zook. But that was Pat Forde. This is "The Dash". Deep down, I bet you The Dash doesn't throw out recruiting numbers, but he sure does here. Because it's convenient to his point.

The Dash likes to talk about productivity.

Fuck you, Dash. Here's where you are exposed as an idiot.

For instance: Of the 856 points Notre Dame has scored with Weis as head coach, 19 of them have been scored by players who originally committed to and signed with him. That includes the defensive touchdown, the extra point and two field goals that constitute this season's scoring. A Weis recruit has scored exactly one offensive touchdown in 27 games: George West (7) on an 11-yard run last season against Purdue, one of three times West touched the ball from scrimmage in 2006.
Clearly, Charlie Weis hasn't been recruiting the last few years because his recruits suck ass. Clearly, if George West's ass was any good, he would've outplayed the 3 1000-YARD RECEIVERS who caught all those passes and scored all those touchdowns in 05-06. I bet even you, Dash, would not have elected to throw George West the ball the last three seasons when you had Fasano, Stovall-don't-know-you, Samardzija, and McKnight.

Honestly. Arguing that Charlie Weis is a shitty coach because George fucking West only touched the ball three times last season is like arguing that ... shit, I don't know what it's like, but it's moronic.

Was this the same media outlet that praised the Weis regime for recognizing and coaching the Samardzija/Zbikowski duo to a success they had never dreamed of achieving under Willingham? I remember that piece I caught in ESPN the mag. But that's what happens. ESPN writers are the ones that sell Notre Dame when it's high, and sell Notre Dame stories when it's low. ESPN writers don't do investigative journalism on actual double standards in sports, ESPN writers get hits on their websites by telling the masses what they want to hear. This is why we at this blog generally loathe them.

It's true that Weis coached many of Willingham's players better than Willingham ever did. It's also true that Weis owes Willingham a large debt for at least getting the likes of Brady Quinn, Jeff Samardzija and Darius Walker on campus.

Pat, if you're going to argue that Willingham is responsible for bringing in three quality recruits, you can't simply ignore the many more shitty recruits that he also brought in who are either riding the pine or who left the program! You just can't!

Meanwhile, Washington (8) is 2-0 in its third season under Willingham, having won by 30 points on the road to open the season and then ending the nation's longest winning streak in a two-touchdown upset of Boise State (9).

Irrelevant to the discussion of the current double standard at Notre Dame.

Willingham is in a place that suits him better than Notre Dame ever did.

Quite possible.

He might never have won truly big in South Bend

This could be termed "fact".

and might never have been truly happy.

I don't care if the ND coach is happy.

But the criticism of Willingham was as excessive as the praise (and compensation) accorded Weis. That's the double standard Notre Dame has set in place, and the double standard it must live with.

A fair point. In general I agree with some of the sentiments in your article about the respective hoopla created around coaches. It might be nice to consider that you writers, as a group, have a large say in creating hoopla. In a way, it might be a more impressive article if you were to look at the internal ways the University evaluates its coaching practices - and I'm sure it will be roundly discussed at the round-tables under the Dome if Weis's season continues as abysmal as it has begun. Will Charlie Weis's job be more secure not just because of the money he makes but also because he rubs more ND people the right way?

Pat, here's the thing: you've avoided several significant points:
1. the non-football reasons Ty was decidedly "out" with the ND inner circles that probably have more to do with the double standard you cite than any of your bullshit stats about recruit productivity that The Dash subscribes to. I would like to know more facts about this.
2. the lack of an effective strategy on offense based on available personnel, most notably in the meltdown vs. GT two weeks ago. the relative lack of improvement between GT and PSU.
3. the shitty 2005 recruiting season, since Ty got the axe in December and Charlie didn't start the job until after the Pats' run to the Super Bowl, almost at signing day.
4. the difference in willingness to make staffing changes and replace underperforming coordinators (reportedly one of the significant reasons for #1).
5. the offensive line's utter inability to protect the green quarterbacks or generate a rushing yard.

Some sensationalism, a few random facts, the underlying race card, another ESPN article.

All Right HatGuy: Your Gross Abuse of Your Job is now Personal

"Carroll Could be the next Rockne"

In this article, HatGuy compares Pete Carroll to Knute Rockne. In this article, HatGuy makes outlandish claims based on nothing. In this article, HatGuy states 'facts' that are patently false. You might think it about par for the HatGuy course. Except this article is about Notre Dame and USC, which means I hate you even more, HatGuy.

Let's get down to business:

When I think about Pete Carroll, the name that keeps jumping into my head is Knute Rockne. I keep telling myself that there have to be better analogies, and there probably are. But my brain won’t cooperate. It keeps whispering “Rockne.”

This isn’t an opinion based on careful analysis. It’s a gut feeling. If it were anything else, I’d flippantly fling it in the recycle bin and move on.

Focus on that last paragraph. Actually, re-read those three sentences. Do it again. I'll wait.

...

I believe HatGuy just claimed that if this concept for an article WERE ANYTHING BUT A NONSENSICAL FEELING OF HIS PROBABLY-CIRRHOTIC GUT, HE WOULD PLACE IT IN HIS RECYCLING BIN AND MOVE ON. OSTENSIBLY IF HE CAREFULLY ANALYZED SOMETHING, HE WOULD THROW IT AWAY. MIKE CELIZIC BASES HIS JOURNALISM ON ITS CONSISTENCY WITH HIS DAILY GASTROINTESTINAL ISSUES, WHICH ARE PROBABLY SEVERE BECAUSE HE IS OLD.

Picture me using a Norm McDonald voice for this one:

"Yeah, hello REAL READERS? Yeah it's me... dan-bob... Listen, there's this fake HatGuy going around pretending to be a real HatGuy and offering carefully analyzed opinions... he just stole a bunch of readers from firejaymariotti.blogspot.com.... so DON'T BE FOOLED!"

Also, I like the line: "If it were anything else, I’d flippantly fling it in the recycle bin and move on." I figured that the moment a vague connection floats into HatGuy's addled head, he flippantly flings it onto MSNBC.com and then moves on to the next hat store or something.

It shouldn’t be hard to do. Carroll isn’t anything like Rockne, college football’s first celebrity coach. Rockne was born in Norway and worked in the U.S. Post Office in Chicago before enrolling at Notre Dame. He was a star end at the age of 25 on the team that beat Army in 1913 and introduced the nation to the forward pass.

On graduation, Rockne became a chemistry teacher at Notre Dame. When he took over the football team in 1918, it’s doubtful that many people outside of Notre Dame either knew exactly who he was or cared.

HatGuy's dedicated readers might think that Notre Dame is the sort of shit-lucky place that can pull chemistry teachers out of the lab and chuck them onto the football field and turn them into college football legends. I don't really want to disabuse anyone of that notion; I find it kind of endearing. But, HatGuy readers, anyone who cared about college football in 1918 would've realized that Rockne had been an assistant coach for the Irish since 1914. But that wasn't an important fact, was it... HatGuy? HatGuy?

It took him six years to win his first national championship and five more years to win the first of back-to-back titles in 1929-30. By then, he had transformed himself into a coaching superstar, the darling of Hollywood and the syndicated columnists like Grantland Rice who were to Rockne’s world what ESPN is to Carroll’s. When Rockne died in a plane crash in the spring of 42, it was like the death of a president.

1. Don't mention the fact that his 1919 and 1920 teams are also in some books considered national champions, inasmuch as they finished the season undefeated and untied both years.

2. Fact check: Rockne's plane crashed in the spring of 1931, immediately after his teams won those back-to-back titles. About par for the HatGuy course: at least one completely incorrect fact that could be proven wrong with three seconds of googling. I imagine he looked up a bio of Rockne for this, but somehow managed to get one of the more critical dates utterly wrong. I suspect HatGuy has Mad Cow disease or something.

I have an idea! We take all of HatGuy's future articles and play HatGuy Golf - seeing how much under par or over par he is for his pitiful standards. Anyone want to play a round later?

HatGuy goes on to illuminate Pete Carroll's string of loserness in the NFL. Apparently he made the playoffs in no fewer than HALF the seasons that he coached in the NFL - including a stint with the Jets in which he coached a single season before getting the axe. A vintage bit:

A three-year stint with New England from 1997-99 saw a 10-6 record and a 1-1 record in the playoffs, then two years of decline before he collected his second pink slip.

Fact check: in 1998, Pete Carroll's 1998 Patriots MADE THE PLAYOFFS at 9-7. His record in the playoffs is actually 1-2! I guess that was decline! You are a lazy piece of shit!

He came by the USC job by default when all the candidates ahead of him, including Dennis Erickson, turned down the job.

This is probably true.

But here’s where I start thinking Rockne again. The reason is because both he and Carroll basically came out of nowhere — one from the chem lab and the other from the scrapheap. One was a funny-looking immigrant kid, the other was just funny. Rockne took over a program that had had a taste of glory and wanted more. Carroll moved into one that had been at the heights of the game and wanted to get back.

National titles at ND before Rockne: 0
National titles at SC before Carroll: 5 (or so).

So basically Rockne took off his chemistry lab goggles, rolled up his smock and commandeered an institution that had never been regarded as a football power and turned it into the most significant single institution in college football even 77 years after his death.

Pete Carroll is a great coach. He rescued an admittedly moribund program and has returned it to incredible heights. Pete Carroll was already a famous person - since one normally gets famous when one coaches in the National Football League.

The basis of this article is patently false: Carroll's unique story is not really comparable at all to Knute Rockne's unique story.

Most of all, both are heavy on charisma and self-confidence; Rockne didn’t care what everybody else thought, and neither does Carroll. And those qualities are what made Rockne the best in his day and Carroll the best in his.

Rockne's Winning Pct: .881
Carroll's Winning Pct: .844
Rockne's Charisma and Self-confidence Pct: 100%
Carroll's Charisma and Self-confidence Pct: 100%

I almost wish he would've supported this claim with some anecdotal evidence. Maybe Rockne's self-confidence was noted by the fact that he was willing to take the Irish to LA to start playing SC. Maybe Pete Carroll's self-confidence is noted by the fact that his players complain about the length of the grass.

A big difference is that Carroll has gotten to the top faster than Rockne did. After going 6-6 in his first season, Carroll went 11-2 in his second, and then won 37 of his next 39 games, including 34 in a row and two national championships — the AP title in 2003 and both the AP and the BCS crown the following year.

Let the record show, FatGuy, that Rockne went undefeated in his second AND third year at ND. As a matter of fact, he only lost two games in his first three years! As a matter of fact, Pete Caroll lost two games in his first three games!

After finishing 11-2 last year, Carroll’s record for the past five seasons is 59-6. His overall winning percentage is 84.4 percent, just a couple of ticks behind Rockne’s all-time Division I-A record of 88.1 percent. He's expected to move closer to that mark this season as the Trojans are likely to start No. 1 in the preseason polls. And his recent recruiting classes have been second to none.

Pete Carroll is a very good coach of very good football teams. Let the record show that even after all those accomplishments he still has to win 24 straight games to pass Rockne.

Then HatGuy goes on to compare Carroll to some other college coaches like Wilkinson and Bryant. I imagine there are egregious errors there, but I don't care. I've had enough of your shite, HatGuy. Your offenses to sports are encouraging me to compile your errors, contact MSNBC.com, have you removed from your job, and force you to enter a profession where people tolerate this shit. Like maybe political journalism.