The beauty of this article is that it not that it tries to compare NCAA football to European professional soccer. It's not that it compares Brian Kelly to Bob Davie. I'm sure you can see the brain power behind those comparisons without help. No, the beauty of this article is that it shows the
paradox of the "ND is NOT relevant!" logic perfectly. In case you were distracted by Reilly's obligatory Leprechaun hazing and Rudy references, his logic goes something like this:
A.
Notre Dame is NOT
relevant!
B.
Notre Dame shouldn’t
get to be on TV
C.
Notre Dame shouldn’t
get invited to big bowl games
D.
Notre Dame shouldn’t
get ranked high in the preseason
The paradox here is that B, C,
and D ARE THE REASONS why A is not true.
· We are relevant
BECAUSE NBC is willing to extend our TV deal year after year. You don’t
think we’re a bigger brand than USC? Then why does everyone tune into
watch us lose every week on NBC? More people love Notre Dame… or hate us…
doesn’t matter to me… that makes us relevant.
· We are relevant
BECAUSE we get invited to big bowl games. Yep, we keep losing.
Don’t invite us back then. Why do we keep getting invited? Because
people love us. Or love to hate us. Doesn’t matter to me… but
thanks for making us relevant.
· Notre Dame gets
ranked high in the preseason BECAUSE we are relevant. I’m sure the
coaches and press are brainwashed into thinking we’re better than we are.
They want so badly to put Oregon State in the top 25 but find their pens
mysteriously writing Notre Dame instead. It’s a conspiracy! Someone
from Notre Dame must be counting the votes. Let’s keep talking about
it! Talk talk talk! Guess what talk does – it makes us RELEVANT.
What Reilly, and anyone
else who wants to relegate Notre Dame should do is: Stop writing and talking
about us. If we’re so irrelevant, that should be easy. Please, tune
us out. Write about golf. Vote us out of the top 25. Bet you
can’t do it. You know why? Say it with me now….
I know you want to comment on this post. I think we should keep the dialogue going. I’m up for talking about Notre Dame any time. We should talk about Notre Dame a lot. You should discuss this with your friends too I think. I'm sure Reilly will be revisting this irrelevant topic many times this year. Maybe ESPN could cover this debate throughout the entire season; have a chat room devoted to it. Put some poll widgets up on Reilly's bio page. There should be some time in the upcoming presidential debates devoted to Notre Dame. More people should write about this. Maybe NBC could cover it. I feel the Notre Dame buzz growing, like it always does this time of year. Like it always will.
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