This Blog Is About Farve, Notre Dame, Cubs, Chicago…
If you have a few free moments today, it would be a good idea to check out an article written by Rick Morrissey, a sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune and the website Chicagosports.com. Titled “This column is about the Cubs, Farve and Notre Dame,” we found it to a surprisingly quizzical look at why sports writers write what they write about. Although he’s mainly just trying to make some funnies, the truth is pretty clear: sports writers cover what grabs the biggest audience in the hopes of not only becoming a more popular writer themselves, but also selling the most copy. As you might have guessed, Notre Dame stories are big time hits with Chicago sports fans, so simply mentioning Notre Dame in the title is a surefire way to get a lot of attention. Heck, it worked on the Notre Dame Blog. We wouldn’t be here if we haven’t been searching for articles about Notre Dame, right?
But then what’s the problem? If fans want to hear about Notre Dame Football, then that’s what they should get, right? One thing that might pose a problem is that things that are unpopular stay unpopular, while things that are already mega-popular, such as Notre Dame football, get even more popular. There’s no more variety. Also, in the effort to please the readers, the sports media might neglect their other duties, making wider themes and overarching stories more prominent.
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Clausen, Harangody No Longer Eligible to Play!?!?!
Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen and power forward Luke Harangody will not be eligible to play in the upcoming season of college sports, as they are no longer amateur athletes. Well. Not really. But that’s the worst that could happen to the future head of the football program and the reigning Big East Player of the Year in basketball, IF Notre Dame actually gets in trouble for the images of Clausen and Harangody being used in an advertisement.
Here’s the scoop: Apparently an online ringtone company used pictured of Clausen and Big Luke in some of their advertisements, but they forgot to follow the old rule that you can’t use college players images while they are still playing. There are ways around it- just ask EAsports. However, it was probably just a simple mistake by a guy who didn’t know the rules. Notre Dame sent a cease and desist order to the company, and the problem should go away very soon. Jimmy and Luke have little to worry about, and so do their fans. Sorry about the dramatic title, but hey- we’re in the media, right? Gotta sell that story.
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Former Notre Dame Star Zorich Enshrined in Hall of Fame
Chris Zorich played nose tackle for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team during some of the team’s better years in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, leading a defense that was as intimidating as it was successful. Zorich is now a member of the College Football hall of Fame, a huge honor for any former player to receive. Make sure you check out the story about Zorich at UND.com. They actually have some great stats and stories about what he was able to accomplish while he was playing in blue and gold. We’re all very proud of Zorich here at the Notre Dame Blog! Way to go!
In other Irish news, if you check out this story at the team’s official website, you can see that the Irish have sent one of their great rowers to the Under-23 National team. That’s right. Not only that, but she, one Amanda Polk, helped to lead the team to a gold medal in an international crew competition in Germany. How about that? Nice going, Amanda. Keep up the good work.
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New Blog at ESPN Focuses on Fighting Irish, “Others”
ESPN is running a college football blog for several of the biggest conferences, including the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big East and ACC. They also have a blog for the “Others,” basically meaning the Non-BCS teams, the Mid Majors the Independents and all other hangers-on. The Irish, as you know, don’t have a standard conference, so sometimes they miss out on the fun of having a built-in group of competitors within a small group. Oh well. As the biggest and baddest independent team, there’s plenty of Notre Dame blog posts here. Check it out.
There’s a blog about the hiring of Jack Swarbrick, the new Notre Dame athletic director. As you know, the new AD has been the dominant storyline about Irish for the past month or two. I also like how they are keeping it divided from the rest of the major conference teams. For example, they have listed some of the quarterbacks from the little conferences that were listed as award watch list entries.
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Irish Football Preview at Sports Illustrated
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is going to be stronger, better, bigger and faster than they were last year. And they’re going to win more games. These are the thoughts of Athlon Sports, via the Irish team preview at Sports Illustrated.com. While this year’s easier schedule will help, the Irish have also added a bunch of great players to their depth, making injuries at key positions nothing that will damper the year.
There are tons of previews out there, and there are sure to be plenty more to come as the football season draws near. Heck- we’re probably going to give you a different outlook on the season every week, as the sports writers of America go through the task of putting together some interesting analysis about America’s most popular team. These outlooks are usually dangerously optimistic, but with the Irish in 2009, you can’t help but suggest that there will be dramatic improvement from last season.
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Notre Dame Hires Indianapolis Lawyer as Athletic Director
Jack Swarbrick is the new athletic director at the University of Notre Dame. The announcement that Swarbrick would be the new AD came yesterday morning at a news conference. Read up on the whole story here, at Sports Illustrated.com. Apparently Swarbrick was impressive enough in his interviews, and his work in getting some sporting events to the city of Indianapolis. He was able to secure Indy as the host city for multiple Final Fours, the 2012 Super Bowl and some Big Ten tournaments. He graduated from Notre Dame, and has extensive knowledge about college athletics. In the news conference about the hire, everyone seemed to share a full vote of confidence in the hiring.
But where does this new guy stand on the issues? Does he favor the bowl system, or does he prefer a playoff system in college football? Will he keep Notre Dame independent in football, or will he try to seek out a conference to join in the next few years? Will he make any drastic changes in coaching personnel? Will he try to change up the way the football schedule has gone? Read the article to find out, but you’ll probably be glad to hear that Swarbrick is not planning on rocking the boat very much.
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Notre Dame Will Announce New AD Today!!!
The University of Notre Dame is prepared to announce the new Athletic Director of the school’s sports teams today, and the anticipation here at the Notre Dame Bog is just killing us. By all accounts close to the decision, there’s one guy in particular that the Irish are looking at putting in Kevin White’s old position as the AD… but still, this could be any body’s guess.
As you probably know, the storyline for the AD job has gone like this: Kevin White, a fine AD by all standards, left to get the same job at Duke. The search for a new AD sparked up immediately, with several names entering the list of possible candidates. The Notre Dame AD job is possibly the hardest and most sought-after AD gig in the nation, so the competition was supposed to be fierce.
However, there seems to be a basic understanding by people who are in the know that the Irish are set on picking a lawyer from Indianapolis named Jack Swarbrick. They guy helped to get the Super Bowl in Indy in 2012, and he’s a graduate of Notre Dame. Stay tuned to see how we dissect the pick tomorrow.
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Irish Stars Appear on Award Watch Lists
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have a few players on the watch list of some important individual college football awards. Jimmy Clausen is on the Maxwell Award watch list. David Bruton was named on the Jim Thorpe Award Watch, and Maurice Crum Jr. was put onto the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list.
While there’s no guarantee that these Irish players will win the awards, getting put on the “watch list” is an important first step. It just basically means that the people deciding who will get the award have their eye on a few of the players most likely to be among those in the running. Because the Irish are such a famous team, it seems likely that they would have not only a few star players, but a large viewing audience that will defiantly notice if they are playing extraordinarily. You might remember that Brady Quinn won the Maxwell Award in his senior season at Notre Dame- that just goes to tell you about the kind of player they are looking for.
Good luck, Jimmy, Maurice and David. We hope you win the awards, but more importantly, we hope you get the Irish into a bowl. The fact that Notre Dame struggled last year might actually help you get noticed, since any improvement will certainly show up on the radar of the college football world.
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CornerBack Not ComingBack
We’ve got some sad news to bring you Notre Dame Blog readers this Monday morning. Apparently one of last year’s starting cornerbacks will not be coming back to play for the Irish this upcoming season. Darrin Walls, who you might remember as the guy who returned an interception for 73 yards and a touchdown in the Penn State game last year, has decided to decline his enrollment for next semester, citing personal reasons. Walls is a great cornerback and if you saw the games he played in last year, you know he’s a playmaker and a vital part of the defense. The Irish will move on, as they have several eligible candidates to fill in for Walls. We’d like to wish Darrin a safe journey in the future- hopefully whatever personal issues he’s having will be resolved soon enough. We’d like to see him out on the field as soon as possible, but taking care of yourself and/or your family is more important.
In other news, D.J. Hord, who played a little last year at the receiver position, will transfer to another school prior to the beginning of this season. Although he was not a starter, he had a shot this year, and as you know, the Irish need all the experience they can get with the offense.
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Weis Predicts Irish Will Win 9-12 Games This Year
Will the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team get 12 wins this next season? Apparently coach Charlie Weis thinks so. It’s an optimistic approach, but hey, you’ve got to be pretty optimistic considering the class that Notre Dame just pulled in, plus the improved situation from last year’s disastrous 3-9 season. The Irish will have a tough schedule coming up this next football season, but according to an article in Blue and Gold Illustrated, Weis privately thinks that the Irish can win between nine and 12 games. We got this hot rumor off of Sports Illustrated at their Fan Nation site.
So do you think that the Irish can win 12 games? When we went over the schedule for next season week by week, we determined that nine games was certainly in the realm of possibilities, so it’s not that far off. And besides, who would expect the head football coach to suggest that their team was going to have a losing record? I wouldn’t believe it for a second. So hopefully the Irish do accomplish this lofty goal- a bowl game would be a certainty.
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