the rix mix

I'm not a huge college football fan. I dabble at Yahoo pick 'em, watch at least parts of games every week. Got pulled into a great Alabama-Auburn game yesterday, rooting for Auburn because who the heck wants to root for Alabama? Nor am I a Notre Dame fan. When I was a kid, the two most popular college football teams in Jersey were Penn State & Syracuse. Rutgers didn't figure much; it was "tradition" & little else. Lots of ND fans, but they were a peculiar bunch, like belonging to the Knights of Columbus at an Irish-American parish. You half-expected the Notre Dame marching band to put their instruments down & stepdance across the field. Maybe they did. ND became (& still is) my chosen basketball team to beat UCLA, because UCLA hates that no matter where the two teams are ranked. I am a college basketball fan, & every season one of the first things I do is try to reassure myself that the Bruins cannot win the National Championship.

But I hope ND coach Charlie Weis is fired, & quickly. Notre Dame games are always on TV. I don't know how many parts of Notre Dame games I've watched over the past three years where they were out-coached, out-motivated, or both. Too many. The two qualities Notre Dame football almost always had through the Lou Holtz era were first rate coaching, & motivation worthy of a religious cult. They get smacked down annually by USC, no surprise. As with Big 10 teams - which ND pretty much is now is but for stronger academic requirements - it'd take a crazy year for them to be better than the best team in Pac 10, Big 12 South, & the SEC. (This would've been a good year to try). But Navy? UConn? A horrid Michigan? So it goes. & if one hates Notre Dame, it's like hating the Yankees - so much more fun seeing them lose the big ones when they're good but not quite good enough.

Labels: sports