Hot off the presses, the South Bend Tribune is reporting that Nate Montana, son of former Irish great Joe Montana, is leaving the University to play football at Pasadena City College, with the intent of possibly re-enrolling at Notre Dame in the Spring to compete for the starting Notre Dame job.
Two thoughts:
1. Wow.
2. Do NCAA rules even allow that?
I know I've been remiss in not being more active on the blog, but I have two problems. First, the things that have really been getting me fired up are all political, and I don't want to subject all of you to a steady diet of Obama criticism with no football posts to keep things on an even keel. So I have held my tongue, so to speak. Second, it is July and nothing much is happening on the college football front. Of course, I could post every day just to keep my fingers in shape and to hear myself talk, but I prefer to write substantive posts that are thoughtfully reactive to actual events rather than manufactured topics designed just to keep you visiting the blog. But football season is approaching, the camps are getting ready to open, and I think I can just detect that "new season smell" in the air. Today I just wanted to get back into the groove by clearing the decks with a collection of quick thoughts that have been occupying my mind lately.
1. I listen to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio as I drive to work each morning. Erik Kuselias is sitting in for Colin today, and he spent considerable time this morning talking about Florida QB Tim Tebow. He noted that Florida is favored by many to win the National Championship, and Tebow is favored to win the Heisman. If those things happen, Kuselias contends that Tebow would be the greatest college football player of all time, and that nobody else would even be in the discussion. I think Tebow is a very good quarterback on a great football team. Being on a great team gives you a chance to win National Championships. Being a very good QB on a great team gives you the chance to win Heisman Trophies. But being a very good QB on a great team does not make one the "greatest of all time." I like Kuselias a lot (very interesting guy, and very funny) but I think he is crazy on this topic. Off the top of my head I came up with about six players who are clearly greater than Tebow, and after a couple minutes research I rounded my list out at an even ten players. The following list is my quick and subjective opinion. I didn't even get into receivers, linemen, and defensive players. Just looking at QBs and RBs, here are my Top 10 College Football Players Greater Than Tim Tebow (In No Particular Order):
1. John ElwayHow did I do?
2. Steve McNair
3. Colt Brennan
4. Billy Sims
5. Bo Jackson
6. Barry Sanders
7. Archie Griffin
8. Tony Dorsett
9. O.J. Simpson
10. Herschel Walker
3. Michael Vick is a free man, and the NFL Commissioner is expected to conditionally reinstate him very soon, permitting him to sign with an NFL team and go to camp, but not allowing him to play until after serving an additional four game suspension. Like a car wreck, I'm very anxious to see what happens with Vick. To me, he has paid his debt to society, so I don't have a problem with him playing football again. But I am very interested to see what team or teams are willing to give him a chance. How much will they pay him? What role will he play? How well will he play? To me, Vick's best asset has always been his speed and his running ability, and I think he'll be way behind the curve in the passing game. I think he can make his best contribution to a team as a return man and maybe a flanker/H-Back where the threat of a reverse or a Wildcat package would keep defenses off-balance.
6. Where's Waldo? I think he's rooming with former USC quarterback and Heisman Trophy candidate John David Booty. Do you remember how great J.D. Booty was at USC? How he was just waiting his turn to be the next Heisman Trophy winner at USC? Yeah, well he's still in Minnesota, sitting behind Tavaris Jackson, Sage Rosenfels, and maybe Brett Favre on the Vikings' depth chart. I wonder if John David will give up his #4 jersey when Favre shows up in Mankato? And what about Heisman Trophy winner and National Champion Matt Leinart? Is he still sitting on the bench behind a 38-year-old grocery store stock-boy and Arena Football League league player Kurt Warner? Well, yes he is. All of which is a prelude to the question: How good is Mark Sanchez, really? Is he the next Carson Palmer? Or the next J.D. Booty? USC quarterbacks have the tremendous advantage of playing with a supporting staff of NFL-caliber players at every position. Their defenses are dominant. They are harassed in the pocket, and their receivers are generally wide open. They lose all those advantages at the next level. I still think Brady Quinn is better than any of the recent crop of USC quarterbacks, and I think we'll finally get the chance to see it this season. Go Browns!
10. Coach Weis and his staff have been working hard on the recruiting front, and the number of verbal commitments to the 2010 freshman class is already up to thirteen. This is great news as it shows that Coach Weis and Notre Dame can still attract quality kids to the University. I don't blog recruiting much, because (1) I have a life, and (2) I have a life. But seriously, it's a crapshoot. Projecting high school kids to the next level is very difficult. Kids mature at different rates. 5-star kids don't pan out. 3-star recruits surprise the heck out of you. Kids get hurt, buried on the depth chart, lost to academic or other problems. Think about this: We're all excited/anxious about how good Defensive End Justin Utupo will be and he won't set foot on campus until more than a year from now, and likely won't play significant minutes for two or three years. I'm still waiting to see how good Emeka Nwankwo, Steve Paskorz, and Mike Ragone are going to be, and they've been on campus since 2007. But I do have a couple thoughts on recruiting this year. First, a hearty OC Domer welcome to each of the thirteen verbal commits for 2010! I hope you all continue to feel the way you do about Notre Dame and honor your non-binding verbal commitment to the University. Second, I know it's early, and as I said I don't watch it that closely, but I get the sense this class so far is a little heavy on 3-star recruits and a little light on 4-star and 5-star players. Of the thirteen commits, we have one who is rated 5-stars on both Rivals and Scout, we have one who is rated 4-stars on both services. We have seven players rated seven total stars (4/3 or 3/4) on the two services, and six commits rated six total stars (3 & 3) on Rivals and Scout. I know the top 4- and 5-star kids tend to wait until later in the cycle to commit, but I would welcome someone pointing me to a good argument that we're right on target compared to Coach Weis' previous classes.
The results of Notre Dame's annual football ticket lottery are expected this week, and I'm sure many of you have your fingers crossed, hoping to beat the odds and score a pair of seats for the USC game on October 17. Good luck with that. But what will you do if Lady Luck doesn't smile on you and you get shut out (again) this year? The answer, of course, is:
NotreDameTickets.com has joined forces with OC Domer as a sponsor of the blog for the upcoming football season, and you can see their clickable ad in the side-bar, right below my Twitter badge. They have tickets for EVERY Notre Dame football game, both home and away. So if you want to see your Fighting Irish this season, whether in South Bend, Ann Arbor, Palo Alto, or San Antonio (wtf?!), visit their web site and browse the selection. Prices do vary of course depending upon the game and seat location, but you can lock in seats to a Notre Dame home game right now for just a little over $100. (The Home Opener against Nevada is as cheap as $106 right now, University of Washington as low as $117, Navy $115, U-Conn $114). Tickets for the USC game do run a little higher (okay, a lot higher) but they are available. NotreDameTickets.com even has some listings for 2009 season tickets, if you really want to do something special for the Notre Dame fanatic in your life.
I hope the ticket lottery works out for all OC Domer readers, but if you failed to send your form in on time, or if you just failed to get lucky, I hope you'll check out our newest sponsor (okay, our ONLY sponsor!) for all your Fighting Irish football ticket needs (Buy*Sell*Trade).
It was heresy when the University of Notre Dame invited pro-abortion President Barack Obama to speak at its 2009 commencement a few weeks ago. To bestow such an honor on a (non-Catholic) public figure was an insult to pious Catholics everywhere and was an act of blatant disobedience to Church teaching. The controversy spawned a movement seeking the ouster of Father John Jenkins as University President. Alumni groups banded together to cease donations to Notre Dame. The intended recipient of the Laetare Medal (the highest honor the University bestows) snubbed and publicly embarrassed Notre Dame by declining to accept the award because of the Obama invitation. Thousands of articles were written, harshly condemning Notre Dame for its faithlessness, for selling out, for abandoning its Catholic tradition. Numerous American bishops joined the chorus of criticism and fed into the feeding frenzy.
Notre Dame and Father Jenkins weren't entirely without allies, but it can't have been easy to stand behind the original decision to have Obama speak. I'm sure there were moments when Fr. Jenkins was a very lonely priest.
So it was with great interest that I read today that during his trip to Europe for the G-8 summit, President Obama will take some time out of his busy schedule to drop by the Vatican and pay a visit on Pope Benedict. That's right, the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church is inviting pro-abortion Barack Obama over to his pad for a photo-op and a little one-on-one visit. I know His Holiness probably won't give Obama an honorary degree, but I'd still have to rate a private audience with the Pope as an extremely high honor.
[Insert sound of crickets chirping here]
So, is the Pope now a heretic too? Will the critics call the Holy Father's Catholicism into question? Will there be a campaign calling for his ouster, accompanied by a donation boycott?
I didn't think so.
You can e-mail your apologies directly to Father Jenkins at president@nd.edu.
OC Domer is getting ready to get out and enjoy the long Independence Day weekend, but before I go I wanted to remind everyone what it is we're celebrating as we enjoy baseball, lacrosse, afternoon naps, barbecue, boats, beaches, and babes in bikinis.
We're celebrating the decision of the first brave Americans to declare themselves free human beings, independent of tyrannical, non-responsive, and over-reaching government authority. We're celebrating the decision of those brave men (and the countless men and women who followed them) to put their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor on the line in the name of liberty.
The questions Americans need to ask themselves today are: Are we still independent citizens who yearn to be free, to be responsible for our own lives and happiness? Or have we become instead subjects, willing to trade away our liberty and let the government be responsible for our lives and our happiness?
To me the most important part of the Declaration of Independence is:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.As Glenn Reynolds would say, read the whole thing. And have a Happy 4th of July!
Notre Dame has announced key dates for football training camp. The sourcing of the article is not clear, but here is what the Chicago Tribune is reporting: Friday, Aug. 7: No practice -- it's the final day of summer school -- but Weis and his assistant coaches meet with the media for the first time. No players talk, due to exams and such. Saturday, Aug. 8: First practice at 1:30 p.m. CT, selected players available to the media for the first time beforehand. Sunday, Aug. 9: Another 1:30 p.m. CT practice, and the rest of the roster (except the freshmen) available to the media for the first time. Thursday, Aug. 13: First double-session of training camp. Practice at 8 a.m. CT, then again at 4:30 p.m. CT. Saturday, Aug. 15: Weis holds his annual open practice for the media. Expect enough minutia to choke a horse. Sunday, Aug. 23: This appears to the the Student Appreciation Day practice, open to the Notre Dame faithful on campus, starting at 7 p.m. CT. Monday, Aug. 24: Weis gets the Irish into more of a game-week preparation schedule, starting practice at 3:45 p.m. CT. Preparation for Nevada likely intensifies starting now, if past form holds. Saturday, Aug. 29: Last preseason session -- likely a game-day walk-through deal, going on precedent -- at 12:30 p.m. CT. Sunday, Aug. 30: The Irish are off, Weis meets with the media at 3 p.m. CT -- his usual Sunday appearance time -- and the 2009 season is truly officially underway. Mark your calendars!
Monday, Aug. 17/Thursday, Aug. 20: Two more double-sessions, and the 2009 captains and leadership committee meet with the media in between the Aug. 20 practices.
Friday, Aug. 21: It's Freshmen Media Day... otherwise known as Manti Te'o Greeted By A Media Crush At Michael-Jackson-Funeral-Levels Day. One of likely two chances to hear from the freshman during the season.
It's been an emotional and hectic few weeks here at OC Domer HQ. Our daughter graduated from high school a little over a week ago, and there has been a lot of hoopla surrounding that event. "Night of the Stars" awards night, "Senior Reflections" night, the graduation ceremony itself followed by "Grad Night" at a secure, undisclosed location. Visits from both of my parents and my two brothers and their families (it was GREAT to see everyone. I always laugh till my stomach hurts when I see my brothers). Old friends back in town for the graduation. Going away party for our daughter's boyfriend, who has already reported for duty at the United States Air Force Academy, where he will play football. Go Falcons!
So we're collecting our breath around here and trying to catch up on things that have been neglected for the past few weeks. E-mails need to be read and responded to, I need a haircut (badly), paperwork needs to get done, preparations must resume for sending our daughter off to South Bend in just six weeks. And the OC Domer Blog needs to gear up for the 2009 season.
It's been quiet at OC Domer, but not completely dead. I've been tweaking the blogroll a bit, adding the Daily Shillelagh to the roll (TDS is on fire lately!) and dropping a couple of the blogs to the bottom of the list as a prelude to dropping them off the roll altogether due to inactivity. If you have any suggestions for other blogs I should consider adding, leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.
I am also pleased to welcome to OC Domer a new sponsor for the 2009 football season: NotreDameTickets.com. You'll see their ad in the sidebar to the right, just below my Twitter badge. Please check them out for all your Notre Dame football ticket needs (buy-sell-trade). (I'll have more on our new sponsor later).
Despite it still being June, there has been some Notre Dame football news recently. One player has agreed to disagree with Notre Dame's Office of Residence Life and plans to pursue his degree at another University, while Coach Weis has clearly developed some momentum on the recruiting trail with QB Andrew Hendrix, DE Blake Lueders, and DB Lo Wood verbally committing to the Irish in the past week. Welcome aboard men!
So we've been a bit distracted lately (in a good way), but rest assured that Notre Dame football will return to center stage very soon here at OC Domer. Just as soon as I defeat this ridiculous Cap & Trade bill and stop socialized medicine from ruining health care in the United States.
Amidst all the angst over the University's invitation to have President Obama speak at Commencement, there arose a groundswell of popular sentiment against making any donations to Notre Dame until and unless Our Lady's University forsook her evil ways and began adhering more devoutly to the policies and proscriptions of the Catholic Church. The "boycott", which received a lot of gratuitous coverage from a press corps that loves a good inter-family squabble among conservatives, would hit Father Jenkins and the administration where it really hurts - in the wallet! By withholding untold millions of dollars in donations the protesters would bring Notre Dame to its knees and bend her to their orthodox will!
NOT!
The University announced yesterday that it had exceeded it's very ambitious goal of raising $1.5 Billion dollars through the "Spirit of Notre Dame" campaign two years early. According to the press release:
The University of Notre Dame has surpassed the $1.5 billion goal of the “Spirit of Notre Dame” campaign more than two years ahead of schedule, raising $1.54 billion in gifts and pledges as of June 22.
The largest fund-raising effort in the history of Catholic higher education, “Spirit” was launched publicly May 5, 2007, and will end June 30, 2011. The most comprehensive campaign in Notre Dame’s history, “Spirit” is structured to provide significant financial support to four primary pillars of the University’s life: the undergraduate educational experience, research and graduate studies, diversity and international studies, and Catholic intellectual life.
[...]
“We are humbled by the generosity of those who have contributed to the success of the ‘Spirit’ campaign,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. “Our challenge now is to build upon this success to fully fund all of the priorities. In doing so, we can advance our vision to remain fully committed to our Catholic identity, provide an exceptional undergraduate experience, and become one of the nation’s pre-eminent research universities.”
Congratulations to Father Jenkins and the entire Notre Dame community on reaching this important milestone, which will help the University move into the 21st century with confidence despite the current global economic turmoil.
It is now an oft-repeated maxim that elections have consequences. And so we arrive at the point where our newly elected President is entitled (indeed, obligated) to nominate someone to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. It is a momentous occasion and a sobering responsibility. Supreme Court Justices have life tenure and their un-appealable decisions become the supreme law of the land, binding on all Americans for years (or even for generations) to come.
Can there be another job which so obviously demands that it be filled people who are truly the best and the brightest that our nation can offer?
Instead, it looks like we're going to get Sonia Sotomayor, whose primary qualifications for the job appear to be her ethnicity, her sex, and her mainstream liberal views. Given all of President Obama's soaring rhetoric about a post-racial America, I would have hoped that we might actually move this nation forward to Martin Luther King's vision of judging people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. But apparently such hopes are naive.
The more we learn about Judge Sotomayor, the more obvious it becomes that she represents at once both the best and the worst that our "progressive" affirmative action society has to offer.
Judge Sotomayor freely admits that she gained admission to both Princeton University and the Yale Law School with standardized test scores that were well below average, and she credits affirmative action policies in giving her the opportunity to receive a world-class Ivy League education.
I think most of us would agree that excellent students from disadvantaged backgrounds (of any ethnic heritage) deserve extra consideration in college admissions as they pursue the best educational opportunities.
Unfortunately for Judge Sotomayor, and for the 300 million Americans that will soon be subject to her judicial whims, both she and those Ivy League institutions failed to take proper advantage of that golden opportunity. Although Sotomayor was "successful" at both Princeton and Yale (i.e., she got her degree), it is clear to those who have read her speeches or her judicial opinions that she did not receive at either school an education that most folks would recognize as "Ivy League." Her writing is filled with mistakes. Poor grammar. Improper word choices. Incorrect spelling of names. It is sloppy, and it is wholly unoriginal.
The question we as a nation have to ask ourselves is: When does affirmative action end?
So young Sonia Sotomayor is admitted as an affirmative action applicant to Princeton. That's great. Good for her. While at Princeton is she held to the standards of Princeton? Or is she only expected to perform to some lower "Princeton light" standard because she's a Latina? Do her professors at Princeton push her to bring her performance up to the standards expected of the rest of the student body? Or do they fail her by giving her really good grades for poor writing? Do they actually harm her by indulging in what President Bush called the soft bigotry of low expectations?
Is it really too much to ask that students receiving a degree summa cum laude from Princeton be able to write, not just passably, but well?
And after four years of summa cum laude work at one of the finest universities in America, if not the world, young Sonia Sotomayor scores below average yet again on standardized tests but is admitted to Yale Law School by virtue of affirmative action. Is that what affirmative action is all about? To make sure that top students from Princeton can get into Yale Law School? It seems to me that if you've spent four years on a full scholarship at Princeton you shouldn't be considered disadvantaged any longer. You ought to be able to compete on your own merits, not on your skin color.
While at Yale Sotomayor was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and was also managing editor of the student-run Yale Studies in World Public Order publication. Yet nobody at that prestigious institution ever taught her how to write well, judging by what she produces today.
Is it an indictment of affirmative action generally that a bright young woman can attend two of our most lauded educational institutions and emerge from them without being able to write? Or is it just Princeton and Yale that should be ashamed of the disservice they did to Sonia Sotomayor?
Having obtained the requisite Ivy League qualifications by virtue of affirmative action (and her own hard work, of course) Sotomayor now awaits confirmation to the highest Court in the land. But when the members of the U.S. Senate consider her nomination, will they judge her by the standards for the Court which have been set over the previous two centuries? Or will Judge Sotomayor again be held to some lesser, "Justice-light" standard because she's a minority and a woman? When does affirmative action end? Will she ever be held to the same standards as her non-Latina, non-female peers? Or will she, even at this moment, be treated with understanding and indulgence by a Senate that will view her race and sex as the equivalent of disabilities requiring special consideration?
Or will the U.S. Senate wake up, and realize that this is actually a pretty important moment, that their duties should be undertaken with utmost seriousness? Will the Senate realize that the American people deserve a Supreme Court Justice who is put there by virtue of demonstrating a superior legal intellect and who is considered an outstanding writer? Maybe that is expecting too much.
As I noted above, Sonia Sotomayor embodies the best and the worst of affirmative action. At its best, affirmative action takes exceptional young people from disadvantaged circumstances and gives them a little help as they start out on the path to success. Getting good minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds into excellent colleges is laudable.
At its worst, "affirmative action" gives minorities and other "underrepresented" individuals an undeserved competitive advantage even when those persons are a long, long way from their disadvantaged beginnings. Putting a graduate of Princeton and Yale on the Supreme Court because they are a Latina, when their body of work over a career as a Federal judge clearly demonstrates that they are not up to the standards of that institution is a travesty.
I don't think I am alone in feeling that Clemson University football fans have long had an unrealistically high opinion of the stature of their program. The typical Clemson fan considers the Tigers to be an "elite" program on par with the likes of an Alabama, or Florida, or Notre Dame, and you'll often hear them droning on and on about the proud history of Clemson football. But when you do a little research you find that this long, storied tradition consists of exactly one national championship (1981). That 1981 Clemson squad is considered by at least one expert to be the 88th best team to have ever played. Notre Dame has ten (10) squads ranked ahead of Clemson's single entry on that Top 200 list, and sixteen (16) overall. Other true traditional powers of course have multiple entries as well. One list of top historical programs (same source) has Clemson at #38, just behind Houston and just ahead of Mizzou. And 37 spots behind #1 Notre Dame. Yet to hear Clemson tell it, they're right there with Texas, Nebraska, and Ohio State.
The point is, the only great tradition attached to Clemson football is their delusional fanbase.
But today we learn that it isn't just Clemson football fans that are delusional. It turns out that the Clemson University administration also has an opinion of Clemson as an academic institution that is a bit, shall we say, out of step with how Clemson is viewed by the rest of academia. According to the story:
Move over Harvard, Yale, Princeton — and every other college. Asked to rate other universities for the influential U.S. News & World Report rankings, Clemson University President James Barker put his institution on top.
[...]
Documents released by Clemson show Barker gave his own university a "strong" rating in the peer review survey portion of the rankings. But he gave no other university that high a mark. He ranked half the undergraduate universities in the magazine's survey as "marginal," according to copies of his survey provided to The Associated Press.
[...]
The documents did not show precisely how he voted on what schools, but Clemson was the only "strong" vote he gave in the national universities category — which includes famous public institutions like the Universities of California and Virginia as well as the private universities of the Ivy League.
