ESPN uses every free moment to promote the SEC conference, The Big 10 Network speaks for itself. NBC has rights to ND, and pays them, for that right. During these Olympics, with football 4 weeks away and Millions watching, I haven't seen 1 commercial tantalizing viewers for an upcoming ND game...... granted, what would they show, highlights of Brian Kelley's beet-red screaming face, or a Southern Cal WR running past a ND db?
ND hasn't won a NC or a BCS Bowl game since going to NBC. I don't believe NBC markets/helps their product much by not enticing future games to viewers and potential recruits. NBC isn't working hard enough to help their product (Notre Dame) reach it's potential.
Tom Hammond looks like a drag queen in HD.
ND needs to join a conference to get better promotion and potential conference championship game that recruits these days are looking for, or they will never reach the top 10 again, any time soon.
ND hasn't won a NC since HD TV or Web Cast games were around, and to the next generation of kids, that is ancient history. ND needs to do something, drop NBC or join a conference, to revamp their image.
ND is 12-14 vs Big 10 since 2005.... sprinkle in losses to Uconn, Air Force, Syracuse, Tulsa, South Florida and 3 losses to Navy and you get a clearer picture of where ND is.
I don't think NBC is to blame. Lets spin this around, if Notre Dame never hired Bob Davie and kept rolling along with their next coach, you could say NBC was the reason for it. I think they recruit well, the problem is the coaching. Lou Holtz was a success because he recruited players that typically wouldn't be accepted to ND. I don't think people realize guys like Jerome Bettis, Derrick Mayes, and Ricky Watters would have never qualified to play at ND if it weren't for Holtz. Imagine where Notre Dame football would be today without hiring Holtz in 1986? They would be on the same level as Army.
I hope ND can get back where it was, I think it's better for college football when tradition rich programs are on top. We have all seen how bad it sucks when Michigan, Nebraska, Florida State, and Miami all fall off the wagon. It sucks. Imagine if FSU, and Miami never fell apart, the SEC would not own college football right now.
Dustin Fox was our leading tackler as a corner.... because his guy always caught the ball.
Notre Dame's problem is the gigantic sense of self entitlement. That and their famous "Our expectations never waver" line. Worse-the place is a coaching graveyard. They hire decent candidates, then said candidate has a solid season or two-ND over reacts and gives that person an eleventy billion year contract, then get bent when they can't win ten games every season and fire said coach. Moreover, they are simply not the destination for great players like they once were. Ol Red Face appears to be laying a ground work for some decent things to come but who knows how long ND will tolerate his 'rebuilding' while he brings in good players. Every team goes through peaks and valleys but some teams accept a few years of transition. My senior year of college was 2004-Jim Tressel was actually on the hot seat. OSU is a historical program who hired a new coach who won early but faltered in year 4 and people were getting up in arms. OSU stuck with JT and he went on a run of unheard of proportions. If it were Notre Dame, Jim Tressel would have been fired after the 2004 campaign and they would have had to start over. They panic and get too worried over a season or two and hurt themselves in the long run.
4-6 seconds from point A to point B and when you get to point B, be pissed off
I can't help but think that blaming NBC for Notre Dame's decline would be like blaming FOX for OSU losing back-to-back NC games. We were 0 for 3 on that damn network when they aired BCS bowls. Maybe not the best analogy in the world on my part. But to me, having a network channel broadcast all of your home games nationally would seem like it would be helpful to the program more than harmful, even if they don't advertise it much in late summer.
Class of 2010.