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Is Notre Dame still an elite college football program?

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Notre Dame football is in. It has been 24 years since the Irish have had back to back ten win seasons. Other elite programs such as Alabama, Ohio State, or Stanford have no problem finding success in back to back seasons. As a fan, it is getting harder and harder to defend the Fighting Irish when the last time they won a meaningful bowl game was the 1993 Cotton Bowl over Texas A&M. There was hope when we reached the 2012 national championship, but that season was followed up by an 8-4 season in 2013. So the question is has Notre Dame had an unfortunate past couple of decades or are they an elite program that has fallen? Remaining optimistic is difficult following the worst season Brian Kelly has had at Notre Dame. It is hard to point to one single thing that can explain Notre Dames struggles over the past 25 years. I believe a majority of the problems can be traced back to the level of expectations that Notre Dame holds its students to. In the offseason following their national championship game appearance, starting quarterback Everett Golson was suspended due to violations of honor code. In 2014 five players were suspended until further notice weeks before the season started due to academic fraud. These seasons had a lot of potential to produce back to back 10 win seasons, but resulted in more agony for Irish fans. I am not saying that Notre Dame should lessen its standards. The pressure that these students athletes feel can be a lot to handle and that leads to them cheating especially at a pretty demanding school such as Notre Dame. Moving forward, I believe that we can get back to being an elite program with Brian Kelly as head coach. He has proven himself to be an exemplarily head coach and has built a solid coaching staff around him after many of his assistants had been fired after a 4-8 season.

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