Insert Notre Dame Disrespect Story... Here

We are in PRIME “gearing up” time in college football, and in our case; the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Media days for (things called) conferences are underway, and now writers across the country finally have some new material to work off of for the 2018 season.

The sprint is on for the marathon that is the college football season.

Part of the sprint usually includes some Notre Dame disrespect with a stride or two. Because of Notre Dame’s Independent status, and being a blue blood program, questions about Notre Dame are asked during a large handful of conference media days. Generally, coaches and players give some fairly vanilla answers, but every once in a while you can get some real juice out of the conversation.

Mostly though... it’s all trumped up and if it’s not taken out of context, there is certainly some embellishment with intent.

One of the more recent examples of “bulletin board” material being exaggerated, was the statement from the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores, Derek Mason. I won’t dive into that, because it really was much ado about nothing — like really... it was nothing.

A reader emailed me a link to a story about Notre Dame being ranked #1 in a list of the Top 10 Most Overrated Teams In 2018. He was outraged at the disrespect thrown at Notre Dame.

I merely laughed.

What should we really expect at this point? It’s not like Notre Dame has been able to prove these kinds of things wrong over the years. The lone exception was that incredible 2012 season.

2012, if you remember, was the year that Rick Reilly famously declared Notre Dame to be irrelevant. That declaration was more stupidity than disrespect, but it helped fuel a team for a 12-0 regular season that was anything but irrelevant. Perhaps of the Irish would have played the Kansas State Wildcats rather than the Alabama Crimson Tide in the title game, the “disrespect” would have subsided — maybe.

Notre Dame hate is certainly as real as ever, and regardless of how the Irish are playing, derogatory stories are going to be printed and published weekly. How you react to those stories is certainly a your right as an individual and as a fan, but unless it’s coming from the college football playoff committee, I wouldn’t put much stock into any of it.

HOWEVER...

These are the type of things that make college football games more fun and season more memorable. We would LOVE to hear anything you have on Notre Dame disrespect. So, if there is a link, or a video, or whatever... please feel free to use the comment section below, or the FanPost/FanShot feature here on the site.

Have fun y’all.