Alabama and Notre Dame’s Rose Bowl exposes college football’s problem
Neither the Pope nor anyone else at the Vatican wants to watch Notre Dame in the playoffs for at least another decade.
Only the esteemed members of the College Football Playoff committee do.
Watching Notre Dame fumble the opening kickoff, and then fulfill its destiny as ’Bama chum, would have been sad if it just had not been the Irish.
The only appealing detail of the “Yellow” Rose Bowl at AT&T Stadium on Friday was watching Notre Dame and all of its entitled arrogance wear yet its normal playoff “LOSER” cap.
As much fun as it is to see Notre Dame get humiliated, this time 31-14 to top-ranked Alabama in the first national semifinal of the day, such games now hold the appeal of re-living all of 2020.
“I guess everybody needs to continue to carry this narrative that Notre Dame is not good enough,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said.
No, we don’t need to when Notre Dame does that by itself.
Sorry, college football playoff selection committee, neither this final score nor the fact that Notre Dame covered the point spread justifies picking the Irish for this game.
Sorry, Texas A&M, you deserved to be in Arlington on New Year’s Day.
Granted, the Aggies would have been run right back to College Station, but as long as the committee sticks to a four-team “playoff” model, please find some sucker other than Notre Dame.
“We’re going to keep winning games, we’re going to keep getting back here and we’re going to break through and when that happens I’m going to be terrible to be at a press conference with,” Kelly.
Sadly, he may be right about the first part, but for the sake of variety, we need to see a different helmet in this fake playoff other than the gold dome of the Irish.
He can sell, and complain, all he wants but for the sake of this sport we need someone new.
For the sake of deliberately dispelling the notion that Notre Dame doesn’t receive preferential treatment, even if we know it does.
It would be nice if the suits, just once, do something other than enable an exclusive, private university that wants us to believe the movie Rudy is a documentary.
Notre Dame is not a bad team. It’s certainly a top 10 team ... which, who knows what that means in 2020?
Coach Brian Kelly has done as well as anyone in that unwinnable job since Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, coach Lou Holtz.
Notre Dame’s problem is that it has proven over the last decade it’s not a top-four team. And it’s not a top-five squad either.
In 2019, it lost to Clemson in the semifinal, 30-3, also at AT&T Stadium.
In 2016, it lost to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, 44-28.
In 2013, it lost to Alabama in the BCS title game, 42-14.
In between, Notre Dame has done well in the Pinstripe Bowl, Music City Bowl, Camping World Bowl and a handful of other postseason games that air on ESPN8 (The Ocho).
Notre Dame is essentially in the same neighborhood as Oklahoma, Georgia and USC. And that feels generous.
The Irish still produce a handful of nice, NFL caliber players, especially on its offensive line, but it had nothing to run with ’Bama’s glorified NFL roster.
Don’t let the final score fool you; the Irish were down 31-7 in the fourth quarter until it scored some garbage points in garbage time.
On Friday, Alabama rolled up three touchdowns in its first three possessions like a 7-on-7 drill, against air. Even when Notre Dame scored a touchdown in the second quarter to make it 14-7, it felt more like ’Bama was bored.
Maybe it was the sterile atmosphere at Jerry World; the Rose Bowl felt more like a Dallas Cowboys preseason game.
Coach Nick Saban, once again, has a loaded roster with so much top-end talent only that only a few teams in the country can play with them.
Quarterback Mac Jones, running back Najee Harris and receiver DeVonta Smith are either the top player at their respective position in the country, or they’re in the top three.
In the last five years, the gap between the No. 3 and No. 4 team in college football has grown so disturbingly large, no Alabama opponent in this year’s Rose Bowl was going to be able to do much more than hope to cover the spread.
“It’s the same issue. I don’t have a unique problem at Notre Dame,” Kelly said after the game. “Everybody has the same issue.”
FYI: Notre Dame was a 19-point ‘dog to ‘Bama. Any other opponent from the top 10 would have faced a similar line.
That’s not a Notre Dame problem.
It’s a college football problem, and no one in a position of authority wants to address it because it may disrupt the money train into their wallet.
And that’s why, ultimately, Notre Dame was in the Rose Bowl playoff game on New Year’s Day. The Irish can’t beat the Crimson Tide, but the Irish are still so good for business.
Ultimately, the ‘21 edition of the Rose Bowl is only memorable because it was not in Pasadena, California. The only other time the Rose Bowl was not played in the Rose Bowl was 1942, when the game was moved to Durham, North Carolina because of WWII.
Other than the noteworthiness of the game’s location, the contest was just another Notre Dame postseason blowout.
And all of us — from the Pope to everyone else in the Vatican — are sick of these.
This story was originally published January 1, 2021 at 7:31 PM.
