Interesting read, no new ground is plowed here, just a perspective from a Gator fan. Gator Fan on Notre Dame
You know it is interesting how things look from different perspectives. As a lifelong Alabama fan (citizens of the state are required to declare at birth) I always felt that Notre Dame's standing in the Catholic community gave it nationwide following and a resultant favorable media (press and TV) bias. Conversely, it seemed as though the only following Alabama had was regional at best. I never realized that Notre Dame fans thought that there was an anti-Fighting Irish bias nationwide until I had been on this forum for the last few years.
Getting to know Notre Dame fans on Prodigy and Skybox have given me a different perspective also. Much like KP getting to know them have made me think differently. In fact on a vacation I even stopped by and drove through the campus. And I agree they have probably the biggest fan base but at the same time the biggest number of detractors. A lot of people just don't like them because they feel that Notre Dame gets special treatment. And perhaps they do sometimes, but the reality is that Notre Dame will draw well at whatever bowl they go to and every bowl would love to have them. If the Gators did not make the championship game I was hoping the Gators would play the Irish in the Sugar Bowl, and not because I didn't think they were good. As far as not deserving the bid, that's nonsense. Notre Dame did what they had to do to get the big, win enough games and be ranked high enough. The bid to the Sugar Bowl was deserved. I also think they have one of the best coaches in the country and have great things to look forward to in the future. And I still have a desire to make one of their annual gatherings some time in the future. :lol: :lol:
On the Sugar Bowl bid, because of the rules it really got down to W.Virgina or Notre Dame for the Sugar Bowl. Ark, Auburn, and Wisconsin were not BCS Bowl eligible due to the 'no 3rd team from a conference rule'. BCS bowl eligibilty stopped at #14 the rank of Wake Forrest...the lowest ranked conference champion. So take out the 3 ineligible by rule teams, and that left 11 teams for 10 spots and I dare say W.Va. might not have fared any better than ND and certainly wouldn't have been the TV attraction that ND was...although I have heard the WVA fans do travel well. But I find just what Bill and kp find, that over on InsideTexas most of the UT fans hate ND and think they are given every possible break by the media, that ND has an advantage financially becuase of the NBC contract...which they did at first but the value of the NBC contract has not grown much and the conferences when they are finished divying up the money do as well or better than ND in terms of TV revenue. Also we no longer get to keep the full BCS bowl share, we get 4.5 million and that's it. Terry
I wasn't suggesting that ND did not deserve a Sugar Bowl bid or anything close, I was just commenting on how strange it is when the same situation is looked at from different perspectives.