I'll kick this off by asking "does Wake's stadium only hold 31,000 or am I reading that wrong. maybe we are playing at a neutral site?" :?
Nope it's small, looks very nice and I'll bet the tailgating is very nice around it. Thing that makes me wonder is why a few years ago we went to the wall with Rutgers and UConn over not playing in their home stadiums because they were too small, yet we will play Wake Forrest. Not sure I understand that, although I'm glad we aren't playing UConn or RU to tell you the truth. Irish open as 14 point favorites.
Ahhh yes, ACC football. Makes you wonder why people openly mock the Fresno State and Boise teams but have no worries accepting the credibility of teams like Wake Forest. eh, whatever.. that southern baptist money just rolls in and no one questions a thing. Back to the game, like all of our games, I think if we don't spit the bit we win in a walk.
Excellent point, Gip. That would be the reason why we were insisting on a large stadium. I'm sure the same reasoning applies to the Maryland game next week. As far a true away games, there are times when a home and home arrangement is necessary to get a decent opponent on your schedule........and to fill the schedule. Some may disagree, but I would consider Wake Forest a decent opponent.
I will be at the Maryland game. My job is to make sure Kelly behaves himself. And to suggest new and innovative plays at key moments. I've got you guys covered that night!
George, is it true that Kelly has invited you into the locker room to give the pre-game pep talk? :lol:
Not yet but when word gets around...... I will be entertaining Carlo Calabrese Sr. in my office Wednesday afternoon.
Yes, we wanted to play in Foxboro and Giants Stadium because we thought RU and UConn had too small home stadiums. From a $$$ standpoint both UConn and RU would have come out better by going ahead and playing us at Foxboro/Giants. But they also then open up the likely hood that it goes from being a home game with the crowd dominated by their fans to a game where Irish fans most likely would dominate the crowd. Plus in both cases the teams had put a bunch of money into their stadiums and having that kind of big game in them was necesssary not to mention they and their fans took it as an insult that ND was dictating the location of their home game. Like I said I didn't really like the bad pub but I don't really care to see UConn and/or RU on our schedule. Even with the small stadium I like the trip to Wake Forrest.
Looking at Rutgers schedule for this year, there are going to be some future holes where Pitt, 'Cuse and WVa. are. Good luck to them.
I watched Kelly's press conference and it was a very different Brian Kelly. He seemed very uncomfortable, he took a long time formulating his answers to questions some what like he was thinking how he was going to answer it in a way that could no way come back and bite him. After the last question was answered he didn't say thank you or Go Irish or anything. Just turned and walked out the door. Very strange. You can see it over at UND.Com.
From the South Bend Tribune article linked above by Terry: Also, the article states that our arrangement with WF is 2 for 1. WF will visit ND in 2012 and 2015.
2 for 1 is good, and for teams like Wake that is a good deal for both parties. But even if they had insisted on 1 for 1 I don't think we should consider the visiting teams stadium capacity. First off the home team gets the gate and for us the big money comes in being on TV. This game will be a nationally televised night game so the money is big, that'll more than make up for our "cut" of the gate being smaller. But also while I know money is important, it is what pays coaches salaries, facilities, recruiting budget, etc....but sometimes I think you just have to go to the other teams place and play them even if they are not a big time school with a big time stadium. Look at what happened when we went to El Paso, they had the largest Sun Bowl crowd ever and it wasn't due to Miami fans...it was Irish fans. We have gone to Air Force, BYU, and they aren't huge stadiums. In short I like that we are going to Wake, that stadium looks small but very nice, the setting looks great. Win/Win.
Wake <r>Terry,<br/> <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I would have thought Wake would have wanted this game somewhere else so they could have taken advantage of the gate but I guess they looked at it it terms of a home field advantage they wold lose out on.</r>