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Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfreude - Printable Version

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Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfreude - Redrum - 10-31-2010

Like drinking beaujolais wine,  some Schadenfreude has to be consumed when it is ready,  not necessarily when it makes sense.  This week is  UDub and Notre Dame,  whose boards reflect a spookily point-by-point-similar gloom.

I\'m gonna have to forgo the normal quotes which-- in ND\'s case in particular-- are more than half the fun of reading rival boards after a loss.  But, it\'s getting cold down in the South and I have a gaping hole in my wall where the worn-out doggy door used to be.  Gotta stay focused.   Just a mass-balance summary of what\'s on their minds.

NOTRE DAME:
---Fire the coach.  Sure, ND has wanted to fire every coach it\'s had since Lou Holtz and they even gave him a rough ride except for the day and one day after winning the NC.    What\'s different this time is the serious debate about using the death of tower videographer Declan Sullivan\'s death  as grounds for termination for cause...  which would get Brian Kelly out of the picture without ND having to pay giga-millions for a buy-out.   Notable because:  1) it reveals just how far ND fans will compromise or manipulate legal principle to achieve football ends.   2)  It reveals how ND fans will use literally anything-- regardless of taste or sense of decency-- to achieve football ends.

--- Apres Brian, le deluge.   No, make that during Brian the future is rotting beneath their feet.   Recruiting isn\'t just going slowly or not as well as expected.  It\'s going backwards.   The tally is up to THREE decommits since the team started playing this Fall.    The latest is 4-star Florida DE Aaron Lynch, who will be looking at all Florida schools.  The others are 4-star OT Jordan Prestwood who is also now looking at Florida schools.  And 3-star Florida DE Clay Burton.

---The ONLY defense of Kelly I read was a precious few who claimed that they were "stuck" with Kelly  (financially and for some semblance of fairness) so ND fans better get used to it.  Those people were basically contradicted by polite posters and shouted down by the impolite posters.

--- The Rot Stops Here:  "Here" being the entire power structure of ND that hired (Davie,Willingham, Weis, Kelly).   There will be no excellence until AD Jack Swarbrick  and  Fr. Jenkins ( until recently the "hero" for saving ND from President "Monk" Malloy and Willing-ham) and some of the board of Trustees.   It was deemed pointless to search for a new coach with the same power structure that brought them Kelly.   These ND fans should\'a been in Paris in 1793.  Woulda\' done a more thorough job cleaning house than those softy Jacobins.

WASHINGTON:

-- What else?  FIRE the coach.   Never, ever, EVER has Willing.ham gotten so much respect from the Husky faithful than after a season and a half of Sarkisian.   Seriously,  fans spent a LOT of time and effort to debate whether Willing-ham\'s  defeats were  less egegious than Sarkisian\'s.  Individual games were resurrected and autopsied to prove--through geometric logic--  that  Sarkisian <  Willing-ham, even with the 0-12 season thrown in.  Much debate about whether a Locker-less season for TW should count for more or for less in judging which coach was worse.  Great fun watching them balance  one  sh*tty performance against another sh*tty performance to find relative betterness.

--UDub isn\'t writhing over decommits, but lots of hand-wringing over how they would ever get 4 and 5-star recruits to commit  to a staff that has hung up 4  30-point losses in one season.    The dominant counter-argument isn\'t that the 4-5 star recruits wouldn\'t come, but that they\'d be turned to **** by the coaching staff.

If there are any survivors once the ND fans get done pillaging the athletic and university hierarchy,  mayhem fans can get their fill over on Dawgman,  where the debate about who must pay stretches back to (now ex-) AD Barbara Hedges, who begat Neuheisel, who fired Neuheisel too quickly, which begat Gilby, which begat Willing-ham, which begat Sarkesian....  Well, based on the Dawgman comments I don\'t see how any of the grandchildren of the aforementioned make it through the purge alive.   They even throw former UDub president Mark Emmert (Now NCAA prexy)  to the wolves.

---To be fair to Dawg fans,  some insisted on mentioning that the team is freshman-heavy and that wide swings in performance are classic symptoms of freshman players.  Others note that those freshmen will be spoiled by bad coaching before they ever mature.  And then, there\'s always the tried-and-true defense of the current staff:  they are "stuck" with Sarkisian and staff, might as well get used to seasons like this one.  

Hope so.  Well, that\'s more than enough Schadenfreude for me.  If I want to snack on more later on,  I\'ve always got the 49ers in the fridge.

Re: Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfr - readarmy1976 - 10-31-2010

Kelly\'s performance has inspired very legitimate doubts about him. But I don\'t think anyone can succede at notre dame, because of the strange culture surrounding the football team. People are so worshipful of the players. The team does not live in reality. The players are too full of themselves.

Watching a notre dame pep rally is like watching that national geographic expose of this cult in New Mexico. I don\'t see how the players can fight for the extra yard when they are already above the pope.

In this day and age, i think that the culture of Stanford is actually a big advantage to the football team. The players get no adulation and might even have less status than regular students. A strange situation, indeed.

I think this environment allows the players and coaches to focus on the realities of the sport.







Re: Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfr - Pastor - 10-31-2010

RA:

you don\'t know Stanford very well.

Three whole decommits? - JohnR34231 - 10-31-2010

Geez, I\'m glad we\'ve never had a situation like that.

History repeating itself? - Redrum - 11-01-2010

Good point, glenn.   Sarkisian\'s  self-promotion coming into Seattle reminds one of Charlie Weis when he arrived at ND.   Everywhere Weis went-- recruiting, gladhanding alums, speaking to students-- he tried to leverage his NFL offensive coordinator cred  by proclaiming that in every game ND would enjoy a "distinct schematic advantage"  over its opponents.  Words that came back to haunt him.

One poster on Dawgman soberly said that Arizona and its long patience with Stoops was the model for UW.  Definitely a minority among the vocal.   Gotta wonder what else former USC offensive coordinator Sarkisian could have been selling other than his ability to quickly restore Husky football.  

The interesting thing is that at both ND and UDub,  the enthusiasm for the new guy might have been deceptively amped up by the sheer relief of watching Tyrone exiting.

Re: Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfr - dabigv13 - 11-01-2010

I think Kelly and especially Swarbrick deserve to go, and it has nothing to do with on the field results. Using a 20 year old\'s death as cover to make a football decision is disgraceful, but twisting the facts in a PR spin like Swarbrick has done is about as shameful a thing as I\'ve seen go unpunished in the main stream media in some time. At least Kelly has said he takes responsibility. Swarbrick has run from it.

I have to say that Sullivan\'s death reminds me in a way of some mistakes I\'ve seen in the OR (thankfully not deaths)- large complex systems with multiple players, and all responsibility lies with one person who ultimately must rely on other people to do their jobs effectively. It\'s why surgeons will take a case to the OR only if it is absolutely necessary, or everything is 100% optimized for success.I doubt Kelly knew the exact capabilities of the equipment that broke down, but he must have known the forecast, and at least the chance of danger to any videotapers. Whether or not he assumed someone would do their job in getting the videotapers out of the way, ultimately the responsibility still lies with him in not ensuring their safety.

I think both should be fired, but I would not begrudge Kelly another shot at coaching. Swarbrick on the other hand should be fired and the family\'s settlement should come out of his earnings.


Re: Trendspotting: Bounus Double-Dose o\' Schadenfr - washingtonismoney - 11-01-2010

You know Cal fans are depressed when they\'re speculating about Stanford in wishful terms, e.g. (on B.ears Insider):

"Luck to Buffalo?"
"NFL for Harbaugh?"