I hear this rationale quite a bit for the decline of Notre Dame: they can't admit enough good players because their academic requirements are too stringent. What are these requirements and how do they differ from any other school? Does anyone have some examples of players they would have liked to bring to campus but couldn't because they couldn't make the grade or test score required for Notre Dame? I get the feeling that Notre Dame admissions may be slightly more selective than, say, East Carolina University, but they are not nearly as rigorous as many claim or insinuate.
Same thing with Rice. When I was covering sports in the Metroplex, the high school I covered had an RB that went to Rice. And while this kid was not any dumber than a box of rocks, he was no smarter, either. Yet he got a full athletic scholarship to Rice University. Freaking RICE!
What I want to know is how many of their players are really Irish? Seriously though, it sounds like the school making excuses and the media going right along with it.
They supposedly had a 1000 minimum on the SAT, when the NCAA minimum was 800. And they had (and probably still have) a freshman calculus requirement.
What I want to know is how someone so damn smart gets clocked square in the eye? You would think he would be smart enough to duck.
Their requirements can't be any higher than Stanford, or Cal, and they seem to do alright. Duke competes in Basketball. And ND competed just fine up until the 2000's. There are plenty of quality players who are academically able, they just need to recruit them and coach them up.
I think most, if not all school, hold their athletes to the same standard once admitted. Hence Texas has 3 guys out this year for academic reasons, and in the past have sent guys to ACC, or whatever, for a semester, or summer. And one in the players get some of the best accommodations and tutoring available. I thought the issue was admission requirements.
From what I understand, Randy Moss was one. Something about an essay he had to write for the application or something. This was before FSU Randy Moss.
One thing about private schools with strong academics that helps them with athletes -- such schools are often damn near impossible to fail out of.
I think the original question is still generally unanswered. Examples of players who would have gone to ND if they could, but ended up in another good school due to "tough admission standards" at ND. The Randy Moss example was not correct either. He did get a scholarship offer from ND, and they rescinded the scholly when he was convicted for assault in high school and was sent to jail. Who else? ... I think it is generally a red-herring given by incompetent ND coaches. There are many other schools with good admission standards who manage to recruit admittable players who fit them and have very successful football pograms. R.J.
ND sits in the middle of Indiana. There's nothing to look at, nothing of great interest nearby, and it gets cold there...a lot. It's a long way from where the talent it needs to recruit lives, making it tough for mom & dad to come watch games. It has no conference affiliation. ND won its last national title in 1988, which is three years before current high seniors were born. Before winning the Hawaii Bowl last year, it hadn't won a bowl game since the 1993 season. Other than the "ghosts," which your average high school senior couldn't care less about, why go there...especially when you can stay close to home and play in a warmer locale for a school that has been of recent national relevance?
Was listening to The Herd on ESPN and Cowherd was comparing ND with the current upper crust of college football in trying to explain the differences in admissions. UT, FL, USC, ALA, LSU, OU, etc were lumped together as having lax admissions standards in comparison to ND. Specifically, it was stated that all of these schools allowed juco players and low achievers...I can't remember the name for these special qualifiers. Partial qualifiers, I believe is the correct term. I don't know specifics about all these schools but I couldn't think of any recent juco players that played for UT that weren't enrolled here, left for whatever reason and returned. Can anyone think of any jucos in the last decade? I do not consider someone who goes to ACC to get a grade while still enrolled at UT to be a juco. To me, a juco is an athlete enrolled fulltime at a junior college and participating in athletics. In addition, Cowherd mentioned ND allows no transfers or redshirts. Lou Holtz corrected him on the redshirts point - redshirts are allowed now at ND. They weren't used in Holtz' day. As usual, a talking head was spouting off with incorrect facts. I could not find any reliable specifics on the net for ND athletic academic requirements. Does anyone have anything official on this? Or for other top tier athletics programs? I would love to see a true comparison of entrance and eligibility requirements for the top programs in the country. I feel Mack has significantly improved the quality of incoming football players from an academic standpoint compared to his earlier years. And he is still successful!
It is all just BS. There is hardly much of such disadvantages of any of those kinds that a good coach cannot fix. Pick somebody who is proven as a good coach in a big program, and ND can be back in the hunt in no time ... The only reason for their problems is that the ND athletics administration has screwed up THREE times in a row in evaluating coaches. They were arrogant and kept forgetting that a bad coach will lose anywhere, including ND. So they never did their homework to learn what all to look for in a coach, that will make him successful in coming to a program with serious built-in advantages, and taking that program to the tops (and keeping it there). NFL background, color of skin, being catholic, blah blah, are all wrong items to focus on. ND had no reason to take risks when they could get proven quantities. They kept taking risks. They are paying for it. All this admission issues and all are nothing but excuses. R.J.
