UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

1. ND played the same number of regular season games as Ohio State, Indiana, and Tennessee.
2. It's none of his damned business whether other teams are in a conference, or how many conference games each conference plays. At this point, nobody is complaining about ND deserving to be in the playoffs (they weren't really in final CFP rankings either, complaints were more towards SMU being in/Boise State bye)
3. There will never be consistency in college football with this many teams and the constantly changing landscape.
4. ND SOS was comparable to PSU and Indiana before playoffs, and their SOR was #3. It's not like ND took an "easy" path to the playoffs, even if the regular season wasn't a murderer's row. Most of the teams were bowl teams, and Louisville, GT, and USC were all quality teams that lacked consistency.

On a side note, I finally heard Paul Finebaum verbalize his disdain for ND's independence this week on a clip with Stephen A and Mad Dog - I don't watch ESPN much. I had not heard him articulate his feelings on ND's independence - he has been somewhat bullish on ND's team quality the back half of this season. In a nutshell, he thinks every team should be in a conference for some reason, and he called ND "arrogance" of ND football being "too good" to be in a conference for football. He was pissy about ND playing an ACC season during COVID but refusing to join full-time, as if the current bargain is a bad deal for the ACC. It isn't of course, which is why the ACC is continuing it. The conversation had originally started about ND's relevance, and he didn't really take the bait although he did say it wouldn't make a difference for college football if ND was good. Stephen A and Mad Dog disagreed with him there, saying they are the Yankees/Cowboys/Celtics of the sport, which is fair. No real point here, except I had always suspected he felt this way and had not heard him actually say it. I'm sure he has and I missed it.


Link: Finebaum clip