Because the truth is that Notre Dame is the college football team for people who don't like college football. They're a novelty, a program designed to capture the attention of casual casual casual casual college football fans?New York-media types who believe that something is relevant only when they've deigned to pay attention to it. These are the people who say they're rooting for Notre Dame because "they're a great story," which is what you say when you're a front-running douchebag.
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This is why I've hated Notre Dame for years and years and years. I fucking loathe them, even though I have no business loathing them. I've never set foot on campus. I've never been personally assaulted by a Notre Dame player (though there's still time). I have friends who went to that school who I like. But still... FUCK THEM. I hate Notre Dame for the exact same reasons I hate Tim Tebow. It's an underperforming football entity with an irritating tribal gloss of holiness, which gets far too much acclaim and adulation when it happens to succeed. The Fighting Irish belong with the Red Sox, the Yankees, Twilight, Taylor Swift, and any other property that is artificially relevant because the media wastes so much fucking time telling you how relevant they are.
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Catholicism: No football program wears its religion on its sleeve more than Notre Dame. Even BYU isn't obnoxious enough to have Jesus overlooking the end zone. It's that kind of "we're more special than you" attitude that makes me hope that Satan will one day crawl out of the Earth's mantle and raze the entire Notre Dame campus with a single crack of his fire lash.
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Holtz, Lou: It says a lot about your program when Lou Holtz--a man who can barely speak English and looks like a small-town pharmacist--is one of the greatest coaches in your history. I can't even imagine the amount of dark money boosters needed to raise under the table in order to prop up Lou Holtz. Lou Holtz makes Barry Switzer look like Dwight Eisenhower. I will never forgive ESPN for the Dr. Lou segments. "Remember, the good Lord put eyes in the front of your head and not in the back, so that you can see where you're going instead of where you've been." Oh thanks, Dr. Lou! What other wisdom have you gained from reading slogans off of coffee mugs?
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