So just heard Gerry Denardo on the SCORE talking bout the placement of the nd game in our schedule....Kind of agree....We are still in position to make a push for the West championship with games against UW and Iowa.....with nd in the middle....One it give us 3 straight tough, physical games and maybe the nd game takes a little focus off what the real task should be , which is win the West.....but I guess there are some that would consider a W over nd the culmination of a successful season. So how did this all come about? Were we so eager to get a return game with nd in Evanston that we accepted whatever they threw our way? Were we in control of the decision? I hate nd but want to win the West.
notre dame scheduling
- Thread starter loyolacat
- Start date
I never like talk about focus of a team.
Any team (including ours) lives week-to-week. It's Rutgers week, then Wisconsin week, then Notre Dame week, then Iowa week. No coach worth anything looks ahead.
As fans, sure we talk about the whole stretch of Wisconsin/ND/Iowa, but coaches and the players don't. They know how important each Big Ten game is.
As for ND scheduling, these games are scheduled way in advance. Phillips and Swsrbrick agreed on a pair of November games. That's how the deal was signed.
Any team (including ours) lives week-to-week. It's Rutgers week, then Wisconsin week, then Notre Dame week, then Iowa week. No coach worth anything looks ahead.
As fans, sure we talk about the whole stretch of Wisconsin/ND/Iowa, but coaches and the players don't. They know how important each Big Ten game is.
As for ND scheduling, these games are scheduled way in advance. Phillips and Swsrbrick agreed on a pair of November games. That's how the deal was signed.
My uneducated guess is that the NU players have little interest in the ND game, which is a much bigger deal to NU alums. ND really isn't relevant to kids the way it once was to the old guys like me. I'm sure they will be pumped to play during ND game week, but assuming they get by Rutgers their focus will be 100% on Wisky with little thought given to ND.
You would be wrong. Beating Notre Dame matters. A lot.
ND is an independent in football so their schedule does not line up like most conference schools who play their non conference games in the beginning of the season and conference games after that. If you schedule a series of games with them, you must be willing to accept that fact and accommodate their availability. If you recall, the first leg of this two game series in south bend was also in November.
Could you please go away? Nobody said that beating Notre Dame doesn't matter. Cripes, ever since you blasted a player to his own father on here, you lost all credibility.
He literally said “My uneducated guess is that the NU players have little interest in the ND game.”
Says the guy who talks to himself on a college football message board with two separate handles
We were rightfully willing to play ND on dates that fit their long term schedule. It actually dovetailed nicely with the recent B1G effort to get a conference game or two on opening weekend, something I really enjoy.
90% of ND’s games encroach on their opponents conference schedule, something you can do when you still have your own network.
Technically, Fitzphile was not completely wrong. It was a very uneducated guess.
good job quote mining, you troll. If you read his comment and put it in context of what he was conveying, his point was a comparison between the generation of the players and the generation of old pricks like me. He is right. You either missed his entire point (Why am I not surprised) or you just like to troll and I guess nobody can stop you.
And during the ND week, he did say that the players will be pumped but in reality they really will be focused on Wisconsin until that week. You are wrong.
You are your own worst enemy. Ever since you blasted a player to his own father, you went overboard. Of course, I always knew that and called you out for it when you tagged TS as losing games for us and claimed that Prater was lazy, but now the rest of the board knows. Really beneath you to call out a player to his own father than attack the father's girlfriend. Moron!
As it turns out, the scheduling is genius. Notre Dame is ranked #4 and by all scenarios it is a playoff lock, unless it loses. So it puts Northwestern on the map and in the national conversation by association for that week. I've watched Notre Dame and they very easily could be 4-3 right now. Simply put, I think we have a good shot at them. And if we beat Wisconsin, we should be in good shape to win the west and have a fair shot to knock off another playoff team in OSU or Michigan.
I like our chances and although our early season throwaways always keep us from big bowls, we still have a chance at a major bowl if we win the Big Ten.
Oh no, I got his point completely. His point is just wrong. Very wrong.
PS -- solid revisionist history, though if anyone were to know how to get away with trolling it is probably the guy with two separate handles who is "brahs" with the mods.
Yeah, I'm with gocatsgo on this one. You couldn't be further from the truth here. The game on Nov 4 will have the feel of a Bowl Game for NU. It is huge on a couple of different fronts.
The best part is it's a win-win scenario for the Cats (unless they play ridiculously bad and lose by 45 points or something). If they lose, they weren't favored anyway and the loss doesn't mean a thing relative to contention in the B1G West. If they win, they can hang their hat on a victory over a top-10 team and they'll have beaten ND for the third time in a row.
Everyone will be watching because as things intensify in November for the "4" playoff spots, most of the college football world will be watching hoping for a ND loss as drama starts to unfold in the month of November. Michigan may become our biggest fan.
The scheduling of this November meeting, i.e., bringing in one of the top 4 playoff teams to Ryan Field, couldn't have been any better for the program.
Question: When do they release the first poll that shows the real rankings?
No. The signature win for Fitz, to date, is the Mississippi State win. Although, outsiders may not see a second tier bowl win as impactful, the program needed it really really bad. That said, beating a playoff ranked team like Notre Dame would be a sure #2 but it wouldn't get Fitz an upgraded contract like the Mississippi State win did.
Fitz's biggest win to date is that 2009 win 17-10 over then #4 Iowa which finished ranked #7 overall with a 11-2 record (their only other loss to Ohio State in overtime).
A win over a top 5 Notre Dame deep into the playoff hunt would probably top that if Notre Dame won the rest of its games and didn't make the playoff.
Wait a minute. Earlier in this thread, you agreed with a statement that "NU players have little interest in the ND game" and disagreed with a statement that beating ND "matters a lot," but now you are saying a win over ND would be "a sure #2" all-time win during the Fitz era? WTF? If you are going to state inconsistent positions within the same thread, you need to toggle to your other handle.
Part of the “size” of a win is its impact on a national scale. The Stanford game registered, but not to the degree it should have, in retrospect.
Meanwhile, DOWN GOES STANZI was the first loss for a 9-0 team.
For that reason, I think zeek nailed it.
Wasn't that game nullified by the time change?
That's probably Fitz's highest quality win without question, but we didn't know how good Stanford was until way later. And nationally, that win didn't resonate because there weren't any real stakes with them just being seen as a lower top 25 team in the opening week and ourselves unranked.
That's the problem with a win like that; we beat Stanford when they were #21 and they weren't ranked for a couple of weeks; then they won the rest of their games other than 2 point loss to Oregon and were ranked #3 overall at the end of the season.
It's definitely the best team Fitz's beaten; but that Iowa game resonated way more across the national landscape because of when it happened and how it happened and that they finished the season strong after...
C'mon Hawkcat, didn't you go to NU? Geez!
The first poster commented about the Notre Dame game not being as important to the players as to the NU Alum. I found that comment to be true, in the contextual comparison presented. The second comment, was an actual question and the subject of the question was Fitz and not the players. For Fitz, I think a Notre Dame victory (and not necessarily because it's Notre Dame as you can put any November playoff team in here) would necessarily have to be his second most impactful win of his career, which was the question.
But as proof, I bet if you ask the players, they truly are more focused on the BigTen and I suspect Fitz is as well. In the context of this season, and this team, a Notre Dame win won't be a fart in the wind since it has NOTHING to do with the goal of the team to win the BigTen championship, but as far as a career win, I think it truly would be #2 on Fitz' resume.
Big difference! The one comment was talking about players, while the other comment was talking about a Coach's signature wins. Sheesh!
It is impossible to overstate how huge this game is in my north suburban Catholic community, where ND fans and alums outnumber NU fans and alums by a wide margin. They've had this date circled for 2+ years, ever since it was announced, and untold numbers of them have bought NU season tickets for the sole purpose of getting tickets to this game plus additional individual tickets made available to season ticket holders. The chorus will grow louder and even more insufferable as the date approaches, especially given the undefeated season they're having. ND is having a Friday night pep rally at Haven School (three blocks from the stadium), Mass Saturday morning at St. Athanasius (two blocks from the stadium), and an official tailgate on our own golf course -- it's going to be insane. We'll have a chance to win the West every year, but we're not going to have another chance to beat Notre Dame for God knows how many years. Winning this one and knocking them out of the playoffs would rank right up there with 17-15 and the Jack Mitchell game as two of my favorite all-time "I was there" moments. This is one Catholic who will be rooting like hell for the Fighting Methodists that day. Let's win it.
Its a big name school, ranked highly, and it's notre Dame on top of that. They're gonna be excited to play and it's gonna mean a lot. Even if it has nothing to do with winning the conference. You practice a little harder the week before a big boy. At least the teams I played on did. Although I will say we didn't hate them the same way some of our high school alums did and we had friends on the other side and we still really wanted to win.
I agree with the sentiment that gcg has but I think I agree with Fitzphile because the game has HUGE recruiting implications but do our players really care more about ND than UW, Iowa, Michigan etc? I think they would rather win the division whereas some of us would almost rather win the ND game.
Didn't have anywhere near the impact. Fans watching that game didn't realize that loss would change the outcome of the $$$ Playoff system. And I imagine the TV rating was nothing wow. However, in November, when the real college football ranking polls come out, all eye will be on our game. And if we are ahead, it will be noted on all other TV channels on the ticker and college fans will tune in. The ratings would become unreal if we are winning. The drama would be intense and if we win, it will tattoo an imprint of our program on college football fans, and more importantly recruits.
ND can matter a lot but still matter less to the players than beating UW and winning the West. I’m sure beating ND matters more to every player who had an ND offer or wanted one, though
What game are you talking about? Bears? Dolphins?
Dolphins are playing Buffalo on Nov 4th. Look, this isn't the ole "Miami has the oranges but Buffalo has the Juice game"
Forgive him. He's in a constant state of having to mentally juggle his supposed religious positions with his political ones, and on top of that try to keep track of at least two handles on this site. It's tough.
He already beat them, in their house. I think the biggest win would be Wisconsin next week, if we go on to win the West.
The thing is, as you win, games get bigger in importance...
If we beat Wisconsin, then the Iowa game is going to be the de facto West division championship game in the eyes of most. Which of course means that the ND game (while a nice aside), won't be anywhere near as important as the Iowa game once the ND game is over with (win or lose):
If we were to win Wisconsin, then win Notre Dame, but then lose Iowa and the West division with it..., I'm not so sure we'd be that happy after that Iowa game...
Whereas if we beat Wisconsin and Iowa but lose to ND, who'll really care about that ND game? We'd have firm control of the division the rest of the way...
Look at 2017 for example, in hindsight, that Wisconsin game was a de facto West division championship game.
But if we had won that game, we'd have controlled our destiny in the B1G and every B1G game would have been raised in importance in keeping control of the division. Since we lost, we never controlled our destiny and were never a threat the rest of the way though we kept winning. The remainder of our games were not really relevant to the division race in that respect.
That's why a game like 2015 Stanford can be seen as a high quality win in hindsight, but the game didn't really have much importance at the time.
If we beat Wisconsin, then the Iowa game is going to be the de facto West division championship game in the eyes of most. Which of course means that the ND game (while a nice aside), won't be anywhere near as important as the Iowa game once the ND game is over with (win or lose):
If we were to win Wisconsin, then win Notre Dame, but then lose Iowa and the West division with it..., I'm not so sure we'd be that happy after that Iowa game...
Whereas if we beat Wisconsin and Iowa but lose to ND, who'll really care about that ND game? We'd have firm control of the division the rest of the way...
Look at 2017 for example, in hindsight, that Wisconsin game was a de facto West division championship game.
But if we had won that game, we'd have controlled our destiny in the B1G and every B1G game would have been raised in importance in keeping control of the division. Since we lost, we never controlled our destiny and were never a threat the rest of the way though we kept winning. The remainder of our games were not really relevant to the division race in that respect.
That's why a game like 2015 Stanford can be seen as a high quality win in hindsight, but the game didn't really have much importance at the time.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
FOOTBALL Five things to look for at Northwestern's open spring practice
- Latest: gocatsgo2003
-
-
