This is about American football, sorry to all the fans of soccer-football out there but that sport just isn't for me. Today I am going to talk about who my favorite teams are in college football. Maybe you have a few favorites as well.
Notre Dame
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While I am no longer practicing, I was raised in a reasonably hardcore Catholic household. Therefore, it is all but mandatory that you be a fan of Notre Dame, which is a Catholic university. It began as a women-only college back in the mid 1800's but obviously they allow anyone to apply to and attend the university now, regardless of their religious affiliation.
The thing that makes Notre Dame so unusual is the fact that while it is close to reasonably large city with a population of 300,000, the actual university grounds are in a really really small town that almost certainly wouldn't even be on the map if it weren't for the college. You could easily make the argument that South Bend, Indiana's population would be dramatically smaller if it weren't for the university being there. I suppose this is true of a lot of other "college towns" as well but their campus is basically in the middle of some farmland. Their stadium holds nearly 80,000 people and this is a crazy huge stadium for an area with such a low population. They manage to sell out most home games as well.
They are also not in any conference and instead opt to be "independent." There are only 7 schools that do this and I am not going to try to say that I know why they would choose to do so. Notre Dame manages to be a real force in football every year and well, that makes it a lot easier to be a fan. They have won the national championship 11 times and there are not many schools that can make this claim.
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I don't even know how an independent team's schedule is determined and at least on paper, their 2021 season is anything but a walk in the park.
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When they played then number 18 ranked Wisconsin back on 25-Sept they showed the football world that they are once again a force to be reckoned with when they put a full on beat down show on display in a 41-13 victory. This would propel them to a national rank of number 9 and set them up for what was by many people's standards the "game of the week" against Cincinnati.
Unfortunately they would return home with ALMOST enough momentum but fell short against number 7 ranked Cincinnati. In the first half the Fightin' Irish would go down 17-0 but came out of the locker room screaming to pull within 4 points only to have their comeback dreams shattered late in the fourth quarter. The final score was a loss for Notre Dame, 24-13.
The rest of this year's schedule sees them up against a bunch of teams that at least at the moment are unranked. The game versus UNC could be a good one to watch because the Tarheels started the season out ranked number 10 and have had a massive fall from grace. The UNC frustration as to how their season is going compared to what it was meant to be could make this a really great game to watch.
The rest of the games could be a walk in the park outside of maybe Va Tech who at 3-1 could be looking to put on their show of the year. If the Hokies could pull out a win against Notre Dame it could propel them into the top 25.
In the end my love for this team started because of a family-religion obligation of sorts but over the years it has been because the team is consistently at least better than average. This certainly makes it easier to like a team because well, i don't mean to sound like a fair-weather-fan but if your team is consistently losing, it makes it difficult to support them. Notre Dame seems to be a really solid program though, and aside from a few years here and there such as 2016 where they went 4-8 they almost always appear in a bowl of some sort.
So what do you think? Are you a Notre Dame fan?