If you don't follow college football at all let me give you a little back story. It has always seemed to me that, our great nation, loves Notre Dame. Except, I have never, in my lifetime, seen a good reason for it. They are, at times, a good football team. But I haven't known them to be great. I haven't seen any reason to fawn over them. They are just another team except - they aren't. They live in a special place in college football. This odd Catholic University isn't in a conference like all the other "big" schools and they don't have to play by any conference rules to earn their way into a bowl game. They just have to win. And, if memory serves, they only have to win 8 games to have an automatic birth into a BCS game (big money $$$).
Rumors have abounded for years that Notre Dame would join the Big East (why?) but after the defection of Miami, Virginia Tech (VT), and Boston College (BC) I think it is safe to assume Notre Dame will never join the Big East. In fact there is no real motivation for them to join a conference. If they did they would have to share that bowl money that gets handed to them with their less fortunate conference members and they would have to do a bit more to even earn a big Bowl Game invite.
Notre Dame is loved though. They have tons of fans from all walks of life from all across the country. It is this rabid, and seemingly inexplicable following that garners them their own TV contract with NBC so the whole nation gets to see every Notre Dame game. Heck, I hardly get to see any USC games and they are the #1 team in the land and haven't lost a game in over 2 seasons!
A few years ago Notre Dame looked good, real good. They had just hired the coach from Stanford, Tyrone Willingham, and he went 8-0 to start his career there (I don't know how that year ended). When I first saw it I though, well maybe there is something to this Notre Dame mystique. However, since then Notre Dame has been pretty average. And then, after 3 years of his 5 year contract Willingham was fired this past off-season and Notre Dame went to the Super Bowl champs and hired a ND alum Charlie Weiss (the Patriots Offensive coordinator at the time).
I was a little shocked by the firing of Willingham. Heck Notre Dame hadn't seen success like he brought them in as long as I could remember - what did the Notre Dame leaders want? He seems they just wanted another Coach. This year Weiss started off admirably winning his first five games I think. Then, something strange happened. Notre Dame gave Weiss a ten year extension worth 30 million dollars. What gives? Willingham had a better start, against better competition but Notre Dame showed some restraint and left his contract alone, presumably to see how he did in the long run. But they didn't do that with Weiss. Why not? And what college football coach really deserves a $30 million contract? That is absurd. Have Notre Dame's TV ratings been so phenomenal since Weiss took over that somehow this was justified?
One of my favorite sports columnists, Jason Whitlock, recently wrote an article about this odd Coach contract hypocrisy at Notre Dame. He pulls the racist card out but not because of the firing of Willinghame, something he dubs as "shortsighted and unfair". However, he does think the contract extension was. It's a thought provoking read.
By the way there are only a few teams I always root against; Notre Dame, Florida State, and the opponents of Marshall and North Carolina State.