Texas v. Notre Dame - A (Highly Subjective) Comparative Study
by Peter Bean on Sep 11, 2007 8:05 PM CDT
in Texas Longhorns Football
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PrintTexas and Notre Dame. Between them, 1,633 wins on the gridiron. 16 national championships. Austin and South Bend are - whatever your personal feelings about either program - two of football's Meccas.
And after attending Notre Dame's season opening shellacking at the hands of Georgia Tech, I have now experienced both. What follows is a side-by-side comparison. Take it or leave it, as you will.
TRADITION
This is a tough one to start with, because both schools are literally oozing with tradition. Now, I don't have to flesh out the history of Texas football, of course. We know. What may be decisive, however, is that I don't have to flesh out the history of Notre Dame's football tradition, either. We know that, too.
And that gets, I think, to the crux of the matter. Notre Dame football is openly mocked these days because it has failed to produce a bowl win in over a decade. They've been slaughtered in almost every one of their big games over the last few years. They're a wounded animal right now, and they've got little recent success with which to drive fan devotion.
And yet, it's as strong as it ever has been. And that, I'm convinced after just three weeks here, is because of the tradition. My loyalties to Texas are undying, of course - but in this category, the edge goes to Notre Dame.
CURRENT RELEVANCE
Lest we overrate the importance of tradition, this category squarely clips the wings of Fighting Irish fandom. Notre Dame hasn't been this irrelevant in a long, long time. The devotees are hopeful that Charlie Weis' recruiting will change that soon, but they've got a lot of ground to make up before they match Texas in terms of recent relevance.
TAILGATING
Honestly? The tailgating scene up here is awesome. Midwesterners have a reputation for being a bit of an American oddity, and Domers, in particular, are known for inhabiting a unique place in the universe.
It's all true. It's definitely different up here. But it would be a grave mistake to say that it's anything short of outstanding. These people treat football weekends with the same reverence that us Texas crazies do. They drive and fly in from all over, plan their lives around the fall, and pay attention to detail. And as every good Texas tailgater will tell you - it's all in the details.
With that said, they can't quite match Texans in tailgating prowess. I didn't see any hogs slow-cooked whole overnight. I'm not sure I saw any new gadgets or gizmos which had been invented solely for fall weekend enhancement. The spirit and dedication were there, but that primal devotion to the act itself wasn't present like it is among the burnt orange and white's most dedicated weekenders.
Notre Dame's fanbase gets a lot of credit for their pregame festivities, but they can't match Texans in the parking lots.
STUDENT SPIRIT
This may be a product of Austin v. South Bend, but students at the University of Texas simply don't collectively live and die with the football team like the Notre Dame students do. Truthfully, this category isn't even close. Even if you factor in that there's very little to do up here other than root for the football team, the Texas student section still loses out. With 50,000 students, you'd think we'd have far more insanely wild students at the games.
Not so. The Texas students are, relatively speaking, a country club of restraint compared to the passion with which the Fighting Irish students live and die with the football team. The pep rallies are borderline cult-like. There are coordinated cheers and chants. It's much more like a Texas A&M sense of spirit, except without the fascist toy soldier part.
STADIUM
DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium has evolved from an awkward, multi-sport venue of poor architecture into one of the most memorable destination stadiums in the country. And we're just scratching the surface. The renovations to be completed over the next decade will make DKR one of the most beholding venues in collegiate sports.
Notre Dame Stadium, on the other hand, is more like the Rose Bowl. It is simple and deceptively alluring. There's nothing particularly flashy about it, but it commands a sense of awe and respect for the game being played within.
Call me a wimp, but this one's a Draw.
ALUMNI
This one's maybe the toughest one of all, because Notre Dame's alumni network, though 20% of the size of a school like Texas', is one of the most fiercely loyal and supportive in existence. Still, there's one factor which makes me give this category to Texas: the fact that no matter where I go - literally anywhere in the country - I cannot help but spot burnt orange.
I literally have yet to take a trip anywhere in the country where I've not spotted a fellow Longhorn fan. We're literally everywhere. It's a close call, but no one - and I mean no one - can match Texas fans' ubiquity. We're like cockroaches. Except virtuous.
WOMEN
Oh, please. Like Notre Dame can compete with Texas in the category of beautiful women. We all know that's a mismatch.
Let me just note, though, that the widespread perception that the undergraduate women of Notre Dame are a clumpy bunch of ladies is flat out wrong. I've been spending my time between class periods parked in the Student Union and I can assure you that, were a fellow in search of a hot-to-trot princess to covet, he'd have no shortage of options. There are lots of beautiful co-eds at this school.
If I ever make note that I've started doing my case briefs in the undergraduate library? Now you know why.
--PB--
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you learn quickly my friend
this may come as a surprise to many of you, but the law students at NYU are not quite on the same level as the undergrads. i totally would have studied at the NYU undergrad library if it hadn't been the ugliest and creepiest fucking place in the world. but hey, at least you're practically guaranteed to see a suicide every few weeks....
My Uncle...
... Is an ND grad and rabid fan. They are quite similar to us, at least in impotent rage. He has learned the art of channeling his fear and shame into smartass remarks about the coaching/program. Think Greg Davis with fat jokes, and change "developed a system of run-game faggotry" to "Out-smarted his fat self again." I feel like they maintain hope that Brady Quinn Jimmy Clausen will save them a la Aggies vision of Reggie McNeal. I think they should take a lesson from Brady Quinn and Poooooooor Reggie, and realize that while one player can make a big difference (VY Heisman, baby!), for significant progress, the whole program has to make a turn around like the one at Texas or OU. I think they, like all good fans, hope for the best while secretly picking Michigan in their pick 'em leagues.
Basically, ND right now is like Texas between DKR and Mack Brown. I feel for them, but at the same time, I picked Michigan on Saturday.
School Colors
Texas has orange, which does not go with anything but white -- or maybe black but that's on Halloween. They say nothing rhymes with 'orange', which does not particularly impress me since my HS colors were purple and silver. At least 'white' rhymes with 'fight'.
Notre Dame has blue and gold, which would make them cub scouts, except everyone thinks they should be green, which is kind of OK since if you mix blue and gold you get green.
Edge goes to Notre Dame, since everyone wears bluejeans and only golfers wear orange slacks.
Just b'cause they have a primary color?
We're talking hair over hide; it's really a range of exotic colors and even creamy white goes with it. Not that Crimson and Cream crap; something with some flavor, some depth to it.
True, nothing goes really well with it, but white; its complementary is a sort off shade of blue. And mixing the oranges, like the current jersey, just...pfffssttt...I'll be nice. Looks like we'll have to live with them the rest of the year.
Our helmets, though, elegant white with a steer, are better than the golden domers. Both are highly recognizable but the horns have great reach.
Burnt Orange
Is the coolest school color in the world. The reason it is our color is because it goes with nothing, or else they would not have been out of all the other colors of ribbon when we were looking for a color. Burnt Orange is a wonderfully obnoxious color that screams "Screw you, We're Texas!" That's cool. That's what you want your color to say.
Re: "Screw you, We're Texas!"
absolutely best line of the night.
I concur.
by bleed burnt orange on Sep 12, 2007 12:53 AM CDT up reply actions
two points
Its a powerful statement that most fans know two sets of traditions, those of their own alma mater, and those of Notre Dame. I hate the domers on the field, but gladly admit their traditions serve as an ambassador for the sport of college football.
I've encountered several traditions outside of Austin that I especially respect. In Columbus, for example, I thought it very classic that they have a grove near the stadium in which they plant a tree for each new player honored as an all-American.
But the coolest tradition I've come across is the paint used on the Notre Dame helmets. Apparently, they scrape the actual gold from the Dome in the center of campus and grind it into a powder that's ultimately used in the paint they apply each week on the helmets. They say that on the first play from scrimmage, you can see a cloud of gold dust over the scrum.
And along the lines of meeting Longhorns everywhere. Once, just after my junior year, I was on a train from Southern France to Spain that I wasn't supposed to be on (neither was anyone else, we'd all made it on somehow during a train strike). Anyway, I start talking to the couple behind me and it turned out they were UT students as well. Then the guy in front of me also tapped me on the shoulder and told me he had just graduated from UT.
Nice
They are all so tender and sore these days. Giving them a good ribbing is out of the question, because the lower lip starts to quiver each time I bring up the topic.
I agree with the comments on the Texas student body. For every burnt orange gridiron die hard on campus there are another 4 or 5 students who don't even know we have a football team. But that's what I love about UT and Austin. You could live a lifetime in Austin and barely scratch the surface on leisure interests and activities.
South Bend vs Austin
I grew up in South Bend attending every ND home game, sometimes selling programs outside the stadium in the biting cold. When it came time to go to college, I needed to go somewhere with an equally stories college football tradition. Plus I wanted good weather and hot girls. So I went to UT.
If I may offer my own two cents on the differences between the schools on game day:
The best part about going to Notre Dame games these days is hanging out in the parking lot before the game. I have to differ with HornsFan's assessment: the Irish tailgate scene is bigger and better. You can literally walk 360 degrees around the stadium going from one tailgate to another, dodging kids and drunks tossing footballs. There's no Shiner in Indiana, and the barbecue isn't even close to as good -- the Hoosier State is known for corn, not brisket -- and the girls are nowhere near as cute as they are in Austin. But one of my first reactions on going to my first UT football game was, Where's the tailgate??
One other thing about the Irish: Though lately UT has sold more apparel than anyone else, this is a new development. I graduated in 1997 (tough years to be sure -- thanks Mackovic!) and at that time, no one outside the SWC/Big XII area knew about Texas. More people, I hate to say it, knew A&M than UT. That changed with Vince Young. Now everyone knows about UT. But travel outside the country and ask people to name on American college football team, they'll say Notre Dame. We have more alums, but ND has more fans -- most of whom never set foot on campus -- and more people have an opinion on the Irish, bad or good (more often bad, it seems), than about the 'Horns.
The old Notre Dame stadium -- you can still see it underneath the shell they built around it when they expanded the stadium -- was a temple to football. I know very few ND fans who like the new stadium -- it's cold and lifeless. Meanwhile DKR has gone from a mausoleum (when I was there) to one of the best and loudest places to play in the country. Points there. And Texas is playing important, big games every week, is a perennial national championship contender, and just matters more right now. And they have badass uniforms -- along with Michigan, the best in the game.
Finally, no one mentioned it, and it pains me to say it, but the Notre Dame Victory March is way better than The Eyes of Texas. Sorry, guys.
by ChicagoHorn on Sep 12, 2007 11:41 AM CDT reply actions
PB and Chicago Horn
I was planning on asking this question in October, but this seems like an appropriate place to bring it up.
I'll be traveling to the usc/notre dame game in October, and I have a few questions for you.
- I'll be driving in from Chicago - What time should I try to get to South Bend in the morning, before it would become difficult to park?
- How is parking there?
- What's your recommendation for things to do pre-game there? Walk around campus seems like a must.
- After the game, is it worth hanging around in town for dinner and a few more drinks, or head back towards Chicago? If you say hang around, any recommendations on places to eat or drink?
Thanks in advance.
Hook'em
by Longhorn in LA on Sep 12, 2007 2:13 PM CDT reply actions
what to do in south bend
If you leave Chicago at 10:00am it should get you to South Bend at 1:00pm local time, 1:30 if there's traffic (which there usually is). Remember Indiana is an hour ahead of Illinois. Parking isn't too tough: once you get off the toll road, follow the traffic to the university and take a left on Douglas. There's a big lot on the left hand side where there's always space, and it's a nice walk through campus from there to the stadium.
If you want to find the secret free spots where locals park, don't turn on Douglas and instead keep going down US-31 till you see Angela Blvd. This road twists around the south side of campus, and on these residential side streets there's often parking.
Try to hang near the west side of the stadium an hour before gametime and follow the band around as they play around campus and march into the stadium. Check out the Grotto and the Golden Dome. Tailgate.
There's very little nightlife in South Bend, but if you want to pick up drunk coeds the place to go is the Linebacker, which you can walk to from campus. The Senior Bar is on campus, right at the end of a parking lot, and that's a cool place to go, too -- but if the Irish lose people don't hang around too long. Win or lose, Corby's in downtown South Bend is always packed. Word of warning: there are like two cabs in all of South Bend. Lotta drunk driving.
If you haven't spent much time in Chicago, by all means drive back after the game and enjoy a real city.
by ChicagoHorn on Sep 12, 2007 2:51 PM CDT up reply actions
Thanks!
Great advice. Planning on leaving Chicago by 8A, so by the sounds of it shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks again!
by Longhorn in LA on Sep 12, 2007 5:25 PM CDT up reply actions
ChicagoHorn covered it all pretty well
If you don't make it back to Chicago Saturday evening to enjoy the city life, there are a few decent night spots in South Bend, including a newly renovated bar called Rum Runners. It's big enough to accommodate large crowds and generally a good time.
I did it the other way around
I was an ND undergrad, went to UT for law school. Loved Austin so much I now live here.
Couple comments.
Texas has going for it that it is in Austin. ND is stuck in poor old South Bend. (That said, in the fall, with the leaves turning on the ND campus while it's still in the 90s at UT, it just feels more like football time at ND.)
ND is a fraction of the size of UT, making it a much more intense community.
The football team is a class program with a graduation rate of 95% compared to 40% at Texas, one of the worst in the country. For African American athletes, it's even worse at UT. UT spits these youngsters out, but no one seems to care much. At ND, people do take winning seriously, but not JUST winning.
A majority of UT undergrads don't even go to games. At ND, everyone is on board--the entire community. One can live in Austin and forget whether it's a home game weekend. Not so in South Bend.
If Texas never had a football team, the world of college football would not be markedly different. But ND helped invent the sport. Before Rockne, the big strategy was to have the offense form a V and just push against the defense. All one big scrum. Less exciting than Rugby. ND helped INVENT the game of football as we know it, with varied backfield formations and the forward pass. For this all fans owe it a HUGE debt of gratitude. Not so UT.
Finally, ND is a team about which few are neutral. Folks love 'em or hate 'em. Outside of its conference, and Oklahoma, Texas doesn't inspire much passion one way or the other. Not at Penn State or Michigan or Boston College. Think of the UT/Oklahoma rivalry--about half the games ND plays are almost as passionate a rivaly, with Michigan, BC, USC, Penn State. And ND purposely plays teams all over the country, and has since Rocke started this in the 20s.
I love UT, but face it--as a football program, it's pretty much the same as any other big state school like Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Penn State (without an institution like JoePa), Iowa--they're all the same darn thing.
ND IS UTTERLY UNIQUE. As proof that there's no comparison, right now there aren't lots of guys on a blog for teh Huskers comparing Husker tradition to Longhorn tradition. Longhorns compare their tradition to ND's because ND sets the standard. Like it or not, that's the way it is.
by zenoofelia on Sep 14, 2007 10:25 PM CDT reply actions
Dude
Y'all all say the same thing. "Look at our history and tradition!"
Please - go back, read the post, come back.
Note: it scores the Tradition category for Notre Dame.
So even if you don't think the category is as close as I made it out to be, I still scored the damn category for Notre Dame.
What I find really, really troubling is that though the majority of the people at ND that have seen this post say, "Hey, nice job. Good fair comparison there," there exists a vocal minority of people who WILLNOTLETITDROP that Notre Dame is TRADITION!
I get that. We get that.
What you guys don't get is that your only relevance to this sport at all right now is from your past. And though you think that's something to be embraced, the rest of us are wondering when you'll realize that the joke may just be on you.
You're like freaking Russians, man.
you're using a strange definition of 'relevant'
Thanks for your reply.
I don't buy the dichotomy between current relevance and tradition. sports is all about memory, tradition, fan dedication, and what a PROGRAM STANDS FOR. ND's current relevance is not measured only by three games in one season, nor is UT's to be measured by Vince Young. The fact is, if ND left the college football scene entirely, today, it would be a big loss. If UT's football team went away, not too many folks outside of Tx, other than UT alums, would shed a tear. What's that say about relevance? A Hawkeye or Bulldog fan certainly wouldn't feel a great sense of loss, any more than you would feel a great sense of loss if Iowa or Georgia left the scene. Does that not say something about which ream is 'relevant'?
For you to say that ND's relevance is from it's past just shows a strangely narrow understanding of relevance. ND is relevant to millions, unlike UT, because they love it. Today. For what it was and what it IS. (Graduation rate, no idiotic Jumbotron in the stadium, players at mass before the game, singing the alma mater afterwards, for example.) UT does not inspire that love outside of UT and Tx, just like Ohio State does not inspire that love outside of Ohio and OSU alums. Any team that is the most popular in the country in its sport is ipso facto "relelvant" by any sane definition of the term. The fact that much of that love comes from what the team and the school stands for does not make it's relevance a thing of the past.
Here's relevance for you. This weekend's ND/MSU game will probably draw a bigger national audience than the UT/A&M game this year, even though we know which set of teams is the strongest. If you don't like my definition of relevant, then ask NBC, ABC, and ESPN which college teams they find relevant to their advertisers.
Further, it may suprise you to know that for the 10-year period preceding this season, if you rank the top 10 winningest programs in all of college football over that period, ND is in it, notwithstanding the fact that ND plays a tough schedule every year, unlike UT and most of the other teams in this top 10 list. I would say that any team that has, over the previous 10-year period, got a win/loss record in the top 10 is pretty darn RELEVANT . . . again, if you're using a sane definition.
Finally, if want to say that everything that a program stands for is lumped into the category of "tradition," again, you're using terms in a strange way. The fact remains, ND's program stands for something, and it is a rarity. Look at this week's top 25. Every darn school on there, but 2, is a huge state school, paid for by tax dollars, most with rather modest academic records, most (but not all--see Penn State) with pathetic graduation rates for football players. The only 2 smaller, private schools are USC and Boston College. They're all rarities. (BC is one of only two Div I schools with a graduation rate as high as NDs--in 2006 the top 3 were Navy, BC and ND, in that order) Is your view is that South Carolina, Rutgers, or Oregon are more relevant to the world of college football today than ND, simply because these programs are having good years while ND is having a lousy year? Would you say this even though ND has a MUCH better record than any of these schools over the previous 10-year period?
You may be sick of Domers defending the program and pointing to tradition, but I'll bet you're not as sick as I am of hearing how ND is a dinosaur, not 'relevant' to use your term, can't compete in big time college ball, etc. (I'm not saying you said all those things, by the way.) Most of the nonsense of this sort comes from guys that go to places like Virginia Tech, which is a very nice school and has a nice football program . . . that no one in the country gives a damn about, and never will, and so Hokie fans are naturally pissed that ND is on TV all the time and they're not. But ask yourself why you should give a darn about the Hokies? What does that program stand for? Nothing. And for the same reason, no Hokie fan cares a fig about the Longhorns, because the Longhorns don't really stand for anything . . . except for the mere fact of being from Texas, which doesn't inspire the typical Virginian. If anyone actually looked at the win/loss record, and any other sane indicia of how to judge a program, whether it's success at graduating students, the success in running a clean program, the overall record in recent years, the number of pro draft picks, the popularity of the program, the scheduling of big-time rivalries . . . you name it, ND is near the top. UT wins more games, but that's ain't everything.
Sorry to be so long-winded, and I don't have a gripe with most of your comments, but when you say ND has "a lot of ground to make up before they match Texas in terms of recent relevance," all you can mean is that UT has a better team right now. That, my fellow Longhorn, is not the sole indicator of relevance. Far from it. (If it were, then Tennessee would be the most relevant program in all of college football over the last 80 years because it has the winningest record--ND is #3, by the way, and UT #8--and how relevant is Tennessee to anyone outside Tennesse?)
So I ask, relevance to whom? When I was at UT law, few of the law students bothered to go to a game, except for some of those that went there undergrad. ND football has more 'relevance' to ND law students than UT football has to UT law students. That should tell you something.
Finally, I sat next to former UT coach Fred Akers at a lunch the other day. (Akers was the guy who had a national championship denied when ND beat UT in the Cotton Bowl.) I can tell you from my conversation with Coach Akers that he has no doubts about the current relevance of ND's football program.
Thanks for listening, so to speak. And thanks too for the original post--I appreciate your perspective, even if I disagree with one aspect of it.
by zenoofelia on Sep 18, 2007 11:49 PM CDT up reply actions
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