Pays to Be Catholic: XMas Comes Early for Notre Dame

But, to be fair, he does look really good in that half-and-half jers--oh, wait. That's not a man.

Much to my chagrin, Michigan today announced that it had extended its football series against Notre Dame for twenty years. I've struggled to understand if this is good or bad, and to assist myself, I've chosen a blogger's favorite crutch: the list.

Top Ten Reasons Why Michigan Should Not Keep Playing Notre Dame:
10) Tradition. Michigan has plenty of it. A small amount comes from the Notre Dame series. Much more could be developed playing other, better teams. Failing to play Notre Dame will not take away Michigan's most wins of all time, highest winning percentage of all time, 11 national titles, hall-of-fame fight song, iconic uniforms, status as the team that taught Notre Dame how to play, status as the team that taught the Joke of a University how to write "Ohio" in cursive, or anything else that distinguishes the greatest program in the history of the sport.

9) Have You Seen South Bend? Why would Michigan subject its players to an every-other-yearly trip to one of the ugliest, most boring places in America?

8) The Big Ten. It's one of the best football conferences in the country. Michigan is in it. Notre Dame isn't. Michigan can rely on playing an annually competitive slate of the Columbus Barnstorming Criminals, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Program Formerly Known as Penn State, Purdue, and Minnesota. Notre Dame can rely on playing the service academies. Of course, Notre Dame sort of likes to pretend that it has a spot in the Big Ten, always scheduling Michigan and Purdue and now Penn State and Michigan State (or some other team that will choke on apple sauce). But then the idea of sharing its money comes up and it quickly distances itself from the notion that it would ever deign to join a conference.

I don't really understand why BCS teams even schedule games against the Irish. Their participation in the entire system is unfairly weighted in their favor (witness the windfall contracts and undeserved bowl berths), and you'd think that the other schools would just render Notre Dame irrelevant by boycotting them until they chose to stop taking their ball home every time they didn't like something in the sandbox. It's not like anyone would dispute a champion crowned by the BCS were Notre Dame not in the mix. This isn't 1988. Or 1977. Or...you get the point.

7) Notre Dame Games. Weird, improbable things happen to the Wolverines when Michigan plays Notre Dame. Like when touchdowns at the goal line are ruled to be fumbles. We have no need for that; why subject ourselves to the torture of Irish luck?

6) It's Boring. There are many annual pastimes in college football that never get old because the sport celebrates history in a fashion that spares its fans from the tedium and sanctimony of baseball. Playing against the Buckeyes every year, for instance, never gets old because the cataclysm of good meeting evil never gets old. If it did, there wouldn't be movies. Also, your average Buckeye is such a troglodyte that making fun of him or her takes on new, colorful variations all the time. But Michigan-Notre Dame does get old. The Notre Dame fans are the same self-satisfied snobs year in and year out; the exceptions and excuses never change; you can't be returning to glory for 15 years straight; and the games, though usually competitive, do not arouse the same passion that they once did. There are other teams in the world; Michigan should play some of them.

5) Lloyd Carr Likes It. Stop encouraging him to linger. (I am sort of kidding. Sort of...)

4) It Screws with the Schedule. Scheduling and economic realities being what they are, I think an ideal Michigan schedule would look like this: 1 marquee non-conference game (USC, LSU, Texas, Georgia, Florida, etc.); 1 non-conference game against a middling-to-good BCS team (Missouri, Virginia, Arizona, Arkansas, Boston College, etc.); 1 MAC game; 1 local directional-school game; 7 Big Ten games; 1 supernatural battle against the Devil's Rejects in Ohio. If you staggered the home-and-homes at the top of the schedule, that setup would allow Michigan to play seven home games a year, to satisfy the fan base, to extend its recruiting reach, to generate positive media buzz, to insulate itself from strength-of-schedule suspicions, and to satisfy the locals who like it when Michigan plays against Midwest schools. Series against BC or Rutgers could even be played in places like the Meadowlands, creating mega events and allowing me to see my team without flying. But Notre Dame, mostly due to reputation, tends to count as Michigan's top-tier non-conference opponent each season, and until Michigan stops settling for the Irish and padding the resume with Vanderbilt, a better schedule seems likely to remain elusive.

3) It Means Listening to Pat Haden and Tom Hammond Once Every Other Year. At this point, you could dub the audio from Rocket Ismail having sex with two groupies over video of the game and I wouldn't even notice a difference.

2) Michigan Can Never Really Win. If Michigan wins, it was supposed to, because Notre Dame hasn't been very good for a while. If Michigan loses, it was overrated and Notre Dame is teh back!!!!!!!!1111!!!1!11!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) No Michigan-Affiliated Person Should Have Anything to Do with These People:


Top Ten Reasons Why Michigan Should Keep Playing Notre Dame
10) Old People Like It.

And I can't think of a single other reason...