I’ve been pretty silent regarding Kevin White because I really don’t know exactly how I feel about his scheduling philosophy. I guess I’m somewhere inbetween the absolute nutjobs over at NDNation who want to play the top-12 teams every year and Dr. White’s bastardization of the term “barnstorming.”

Sadly, the college football ranking system has evolved such that championships are scheduled every bit as much as they are earned on the field. Take Ohio State’s schedule for example. If they can handle Michigan and Penn State, they’re championship bound unless Akron pulls off the upset of the millenium. Don’t even get me started on West Virginia. Let’s just say that if I were a WVU fan, I’d already be looking for airfare to New Orleans. I’d also have about six teeth and a broken down car in my front yard, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, the pollsters won’t penalize them for their pathetic schedules. Dr. White has the right idea. If we want to win a championship, we have to keep up with the joneses and schedule a bunch of crap teams like all the other powerhouses are doing. At least he hasn’t scheduled any DII teams (I’m looking at you Michigan, OSU, and the entire SEC).

Now, what I don’t understand is why the man can’t find us patsies from the BCS conferences. Why are we playing Nevada and San Diego State when pretty much the entire Big Ten is god-awful? I suspect this has something to do with the 7-4-1 model, which forces us to find teams that won’t demand a return date. Having more home games is nice and all, but I think home-field advantage is vastly overrated. Personally, I’d rather have less home games that are more interesting. Alas, Notre Dame knows that we’ll still pay to come watch Duke get ass-raped, so they’ve got us by the balls on this one. I don’t blame White for the 7-4-1 model any more than I blame Guinness for selling me the beer that I demand.

So like I said, the only real problem I have with White isn’t that he’s scheduling patsies. My problem is with which patsies he’s scheduling. It also bears mentioning that I think he does a tremendous job with the olympic sports. I have heard from one of his neighbors that he and his wife are tremendous douchebags, but as long as that doesn’t effect his job performance, who really cares.

After reading all that, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that I’m a Kevin White supporter. Given the recent internet furor directed at him, being only partially dissatisfied with his performance probably makes me Dr. White’s biggest fan. That was yesterday. Today I came across the following quote at BGS, and now I’m ready to join the raving lunatics at NDNation who are calling for his head.

“If you look at the long-standing relationships we've had, we've got USC, now Stanford and Navy.” - Kevin White

So when Dr. White thinks of the long-standing relationships Notre Dame has developed, the following three institutions pop into his head: Southern Cal, Navy… and… Stanford? Not Michigan. Not Michigan State. Not Purdue. STANFORD. Let that sink in for a moment. Our athletic director ranks our relationship with Stanford (you know, the relationship with them that we don’t have) up there with USC and Navy. Is this some kind of joke? How could he possibly have such a limited understanding of Notre Dame’s traditions? This is like the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Jeff’s brother recites the four best presidents in the history of the United States as follows: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and George W. Bush. No, I take that back. White’s statement is not like an episode of CYE because it wasn’t funny. Not funny at all. Horrifying, in fact.


Asshat.

Labels: