If you’re a Notre Dame fan, and I assume you’re done trashing your underground hovel and listening to your entire Bob Seger collection, you can look forward to the fact that you’re only about 10 months away from watching Brian Kelly getting his brains beaten in by various SEC schools. It’s a cold world in college football when you can’t handpick the whole schedule, and then be done various favors by the committee desperate to chase the ratings that only your ignorami provide as Notre Dame once again gets its intestines festooned around whatever stadium they get assigned in its first playoff game. That first 30-point loss to Ole Miss is going to hit you right between the eyes.
Or maybe you can come to the realization that you’ve been supporting someone who presided over a program that had a hand in the death of twostudents, and even though it’s utterly disgusting he will leave with an even bigger payday waiting instead of the disgrace that should have awaited him, you can promise to do better. You won’t, which always makes for a hilarious but saddening juxtaposition with Touchdown Jesus. But hey, the Irish aren’t the only organization to pervert Jesus to their needs. And I enjoy it when you show the world who you truly are.
It’s kind of amazing that it took this long for some other school to prove once again that Notre Dame is nothing more than an also-ran with a vegetable reputation being kept alive for decades on life support by a fanbase and media that can barely cling on to the distant memories of whenever it was ND mattered last. Perhaps LSU is just that desperate, Perhaps they’ve taken leave of their senses. Whoever comes next will be happy to use Notre Dame as a stepping stone, too, but they’ll be quicker about it than Kelly. Hopefully they won’t kill anyone along the way.
In true slimy fashion, Kelly broke up with his team via text, which we all know you can’t do after this amount of time. I really wonder how many of his players would show up to a 7 a.m. meeting to hear their coach slink out on them, and I hope it’s none. The sad thing is that these players won’t get the chance to pull out of whatever bowl game they end up in to preserve their careers, something coaches get to do without a worry.
And that’s the thing about college football, and basketball, and maybe one or two other sports. It’s just a means to get somewhere else. The players, at least the ones who matter, are just there to enhance their pro prospects. Maybe a handful have dreamed of running out on Saturday afternoons to rub a rock or slap a banner or try not to step in horse/buffalo shit. But really they have their sights set on something beyond. And coaches are always after the next payday, the bigger one, the bigger platform. There’s only a few destination schools, and every coach would firebomb the library of whatever school they’re at to get to them.
I’m always happy when college sports show its true face, whether it’s Kelly fucking off in the middle of the night in an Irsay tribute or ND fans baying to the moon about how they’ve been wronged (my colleague Grace McDermott is currently baying right now, we had to kick her off of the Zoom meeting). No more hiding.
Strife of (another) Brian
So here’s Brian Burke, currently the president of hockey operations for an actual NHL team (though not for long, as Fenway Sports Group just bought the Penguins and they’re one of the leading, analytics-inclined sports groups and will almost assuredly can Burke so fast and hard the receptacle will be spinning for a week):
He looks like Immortan Joe if he lived on Mars. If a colonoscopy was a person it would be this. Anyway, hope he enjoys what little time he has left in a job.
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