Cubs & Red Sox, UM-ND

The only way I will be truly interested in baseball playoffs is if at least one of the Cubs or Red Sox are in. If the season ended today they both make it but the Cubs especially are in a tough fight for a wild card. My dream out come is Cubs-Red Sox World Series. If this happens I will find a way to watch every pitch.

I normally will not spend two seconds watching baseball. I may watch some playoff baseball if I am also hanging out with friends or if I am also watching college football. But, Red Sox and/or Cubs would be magic. Between them they have nearly 200 years without a title. If memory serves Boston's last title was 1918 after which they traded Babe Ruth. Cubs are 1908. Sox have been in the series but lost. I don't the Cubs have even been in the series for decades.

I will be pretty surprised if Michigan can not handle Notre Dame. ND dropped a game to a VERY ordinary BYU team. Michigan is a top team and will be up for the game. ND no longer has the big recruiting advantage it once had. There are at least a dozen schools that start the day with a better rep in the mind of most top athletes. Also, ND has not lowered their admissions standards so they lose some kids who just don't quite have the academics.

It is not possible to coach a team well enough if you simply don't have the athletes. You can win a game here and there with some great coaching and/or motivation and ND may pull it off against Michigan but in the long haul ND needs to start beating out Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Texas, LSU, Florida, Tennessee etc for some top studs. If they can not find a way to do this they are swirling around the drain. The day will fast approach where they simply have little chance against a top tier schedule.

Based on the BYU performance I would say ND has four winnable games Navy, Stanford, Pittsburgh and Michigan State. I would not want to have my life savings bet on ND winning any of those four. I think 2-2 in those would be a pretty good outcome.

I would expect them to be beaten by Michigan, Washington, Tennessee, USC, Purdue (51-0 over Syracuse,ouch) and Boston College. Since ND already lost to BYU this would put the Golden Domers at 2-9. This follows a 5-7 season.

Well, the only way ND survives as an independent is if they are special. 7-16 over two seasons is not special. Now, they start losing recruiting battles. If you are stud player do you go to a school where you get killed by Michigan and USC and stay home for the bowls? Hell, no. You go to Michigan or USC and play on New Year's Day. Suddenly, even finishing 2-9 becomes tough. Also, if they go 2-9 over even sub .500 the coach is gone. Now ND becomes not special but especially bad and chaotic. Trust me, NBC which has sizable TV deal with ND is not impressed with what is going on and may kick the team to the curb when the contract comes up if things do not improve.

This may be an historic time for ND where they continue to slide out of their once hallowed spot in college football or perhaps rebound to former glory. If they slide much further look for them to join the Big 10 (which actually has 11 teams). This would massively boost ND in nearly every other sport and if football is down that much would likely be at least an even trade on the football side. Also, it gives the Big 10 the magic 12 teams needed for a conference championship game and the big pay that promises.