This week's Irish Blogger Gathering is hosted by Whiskey over at One foot Down .
1. The 7-4-1 scheduling model has been the subject of much heated debate amongst Irish fans since it was first announced back in 2006. This week the Fighting Irish will play the first neutral site “barnstorming game” in said model so now is as good of a time as any to weigh in on the controversial subject. What do you think about a) 7-4-1 as a whole, b) the neutral site/ barnstorming game in general and c) specifically playing Washington State in San Antonio.
(a) I hate the 7-4-1, not as a concept, but as a limitation. I like having 7-4-1 as a goal, but if sticking to the 7-4-1 is going to cost us a series against Miami or Alabama, scrap it to get those games done. The biggest problem with the 7-4-1 is that it creates too many "buy" games, where we cannot offer an opponent a return trip.
(b) I feel very similar about the barnstorming game. I love the idea, its the implementation that I would like to fix. The idea of playing a quality opponent at a neutral site as a sort of mid-season bowl game is great! The only problem is, scheduling a marquis opponent has been a problem. Apparently, the big conferences are thumbing their noses at the idea of playing a neutral site game in their "conference footprint," leaving us to play, for example, a Pac-10 team in Big-12 country. I could deal with that, but the other issue is that we are insisting on treating this as a "home" game for revenue purposes, leaving the marquis opponents feeling slighted. Forget the money—there's plenty to go around. Let's split the revenues down the middle and find a way to play Alabama in the Orange Bowl. Texas in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Florida State in the Superdome. Wisconsin at FedEx Field in DC.
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