What Would Lou Holtz and Mark May Be without Notre Dame?

ESPN has many analysts for college football. They are loaded with talent across the board. They have guys like Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Andre Ware, and many others. With so many voices, how can anybody really stand out.

Lou Holtz and Mark May have found that way to stand out. That is the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. It is very comical when they analyze Notre Dame each week. May, for whatever reason, just seems to hate Notre Dame. Holtz, on the other hand, puts Notre Dame up on a pedestal.

Each week they analyze each game and seem to be very objective. They actually seem to agree on many things. Whenever the Notre Dame game comes up, objectivity on both sides just seems to go out the window. It is as if they become instant enemies.

Neither of them really ever give an accurate evaluation of Notre Dame. When Charlie Weis was first hired, May was adamant that they would start 1-6. He also gave them no chance to win the Hawaii Bowl. Well, we all know the reality here.

Holtz is equally biased. He predicted that Notre Dame would blow out LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Then this past season, he said the Irish would beat USC. This was following their embarrassing loss to Syracuse. Once again, we know the reality.

So why do we have all this non-objectivity? Holtz clearly has ties to Notre Dame. However, it is very unlikely that anybody at Notre Dame would hold it against him if he gave an honest analysis of the Irish each week.

As for May, it is a bit of a mystery where all of this hatred for Notre Dame comes from. He went to Pittsburgh, which is not a rival to Notre Dame. It seemed to have started when Weis was hired. One can only speculate that he liked Tyrone Willingham.

Irregardless of the reasons, this non-objective commentating is must-see TV if you love comedy. Anybody who has a little knowledge of college football can tell that both are wrong. Imagine what goes through Rece Davis's mind each week when he is sitting next to them analyzing the Irish.

Davis must have had to be a peacekeeper last year when Notre Dame and Pittsburgh had that four-overtime thriller. I am sure he will assume that role again this year when the two teams play.

The irony is that Holtz and May do stand out among all the analysts at ESPN. However, it isn't for their objective analysis of all the other games. It is for their constant headbutting when it comes to Notre Dame.

Can you imagine if Notre Dame stopped playing football? Now of course that will never happen, but if it did, what would Holtz and May be as commentators?

They would probably be quite typical and wouldn't really stand out at all.