Notre Dame Football: Overrated Irish Won't Meet Expectations in 2011

Surprise, surprise… the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program is overrated once again in 2011.

They were ridiculously ranked No. 16 in the preseason poll and very quickly proved, to a nationally televised audience of course, that they did not deserve any part of that lofty ranking.

Tim Keown wrote a great piece for ESPN.com about how the Irish are always overrated.

He even proposed a great solution to make the preseason poll votes, and even possibly the regular season polls, fair for legit programs in real conferences.

Keown writes: "Notre Dame is an independent, so let's treat it independently. Let's start by saying it is no longer eligible for polls, especially preseason polls. At this point, the annual reflexive over-ranking has become a national dysfunction. The name alone has become a siren call for pollsters, too tempting to resist."

While banning them from the regular season polls may be a bit harsh, I really think they should be barred from appearing in preseason polls.

They never prove anything out on the football field anymore, so why do we constantly expect them to do well before the season starts? 

It really isn’t fair for legit, but under the radar, programs like Arizona State and Baylor to be left off these polls because of Notre Dame’s name brand and reputation.

Keown delved into the ridiculous rep the Fighting Irish have when he wrote: "Is there any other entity in American society that has existed solely on reputation longer than Notre Dame football? Coaches have been fired for not living up to an ideal that stopped being realistic 15 years ago. You know all this already, but it's worth repeating: The days of Notre Dame being able to out-recruit schools like Florida and Alabama are over."

Kids these days just don’t care about the reputation of Notre Dame. They’d rather wear the flashy uniforms up in Eugene or earn a degree from a much less rigorous program like Miami while playing football.

The reputation of Notre Dame means way too much to the pollsters and it is literally the only thing they have to go on.

The Irish don’t have the best recruits, they don’t have a winning record over the past five years and they don’t deserve any of the media coverage they get.

The Irish waste everyone’s time in the Top 25 and should start proving they deserve to be there.

Keown called this program “Kansas State with a PR department”.

I couldn’t agree more.