Opinion: The Shamrock Series is not how Notre Dame Football should be recruiting
We published an article earlier in the week defending all things Shamrock Series. Slap the Sign contributor Daniel Morrison has a different take on how Notre Dame football should move forward.
The Shamrock Series should never have existed. I want to say that it has run its course, but its course never should have existed. The game has been a marketing ploy for Notre Dame football from the start. It’s all to sell apparel, recruit, and to drum up interest for a game.
That doesn’t work when the uniforms are hideous.
Some years are better than others, but this year’s uniforms are the worst yet. This year they play homage to the New York Yankees, whose stadium Notre Dame is borrowing for the game. They’re hideous. No one is going to want to look at them play in those uniforms, or buy their own jersey.
More importantly, no recruits are going to watch this game and say, “That’s the team for me. The Shamrock Series uniforms decided it.”
Notre Dame has one of the classic uniforms, and the best helmet in all of football — college or professional. They are icons, and should not be strayed from. When recruiting for Notre Dame, you are selling more than a uniform. This is not Oregon or UCF. I frankly like it when younger programs do things like a new uniform every week.
They do it for a reason, though. Schools with less history have less to sell to recruits. Notre Dame is selling an elite institution, a beautiful campus, a great coaching staff, national television every week, ten win seasons and a tradition of excellence. If that isn’t drawing a player in, but a uniform might sway them, then they don’t really want to be in South Bend. If they don’t really want to be in South Bend, then they shouldn’t be.
Again, I’m not against alternate uniforms. I like the green alternates being worn — and like to see them once a year. I loved UCF’s space uniforms that polarized fans. However, Notre Dame and college football are about tradition. The Shamrock Series spits in the face of that tradition.
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The Shamrock Series smells of desperation to stay relevant to recruits in a changing landscape. It also tells me that Notre Dame doesn’t know what it is selling to recruits. Notre Dame is selling uniforms, just not these ones. They’re selling the golden domes. They’re selling what this has meant to college football, what it continues to mean, and what it will mean in the future.