Colin Cowherd is horribly wrong about Notre Dame football rivalry game
If you’re somehow a Notre Dame football fan who doesn’t know who Colin Cowherd is, count yourself lucky. There are few sports personalities out there who come up with routinely awful and uninformed takes.
This is a guy who once suggested that the Angels were stupid for not trading Shohei Ohtani for draft picks before the trade deadline last summer. Cowherd found out, on air, that Major League Baseball does not allow trading players for draft picks.
It's hard to fathom the lack of research that goes into Colin Cowherd's opinions. His latest suggestion, to end the annual rivalry game between Notre Dame football and USC, is nothing short of absurd.
"Why do they [USC] have to keep playing Notre Dame?" Cowherd asked on Wednesday’s The Herd show. "College football punted on history last year. They disbanded the only Power 5 conference west of the Rockies, punted it into the ether. Every man for himself. So spare me on the history."
It’s here where we pause to point out that “they” did not disband anything. College football is not a living entity. The Pac-12 disbanded after the teams left the conference. But “college football” didn’t end the conference. And Notre Dame shouldn’t have to pay the price because the Pac-12 leadership was incompetent.
Cowherd’s rationale for canceling a game that has been played every year but two since 1926 is that USC’s schedule will be too hard in the Big Ten.
"It's actually a respectful move. We don't want to play Notre Dame," the talking head argued. "USC is going to have schedules going forward where they open with Michigan. Three weeks later, it's at Penn State. Two weeks later, they're at Oregon. Ohio State later--they have to play the Buckeyes again in the conference championship and then they may play them a third time in the Playoff in a perfect year. No thank you."
Notre Dame football must play USC every year because of a loss of history
Ignoring that his claim canceling the rivalry game is “respectful” because that doesn’t make any sense, he’s 100 percent wrong on this take.
We, as a nation of college football fans, have lost quite a bit of history. Notre Dame football vs. Michigan is just one rivalry game that was anticipated every year, and not just by Fighting Irish and Wolverines fans. They haven’t played each other since 2019.
The Irish are holding onto games against Stanford and Navy with its fingernails. It shouldn’t have to fight this hard to keep a rivalry game that’s been around for almost 100 years. It will, in fact, be a full century in just two seasons.
The argument that USC’s schedule is too tough outside of Notre Dame isn’t a bad one. It’s just not a reason to get rid of the game.
Unfortunately, it feels like we are heading that way. History of college football is going to get lost thanks to greed and stupidity. But we shouldn’t wave it through. We shouldn’t offer up excuses for it to happen.
Fight against these kinds of terrible ideas. That’s the only way to stop them for Notre Dame football fans, who don't have a conference to do the fighting for them.