More Reasons to Root for Notre Dame to Lose This Saturday

Most of the civilized world does not like Notre Dame. This is a well established fact. While your natural reaction of disgust and revulsion at hearing the words “Notre Dame” is perfectly normally, you’ve probably never really thought about why. It’s the equivalent of asking why is the grass green? But just like the non-Nebraska B1G fans among us can answer that question (grass produces a pigment called chlorophyll and chlorophyll reflects green light waves), we can also answer why all of civilized society should root for Purdue to beat Notre Dame this Saturday. In the following article I will attempt to do just that.

Notre Dame’s team name makes absolutely no sense

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The “University” of Notre Dame du Lac was founded when a French born bishop gave land originally bought by a French born priest on behalf of the Catholic Church to a yet another French born priest on the condition that he build a college there. Despite this heavy involvement of French priests in their early history, ND goes by the nickname of the “Fighting Irish” despite the fact that the Irish have always been terrible fighters. The early recorded history of the Irish people is full of Viking raids and Viking pillaging followed by lots of conquests of the English. The only reason we see multiple conquests by England of the island is due to the fact that the English often got involved with infighting amongst themselves, left to go fight more important battles, and then had to come back and “conquer” the island again by declaring themselves in charge. Meanwhile France slowly captured Alsace & Lorraine over the course of 100s of years, constantly invaded Italy and Germany, and it took the entirety of Europe to put an end to France’s militaristic conquests under Napoleon. Not to mention France once went to war with England in a war lasting over 100 years (which France also won by the way). If you wanted to have your nickname be “Fighting ________” at least pick someone a) good at fighting and b) who you have a connection with.

Notre Dame’s war on potatoes.

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Did you know that Notre Dame has never played Idaho or Boise State in football? Or that they’ve never played in the world famous Idaho Potato Bowl? This is because they are scared of potatoes and are trying to wipe them off of this planet. Right now you might be asking yourself: “why would anyone be scared of potatoes?” The answer goes back to Notre Dame’s decision to co-opt the history of Ireland as their own (which as someone with ~1/8ish Irish ancestry I find offensive by the way). If you don’t know your history, the Irish Potato Famine lasted from 1845 to 1852 and resulted in mass starvation and disease following a widespread potato blight. It also resulted in mass numbers of actual Irish people (including my ~1/8ish ancestors) emigrating from Ireland as they sought the ability to not starve to death. Now why a French school would fear a potato, I don’t really know as France suffered much less from the potato blight than Ireland, Benelux, or Germany. Cultural misappropriation is wrong and turning the suffering of millions into a fake war on potatoes is wrong and Notre Dame football should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.

Notre Dame unilaterally ended a long time nice series with in-state rival Purdue.

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They did so in order to play more games against schools like North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Louisville, and Virginia. Nothing against those schools but ending a long time rivalry in order to play those schools more often is a cowardly act. Since 1946, Purdue and Notre Dame had played annually for 69 nice years in a row. Then Notre Dame ended the series. Restarting the series this year, they have only agreed to play 2 games in a row before taking another break. 2 years is not nice.

Notre Dame has a continuous series with Navy and their fans would prefer to play this game over B1G schools.

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In yet another culture misappropriation of the Irish people, Notre Dame has bonded with Navy and their fans consider their annual game to be a sacred tradition. Despite the fact that South Bend is not near a large body of water and is a full 634 miles away from Annapolis, Notre Dame’s fans believe this game is more important than playing in-state B1G teams Purdue and Indiana, or close neighbors Michigan State, Michigan, and Northwestern. What exactly is Notre Dame’s connection to Navy? Well once again Notre Dame goes back to stealing Irish history. Just like the Irish consistently getting beat by the English, the early years of the American Navy were full of humiliating defeats to the English Navy. Luckily for the US Navy they had the US Army around to beat the English in the 18th and 19th centuries whereas the Irish people couldn’t even convince the historic rivals of the English (the Scots) to fight on their side.

Notre Dame hates college football traditions.

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College football is full of great traditions. From Michigan losing to Ohio State every year, Iowa fans not caring about hospitalized children, and Wisconsin fans attempting to collapse their stadium every Saturday by jumping their very large weights at the same time the B1G has a number of great traditions. One of Purdue’s is that their marching band has a big drum. Some might even call it the World’s state of Indiana’s largest drum. The drum (along with Purdue’s train mascot) routinely goes to every Purdue football game and hasn’t missed a performance since 1979. Despite that tradition, word leaked this week that Notre Dame wouldn’t allow the drum into the stadium on Saturday. Illinois lets Purdue bring a cannon into their stadium when they play and Notre Dame won’t even let in a drum. Questions to Notre Dame’s athletic director have gone unanswered on why he hates fun and tradition.

Notre Dame hates puppies.

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Look I’m not going to provide a source for everything. This is the internet and those of you who are still reading can do your own research like you do for everything else. I’m sure you will continue to let us know in the comments what your research says.

Notre Dame is pro death penalty for misdemeanor crimes

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Full disclosure: I believe the death penalty is wrong and that it is state sanctioned murder. But even if you are pro death penalty (which it’s a free country we can disagree), most reasonable people would agree that is should not be applied for the relatively minor crime of playing for Notre Dame’s football team. In sharp contrast to this viewpoint we have Notre Dame’s most renown spokesperson Brian Kelly issuing a statement to the media almost two weeks ago stating that he was pro executing his own team. Since that date there has been no retraction from the university on this statement so it’s pretty safe to say that all of Notre Dame is in agreement on this. While I agree that it should be illegal to play for Notre Dame’s football team, the nature of this crime means the punishment should really be more of a small fine not execution.

In Conclusion

Dear “readers”, I feel I have provided more than sufficient evidence for why you should root for the Purdue Boilermakers to beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this Saturday. Which you really didn’t need because you already didn’t like Notre Dame. While Purdue is unlikely to win, your support can make the difference. So consider this a call to action. If all of the “readers” of OTE bet heavily on Notre Dame to win, karmic justice will occur and Purdue will be able to pull the upset while you all lose money gambling. If you don’t bet on Notre Dame, then you too probably hate puppies.