Wake Up The Echoes

John Brandon, with the cynic's preview of the Notre Dame football season:

Earlier this summer I saw Urban Meyer on College Football Live, fresh off a visit to South Bend, reporting that Notre Dame was getting its football program into the 21st century. The proof he offered was that the Fighting Irish had finally dragged all their old Heisman trophies down from the attic and had dusted off various national championship booty and had improved their training facilities and, in short, were giving recruits the kind of razzle-dazzle all the other schools were giving them. (Nothing to be done about the weather, but be patient — in 30 or 40 years South Bend could be the new South Beach.) I was glad to hear all that, because my view on Notre Dame is if we have to hear about the Irish incessantly even if they suck (proven out over the past two decades), they may as well not suck. That way we can hear incessantly about a decent team.
So recruiting has picked up for the Golden Domers. That's good, but that's only half of it. The other ingredient necessary to make the Brian Kelly Incarnation of Hope turn out fulfilled (unlike the Weis Hope and the Willingham Hope and the Davie Hope) is to give star players plenty of leeway. Anyone who's run a business will tell you, retaining quality employees is every bit as important as attracting them in the first place. A lot of pressure comes with stardom — sometimes a guy needs a drink. And sometimes a guy needs a drink and then remembers he has to run some errands.
Another measure of the high ground has been surrendered in South Bend. Tragedy? Probably not. I'm not convinced many Notre Dame alum were all that attached to it anymore. There's a distance above sea level at which trees can't be found, and a distance above the malleable morals of modern sport at which crystal footballs are nowhere to be seen. The high ground, at least several acres of it, has been traded in this case for a dozen or more red zone touchdowns in a year when the Irish face a down-enough schedule that anything is possible. I suspect most ND fans are OK with that bargain.

I would guess he's right.  I think the pablum about Notre Dame academic standards causing them to be uncompetitive was always a joke.  Lots of players, few of them coming to Notre Dame because of their Roman Catholic faith, have gotten in trouble over the years.  It is probably notable that the coach best known for disciplining star players was Mr. NCAA probation himself, Lou Holtz.  The myth of the Gipper centered around a great athlete who really couldn't be bothered to leave the pool halls and attend school.