What’s Going On Blames Someone Else

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: October 17, 2016

“I didn’t do it.” – ~~Bart Simpson~~ Brian Kelly

Things are not going well at Notre Dame. They’re 2-5 and Brian Kelly’s seat is getting awfully hot. I don’t know why, though, because nothing is ever Brian Kelly’s fault. Brian Kelly says so. Prior to this last loss, Rodger Sherman of SB Nation put together a list of the things Kelly has blamed other people for. Sherman himself calls the list incomplete and only talks about on-field things, so things like getting student videographer Declan Sullivan killed when Kelly had him record practice from a scissor lift in winds gusting over 50 mph aren’t on the list. Things on the list include blaming the center for playing poorly in a hurricane even though Kelly kept calling shotgun plays, which is lame even for him. On top of all that, after the loss to Stanford, Kelly apparently had words with Stanford’s strength coach.

Game ends with Brian Kelly exchanging words with a Stanford strength coach. Heated exchange.

— Irish Illustrated (@PeteSampson_) October 16, 2016

Do not fight a strength coach.

What took you so long?

Purdue finally fired Darrell Hazell. Hazell went 9-33 during his time at Purdue and will be replaced on an interim basis by receivers coach Gerad Parker. On a permanent basis – who knows? There may be several jobs better than Purdue opening this off-season and with so many openings, some teams are going to be reaching when making hires, so I don’t know who’s going to be left for Purdue. What also remains to be seen is what kind of resources they’ll devote to this hire and the football program as a whole. Morgan Burke retired and was replaced by Mike Bobinski, who’s worked in college athletics since 1989 and as an AD since 1994. Bobinski’s stops as an AD before coming to Purdue were Akron, Xavier, and Georgia Tech, so not exactly football powerhouses. He’s only hired one football coach – Lee Owens at Akron. Owens’ collegiate coaching experience prior to his hiring at Akron consisted of three years as an assistant at Ohio State. Prior to that, he was a high school coach. Owens went 40-61 in nine years at Akron. He never made a bowl game. After being fired there, he was hired at D-II Ashland. Even if Bobinski is a marked improvement over Burke in this area, Mitch Daniels is still there, and for his feelings on spending on athletics, check this out. Could be worse, though Purdue, you could be Rutgers.

On the topic of “not great sports”…

Forrest is one of our better writers, but this take on the WNBA…oof. He opens by talking about how the quality of play in the league has improved in recent years and talks about some of the league’s premier players, about whom he says:

That many star players in a league with only 12 teams is pretty good.

The number of teams in a league does not determine how many star players that league will have. If there was any correlation between the two, the NBA would be loaded with stars. He then touted the success of the WNBA relative to the length of its existence.

If your argument against the WNBA is that it isn’t the NBA, well maybe it isn’t, but we also have to keep in mind the WNBA is still very young. This season is the their 20th season in existence. If you remember the NBA wasn’t that great of a product in it’s 20th season.

The NBA’s 20th season was the 1965-66 campaign. The quality of play in the league at that time was quite good by the standards of the day. In the day of the abacus, the adding machine would be considered amazing technology. In the day of the smartphone, the adding machine is a piece of junk. Sports evolve over time. No sport looks the same today as it did 51 years ago.

As a matter of fact, the WNBA right now in it’s 20th season is a lot further along as a league than the NBA was in it’s 20th season. The NBA’s 20th season was the 1965-66 year. That year, the NBA had 8 teams, the WNBA currently has 12.

The WNBA has the backing of the NBA, a multi-billion dollar entity. The NBA did not have that. Nor did the NFL, NHL, or MLB when those leagues were founded. That the WNBA has the NBA’s support, has been around for 20 years, and only has 12 teams seems to me like an argument against Forrest here.

What about the almighty NFL. They’re 20th season was back in 1939 where you had 10 teams and the most popular brand of football was college football.

The deciding game of last year’s WNBA Finals drew 583,000 viewers. The women’s NCAA Championship game this year drew 2.97 million. TV ratings aren’t the end-all, be-all, but that kind of gap is something. I think it’s safe to say women’s college basketball is more popular than women’s professional basketball. (For those curious, game 7 of the NBA Finals beat the men’s national championship in the ratings 18.9-12.0, 30.8 million viewers to 17.8. 2015’s game between Duke and Wisconsin averaged 28.3 million viewers and did a 17.1 in the ratings.)

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