I seriously don’t know why so many people like this team?

33 comments

  3. Notre Dame is an elite, private Catholic university and it’s athletic program is very popular with Catholic Irish-American’s, many of which have no ties to the University academically.

    Edit: Their mascot is the “Fighting Irish”

  4. Notre Dame is the premier catholic-affiliated university in the United States and they’re the “Fighting Irish”. There is both a sizeable Catholic community in the US and a substantial portion of the US population has direct Irish heritage.

    My grandfather played football for them, so while I don’t actively follow college football they’re the “default” choice for my family.

  5. Because they have an amazing program. I went to Purdue and I still love watching Notre Dame games

  8. As others have said, lots of Irish and Catholic people gravitate toward supporting the school and their surprisingly good football program (surprising given that it’s a small private school in the Midwest).

    But honestly IMO I really can’t stand how much national exposure they get. The hype around them always seems to exceed their actual production on the field. They are a letdown in many ways, and it would be nice if they were simply treated as any other team.

  9. It’s the default college football team for many (most?) Catholics in the country, whether they went there or not.

  10. It is not. It is at the same level of popularity as most College teams.

    People have many reason for why they choose to support a team. Some do so because their parents supported it. Some do so because they attended that school. Some do so because it is the local team. Some do so because of specific athletes being on the team.

  11. Because the Irish Catholic diaspora in the US. They were discriminated against a lot before WWII. So the dominance of Fighting Irish football was a 🖕 to people who participated.

    Since then it’s something that’s been passed on through generations.

  12. When the football team started to have national success in the 1920s, many of the players came from working-class immigrant families, particulary from traditionally Catholic countries like Ireland, Italy and the recently abolished Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. (Yes… I know the Russian Empire was officially Orthodox, but it had large Roman and Eastern Catholic minorities…) At a time when other big football programs consisted mostly of WASP-y players, Notre Dame provided a team for the huge number of more recent Catholic immigrants to rally around.

    Even as the school has morphed into a country club for rich Irish-American Catholics, the good will from previous decades has remained.

  15. You’re getting a lot of terrible answers.

    They’re popular because they were a consistently good team throughout the ’70s and ’80s which lead to NBC signing an exclusive national television deal with them. It has nothing to do with Catholicism or being Irish. They’re just the team that’s shown in every market every single week.

    It’s a lot like the Cowboys in the NFL.

  16. My dad was a fan and I grew up watching them play and I became a fan…I’m not even catholic 🤷‍♂️

  17. Because of Ronald Reagan. Back when he was an actor, he stared in a popular movie about Notre Dame football, called *Knute Rockne – All-American*.
    It created a brand around the legendary coach the movie was about, which the school and the NCAA capitalized on. Shit, they were still calling Reagan the Gipper while he was in office, 40+ years after the movie, and in his eulogy.

  18. I have no idea.

    Also, why are they the Fighting Irish when the schools name is French (and spoken in an American accent). Shouldn’t they be the Fighting French?

    Edit: Why the downvotes?

  19. As someone who grew up in Norte Dame county, it’s because they’re a consistently good team and Catholics REALLY like them.

  21. If your catholic and dont have a (major) team near you, you probably support Notre Dame as your #1.

    If you are catholic and have a (major) team near you, you probably support Notre Dame as your #2 (outside of rivalries, or if that #1 is already a catholic school)

  23. Go bucs!!! Notre Dame is the type of team to play with 10 players on the field when the game is on the line. True regards

  24. They’re the fourth most winning college football team. Eleven national titles. A built in national fan base in Catholics and Irish. They’ve been huge for a century.

  25. Notre Dame is one of the two catholic schools in America to play major college football and they are well ahead of Boston College in on field success. Catholic for along time faced major discrimination in America. Most other major college programs were run by protestants who hated them because they were Catholics so Notre Dame came to represent Catholics fight to belong in America. So they became the champions of what it means to be Catholic in America.

  28. It’s historically been a great football school having been playing it for well over 100 years. They have lots of cool traditions like the gold helmets. I would suggest watching the movie Rudy which is loosely based on a true story of an underdog getting into Notre Dame and playing for the Irish. It does a good job of showing why people love Notre Dame football

  30. Aside from what others have said, speaking exclusively about them as a competitive athletic team, they have history and they live in the past. It’s a great past, but it was a long time ago. They occasionally come close to reaching their former glory but it hasn’t been realized at the end of the season in a long time.

    Not trying to insult ND as a school or program, but I’m answering the question honestly.

  31. It’s one of Americas true national universities. If you look at their acceptance map from this year a pretty even number of students come from each region of the country

  32. Big Irish-American catholic population in the Midwest, good reputation for both academics and football success, and the general American interest in college football.

  33. One time there was a Notre Dame football player from Hawaii who lost the Heisman to an Alcoholic, and he had a fake dead girlfriend.

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