If you want it to be comfy and quiet, stay home on the sofa. If you want a life changing adrenaline rush of a good time, see a live SEC game. Anything less is blasphemy, ….yes, even at ND.

With fans like that, it’s no wonder ND has lost every damn bowl game they’ve played in since gas was selling for under a buck.

You need to attend a game at Baylor University (hey, they’re the ‘Baptist Notre Dame’), and then report back.
Maybe you’ll see why my visit to South Bend in 2000 reminded me of just another trip to Waco.

There is a plus to the lack of noise if you’re a visitor; your team can hear you yelling in the stands.

I will say, though, that the Notre Dame fans were some of the nicest fans I’ve ever met at a home venue. I stood the whole game, and they didn’t complain.

We are flattered.

Against quality opposition, Quinn ends up eating grass all day long”

I do think that this reflects more the quality of our o-line play than Quinn himself. There’s only so much a guy can do when his blockers aren’t protecting him at all. It’s almost unbelievable UCLA didn’t have MORE sacks — I saw defenders come within an inch of him before he released the ball, defenders I don’t know if he saw.

Anyway, given the horrible play of the o-line, I’m impressed Brady’s been able to do anything close to what he’s done.

As for the crowd noise, I just think ND takes more seriously than most the idea that you should be quiet for your offense. I was pretty pleased with the noise generated for the defense in the UCLA game, especially in the second half. We can’t ever compare to the SEC — that’s whole different breed — but I think it does pretty well. And there’s oh so much drinking. We make up for time restrictions by pounding the same amount in less time.

The ushers suck.

Catholics drink. Some heavily. For a while ND was the only school that had two AA programs, one for students and one for alumni that only met at ND home games.

Bill – Explain to me why I suck. I do not know what I have done to you to deserve that sort of talk. I need reasoning for this.

ND slowly has removed all of the ‘fun’ from tailgating.

A few jacklegs decide to dump their hot coals down the sewers or into the trash bins, thus starting fires (or legend has it almost starting a fire in an RV parked over a sewer grate full of hot coals). What does ND do? Instead of investing in those large all steel coal disposal containers seen at all NFL venues and on many college campuses, ND just bans charcoal grills.
It is much more difficult to haul a gas grill or one of those expensive Coleman portagrills to the stadium.

ND has an underage drinking problem on campus during pregame tailgating time. Rather than ticket the offenders, they punish everyone by prohibiting tailgating during the game (lots of non-alumni and other people go to campus to tailgate with little or no hope of ever having a ticket to the game). This no-tailgating during the game rule is sometimes strictly enforced and sometimes not…behavior and security mood dependent.

It used to be you could arrive a day or two before a game and park your RV…stay into Sunday to tailgate/cleanup. Well, now no Rv’s before 7AM gameday, and you must clear the lots by about 3 hours after the game. Again…trying to curb alcohol consumption on campus.

I rarely if ever saw fights at tailgates…the worst was 18 year olds drinking too much and having to have their stomachs pumped…well, chase the offenders down, not the rest of us.

Inside the stadium, there has always been a cat and mouse game of trying to smuggle in alcohol…I saw more guys with flasks under their coats drinking secretly in the stands or stealing away to the bathroom to drink than I can count. Most times, to be honest, the ushers turned a blind eye, especially if the offender was of age and behaved.

I also saw my fair share of underaged drinkers get drunk and then vile in the stands…saying and doing things I wouldn’t want my kids to hear or see…and I am no prude, trust me. Simply bounce the offenders…don’t punish the rest of us. The ushers have thus gotten more strict over the years, a zero tolerance type of attitude has developed.

BTW…Ryan, it used to be that you had to be 21 to be an usher….if you were ushering at age 14 then consider yourself fortunate. Maybe that has changed, heck, there were no women ushers until about 10 years ago.

Most of the ushers are helpful, many are old guys who have ushered for 20-50 years and know when behavior is getting out of hand….all are volunteers, except for the captains, and most ushers just want to insure that the crowd behaves and enjoys the game. It is no fun to be vomited on by an 18 year old who can’t handle his or her alcohol.

The Blue Jogger was the NDSP’s white whale.

Never before and never since have I seen such a law enforcement frenzy surrounding someone that just wanted to be punched in the stomach…

we all realize that certain things are not to be tolerated, and that ushers will remove the people responsible. but smuggling in a small bottle of captain to add to my cokes for saturday’s game is not one of them. the outliers are not the problem- it’s the almost fanatical attention to every minor transgression to which people are reacting.