DO WE LIKE THIS: ACADEMIC FRAUD AT NOTRE DAME

Ryan Nanni: Jane, it's time for a very evil question: do we like Notre Dame's budding academic fraud scandal?

Jane Coaston: Oh, yes we do. Not because we like academic fraud, and you most certainly should not investigate further into allegations involving a certain seventh-grade algebra incident. But because it proves once again that Notre Dame is a college with college students. It is not a city upon a hill, it is not better or shinier or more innately moral, it is a college, and it has college students, and sometimes those college students make incredibly dumb decisions. And sometimes those dumb decisions may have allegedly been fomented by people within the university. And that is not good.

RN: No! It is not good at all! And the weird part is, I don't think we like this because we dislike Notre Dame players, generally. (Quarterbacks being a big exception.) We like this almost entirely because it is unsettling to that large and extremely boring contingent of Irish fans who cling to the belief that Notre Dame is so special it could secede from the United States and our country would collapse into illiterate consanguinity. (If you are reading this, NDNation, we are talking about you. Your website looks like a text adventure designed by an accountant.)

JC: But what if we greatly enjoy causing boring Irish fans to fold their arms in disappointment at rabble rabble morals youth in my day this kind of thing was just not done etc etc? It's about time that every college football program realized that at its very center lies something that is likely not good. College football is dark and deep, and it will make you weep, as some poet would probably say if theyd thought about it. Also, hahahahahahahahaha NDNation hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

RN: We should stop to note that, while we DO like this for cruel, Nelson Muntzian reasons, we do not hope this leads to some hellacious penalty from the NCAA. The continued depowering of Mark Emmert's Super Friends is worth more to us than a Notre Dame bowl ban. Also the complaints and gnashing of teeth from Irish internet would be fucking unbearable.

JC: Oh Touchdown Jesus, please do not ban Notre Dame from the postseason, because Irish fans would react like someone had just defamed the name of Your Servant Derek Jeter. (all domers are yankee fans, right?)

RN: DEREK JETER IS THE GREATEST NOTRE DAME QUARTERBACK.

JC: LONG MAY HIS NAME BE IN LIGHTS FOR BEING A STAND-UP GUY. YOU KNOW, HE JUST ALWAYS DOES THINGS THE RIGHT WAY. AND HE DIDN'T GO TO MICHIGAN.

RN: In the interest of fairness, let it be said: Florida and Michigan likely have been/are/will be cheating at something. The only school that probably does not is BYU, and that's only because Bronco Mendenhall once bodyslammed academic fraud and broke three of its ribs.

JC: Oh, most certainly. We are all terrible people. We just have the sad privilege to know it. And you know some BYU football player is drinking Coca Cola right now like a goddang heathen, Nanni. You know that.

RN: This is the best part: Notre Dame's going to have to give back the Pinstripe Bowl trophy. That is a thing that will happen, and I want there to be video.

JC: Well, Notre Dame will always have the time they lost to USF and Brian Kelly turned into a rage-filled eggplant. And nothing, not academic fraud nor player expulsion, can take that away. Go Irish.

RN: SKIP HOLTZ COMIN.