Notre Dame Wouldn’t Decline Bowl Bid

After the 1996 season, a three loss Irish team turned down bowl bids for lesser tier bowls.  This year a five or fix loss Irish team would do no such thing according to Charlie Weis.  On Sunday Weis addressed that scenario.

I think the downside of not going to a Bowl game is the extra practice that you miss to develop your younger players. No one’s jumping up and down to go to a Bowl, if you were to lose the game and end up 6-6, no one is jumping up and down to do that.

But at the same time that’s multiple practices and development that could be going on that you end up losing out on. And I think in your program’s sake I think it ends up hurting you in the long run.

Going to a bowl game this year is very important because it is clear that the team can use the practice.  How much good would the extra month of practice time do?  It’s hard to say, but any extra practice time could do this team good – especially if Weis is going to continue to call the plays and be more involved with the offense.  If Weis returns next year and is more involved in the offense again, as he was in 2005 and 2006, bowl practices will give him a jump start to getting back into the grove of things.

The bowl picture is a bit cloudy for Notre Dame right now though after the loss to Syracuse.  I will have a post later tonight or tomorrow with more details on Notre Dame’s bowl options.