Ryan Clark Takes Down Cam Newton’s Lazy, Uninformed Notre Dame Rant

Cam Newtown was on ESPN’s First Take yesterday and spewed some nonsense about Notre Dame not belonging in the College Football Playoffs that made it clear he hasn’t seen a second of Notre Dame football in the year 2024. First Take host Ryan Clark, father of Notre Dame nickel Jordan Clark, rightly and calmly put Newton in his place by talking about how the Irish stack up with anyone in the country this year.

It’s hard to know if Newton’s rambling was an act of engagement since most of ESPN’s programming is, but let’s assume he meant the words coming out of his mouth. Newton argued that Notre Dame doesn’t belong in the playoffs based on its past performance while simultaneously saying it only survives from its past. Newtown did not make a single argument against Notre Dame other than a lazy, old take that ignores the fact that the Irish have been blowing people out since their embarrassing loss to Northern Illinois. Heck, he didn’t even bring up NIU when it’s red meat for anyone saying Notre Dame doesn’t belong.

Clark, meanwhile, sat back and calmly heard Newton rant with his uninformed take and reminded him that Notre Dame walked into Kyle Field and knocked off Texas A&M. Amazingly, Newtwon tried to call the Aggies the 8th best team in the SEC when they would have been in the SEC Championship game later today had they beat Texas last weekend. Texas A&M was that close to playing for the SEC Title and an automatic bid in the playoffs, so miss me with that “8th best team argument.”

There’s also no way Newton didn’t know Clark’s son played for Notre Dame as well, so for him to be as forceful and boisterous with his take in front of Clark without even a “hey, I know your son plays there, but” type of buffer is just ignorant.

It’s clear that Notre Dame will need to show the world they do below in the playoffs this year by winning at least their first-round matchup with whoever that may be. A clash with Alabama seems likely, and while I’ve argued the Irish are better off in terms of making a playoff run if they avoid Bama in the first round by improving to the 5th seed, from a credibility perspective, beating Alabama in a playoff game would be much more validating to the program than beating whoever ends up as the 12 seed this year.