you keep making excuses, ignoring the success that Pat Murphy and Paul Manieri had at Notre Dame, and we'll keep getting the sorry performances we've been getting recently.

Maybe climate change had something to do with the fact that Murphy and Manieri could produce sustained excellence in Northern Indiana while Aoki can't possibly do any better than the crap we've seen.

Notre Dame -- athletically and otherwise -- has achieved greatness in spite of great obstacles.

holds water anymore across the board. These sports certainly have a majority of teams competing at high levels from the west and south; however, we are beginning to see big ten teams make a dent. I don't believe the excuse holds in regards to the weather. The Minnesota softball team won 55 games I believe and took Alabama to the wire in two NCAA tournament games.

All time, 9/70 CWS and 1/35 CWWS winners are from "cold weather" schools. It is a major disadvantage.

...wise. But nor is it South Beach.

And why ND did fine in big east and not so fine in ACC...at least that's a big part of it