Monday’s First Edition: Notre Dame, Michigan Throwback to the Future

College football navigates into uncharted territory this September when Michigan and Notre Dame play under the newly installed lights of The Big House. I remember the lights coming on at Wrigley Field for the first time in 1988 and grew up with the Cubs playing night games. But now I can relate to my dad’s adjustment to the Wrigley lights.

Michigan football has long been a Saturday morning afternoon fixture, and a night game played in Michigan Stadium is going to feel foreign. Fortunately the Wolverines and Irish are easing the transition with a nod to their rich histories. Slap The Sign has the Notre Dame uniform, a great looking green accented kit.

adidas using the old Trifoil logo is a nice, subtle touch maintaining the throwback feel. Michigan’s going even deeper back into its history,rolling out a uniform that should come equipped with a leather helmet.

I have railed against interfering with tradition in college football on this very blog. USC, Penn State and Alabama all have uniforms that should never be altered in their basic schemes. Alabama and Tennessee should always play on the third Saturday of October. The Territorial Cup, Civil War, Iron Bowl, A&M-Texas and Big Game should be played on Thanksgiving weekend. Tuesdays in November are meant for the MAC — OK, maybe a bad example there, but the larger point stands.

Admittedly, Michigan debuting lights is going to take some tie for me to adjust. But when the Wolverines and Fighting Irish kick off, I will be on board. The same is true for this year’s UND-USC matchup, the first played at night in Notre Dame Stadium. The annual Trojan-Irish rivalry game alternates between an October day game (the third of the month in modern times) in South Bend and November evening game (the last weekend of the month) in Los Angeles, but a primetime showcase under Touchdown Jesus’ watchful eyes gets my stamp of approval.

USC’s win in the 2005 installment of this rivalry was vacated, along with the rest of the Trojans’ victories from the Reggie Bush era. The USC sanctions and problems at Boise State, Auburn, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio State — *inhale* Missing anyone? *exhale* — have sparked the debate, ‘Everyone cheats.’

Listening to the radio Sunday, that was the point two FOX Sports hosts made, with no one to refute them. This is becoming a more prevalent, and lazy strawman argument to dismiss rule breaking. Of course, that isn’t to say the NCAA isn’t without its faults. The rule book is mind-numbing and a lot of seemingly innocuous things are violations.

Are there a litany of violations committed that go unreported? Absolutely. To think otherwise is naive. Are rules, major rules like those violated at SMU in the 1980s and by UNLV basketball in the early 1990s, brazenly broken regularly around the nation? Certainly not to the extent some would have you believe.