Wait so CBS Sports put out their list of toughest 2026 schedules and I already know Notre Dame is gonna be circled on ours. Back in the 1999 season when we had Ron Dayne running behind Aaron Gibson and Chris McIntosh we didnt care about schedule rankings. We just lined up and ran the ball until the other team quit. Now every program is obsessing over strength of schedule like it is some science project.
You know what made our 1993 Rose Bowl team tough? We played Michigan Ohio State and Michigan State every single year and nobody complained about the shedule being too hard. Barry Alvarez built this program on the idea that you earn everything you get. Now we have $1.37 billion in Big Ten revenue and NIL collectives running the show and the sport has lost its soul.
I miss when Camp Randall was the loudest place in the Big Ten because of the fans not because of some video board or fancy suites. Notre Dame coming to Madison this fall should mean something real not just another TV slot for NBC to cash in on. The game was better when we hated each other for the right reasons.