Call this the honorary Craig James "worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl" thread...
What was the statement some commentator made during the season that sticks out to you by making you cringe at just how stupid it was?
For me, it came at the end of the ND/LSU Citrus Bowl. Above average Notre Dame, flawed in many ways, gets away with a broken play touchdown to seal a comeback against above average, flawed in many ways LSU.
Rod Gilmore (paraphrasing), "looking back to the Notre Dame team that lost to Alabama in the 2013 national title game, that team was just not big enough, not ready for prime time. Brian Kelly has definitely fixed that; this team is ready for prime time." Seriously? Winning a traditional upper tier, but not elite bowl game between two flawed, up-and-down teams has some relation to an imbalanced championship game several years ago? Put 2017 ND in any title match-up in the last 15 years and chances are the results are even worse than that Alabama game.
Secondly, I always bristle at comments about that game. Yes, Alabama destroyed Notre Dame. You had one elite team playing a team that on its best day could play with anyone, but (1) survived a brutal schedule unscathed with a little luck; and (2) its emotional leader was going through more than an off week with the outing of the cat fishing (which is kind of an all time story in the ridiculous category). Alabama was always going to be the better team, but it caught ND at a bad moment for a team that lived off of a fair amount of emotion. Also, beat downs happen, even to good teams (see Georgia this season against Auburn, or Ohio State against Florida in 2007, or...there are lots of examples). So Notre Dame in that championship game was never that bad, they just had a bad day against a great team that had a good day. Just like Ohio State wasn't that bad in its loss to Florida: it deserved to be there and was a very good team, it just picked a bad time to have an off game against a good team.
Yes, I'm a Notre Dame fan, but going back and looking at what ND did to get to that game, any team that you didn't have a grudge against you would think deserved to be there based on the record (not the final result).
Notre Dame's win over LSU was a nice finish to an otherwise ok season for Notre Dame. It had high moments, it had low moments, the team was pretty good, but not great, and it beat a very similar team in LSU on a series of plays that easily could have gone the other way. Good for ND.
So what in the wild wild world of sports did a good, exciting win in an upper-tier, but not elite, bowl game have to do with a poor performance several years ago in an elite bowl game? Absolutely nothing.
So that was my Craig James nominee for the year. What's yours?