Discussing Notre Dame running back’s ‘controversial’ comments

Nick Shepkowski
·3 min read
44

A lot of eye brows were raised and attention was put on sophomore Notre Dame running back Audric Estime on Wednesday as he met the media and provided the next Fighting Irish opponent with some surefire bulletin board material.

Estime was asked about what he sees in BYU, who sits at 4-1 and ranked 16th in the latest USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll.  Despite the solid start to the year and nationally ranking to go along with it, Estime isn’t fearful of what BYU brings to the table.

But was what Estime said worth the pushback some seem to want to give it?

You first have to listen to the actual audio before making a grand conclusion, so let’s go ahead and do that.

If you ask me (and you should if we’re being honest) it’s a 19-year old answering a question honestly and a pleasant change of pace for Notre Dame fans.

NEXT: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COMMENTS

Notre Dame does have more talent than BYU.  Yes, Notre Dame would like to have the passing attack the Cougars have but pretty much everything else in the game shifts to the side of the Irish.  That’s not to say it guarantees victories as we all saw what happened on September 10 against Marshall, but it does go a long way in deciding an outcome.

I don’t care if this ends up being bulletin board material or whatever you’d like to call it, because there are two sides to see this with one obviously being the comment making BYU players suddenly more inspired to play well Saturday night.

The way I see it though is that for about as long as I’ve watched Notre Dame football, the players that are allowed to speak to the media say almost nothing of interest.  They’re the stereotypical “Notre Dame kid” who is button up, says nothing controversial, and goes about their business with blinders.

Football is a game that needs to be played with emotion.  I don’t care at what level it is, holding in emotions and making everything a “business trip” or whatnot is actually a bad business plan when it comes to ultimately winning or losing.

So yes, I understand the worry that Estime’s comments are going to be the old bulletin board material type of thing that reporters love to focus in on, but to me it represents a slight change in the attitude around the Notre Dame football program, something that started to change noticeably under Brian Kelly but still has a good amount to go.

Now it’s up to Estime and his teammates to go out and do something to make sure those comments are soon forgotten about instead becoming the reference point as to why BYU pulled off a victory.

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Story originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire