My “X” feed over the past week has been filled with posts about Notre Dame football. The algorithms are working well – doubtless based on my past interest, I’m seeing a lot of commentary about Notre Dame from people whom I don’t know, but who have strong opinions about the team, the players, the coach, and tonight’s matchup with Penn State. While much of my feed is typically more political or theological, these newly-boosted sports posts seem to designed to appeal to outrage (and hence, continued scrolling) in the same way as political posts. No matter the sentiment, the comments are usually a mix of boosterism and denunciation, with rancor breeding rancor. Few teams in American sports seem to generate as much national opining as Notre Dame.

The experience is surreal, because for most people who express any view about Notre Dame, it concerns their football team. For most Americans with an interest in sports, particularly football – which might, in fact, be most Americans – Notre Dame, like Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, etc., is a team. Commentary on sports networks discusses college football teams no differently than teams such as the Chiefs, the Bulls, and the Red Sox: who’s up, who’s down; who’s in, whose out; who’s good, who’s bad; who will win, who will lose.

For me, however, as a college professor, Notre Dame (as well as Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, etc.) is a university which, as part of its operations, has a football team. The football program at Notre Dame, as well as these others – certainly at all the schools in the playoffs, and not only those – is a very significant feature of the university, but far from the entirety of its identity, purpose, and activity. Unlike a professional sports team – which exists solely to play competitively against other sports teams – university teams are merely one feature of the larger entity of which it is a part. A significant part, yes. But a part.

By treating the “teams” as if they are indistinguishable from professional teams (in the wider commentariat), important distinctions are missed. And I’ve seen little notice or attention to one very salient and important point:

Notre Dame is the only university in the playoffs that’s unique. The rest (with one minor exception) are almost indistinguishable. Commentary that treats all “teams” as essentially the same phenomenon leads to a widespread ignorance of laudable uniqueness amid bland homogeneity.