Connelly: Irish players were set up to fail

With the start of the college football season right around the corner, it’s time for my favorite game show: name that program under NCAA investigation.

If you had, “What is Notre Dame?” that is correct!

On Friday, we learned that four members of the football team are out indefinitely while investigators look into allegations of academic fraud. The school identified the student-athletes as receiver DaVaris Daniels, cornerback KeiVarae Russell, defensive end Ishaq Williams and linebacker Kendall Moore.

According to Rev. John Jenkins, there’s evidence of papers and homework written for the players by their peers. Sounds like standard stuff at a major college program, if you ask me.

Call me cynical, but I don’t believe there are many student-athletes out there — or students for that matter — who haven’t copied a friend’s homework assignment five minutes before class. I know I did. But then again, I didn’t go to Notre Dame and therein lies the problem.

Forever, Notre Dame has held itself to a high standard of both academic and athletic excellence. It’s why the school’s endowment was worth $8.3 billion as of last June, as Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples pointed out.

“It has grown that endowment thanks to donations from alumni, who have that money to spend — for the most part — because they are smart, driven, high-achievers,” wrote Staples in a column on Friday.

He’s right.

For the most part.

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly is no stranger to dealing with issues like this. If you’ll remember just last season, quarterback Everett Golson was not allowed to play for the Irish after violating Notre Dame’s student honor code. Golson is back on the team and expected to start the team’s opener on Aug. 30 against Rice.

The same cannot be said for his four teammates, who are being punished by the system that I’ll argue set them up to fail.

I didn’t attend Notre Dame. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. My grades weren’t good enough.

The problem with college athletics today is that there’s a double standard. I commend Notre Dame for holding their student-athletes to a higher standard. But is that standard in the classroom achievable by some of the athletes they allow into the school?

I don’t know. What I do know is that there are systems set up at every Division I school in the country to help athletes succeed in the classroom. At a school like the University of Tennessee — my alma mater — it’s not that difficult to meet the standards required.

However at a school like Notre Dame, I’m not sure the same could be said. That’s why I happen to think another elite-level academic university, North Carolina, created bogus classes like basket weaving.

They ultimately got busted for it, too.

So what have we learned? If you’re a school with high academic achievement and you accept kids who might not be able to succeed, they could fail.

If you’re a school with high academic achievement and you create bogus classes, you could fail.

I don’t think there’s an easy solution here. Just don’t go throwing rocks at Notre Dame’s glass house without looking underneath those rocks at your own university first.

Write Vindicator sportswriter Kevin Connelly at kconnelly@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @connelly_vindy.