I went to a game in South Bend a couple of years ago. Great campus, nice stadium, but it certainly wasn't high up on my list of stadiums/gamedays I have experienced.
If I were them I'd be more worried about how many students there have been sanduskied and less about a team they are obviously completely jealous of.
The campus is definitely gorgeous. If I'd visited when I was 17, I'd have wanted to go there. Fortunately, my 11- and 7-year-olds weren't all that impressed. That's good because tuition, room, and board are currently $64,000 a year.
I was not impressed with Indiana or South Bend, but the campus was a quintessential college atmosphere.
I've been to games at both stadiums for numerous games (more at LSU than at ND). It's impossible to compair the two because they are two different types of college football experiences. I was in the student section at LSU for the "Auburn earthquake" game, and I don't think I've come close to experiencing an atmosphere like that since. Tiger Stadium has an excitement in it that is unmatched, and I can attribute many great times that I've had before, during, and after several LSU football games. However, I also was blown away by the campus at Notre Dame on my first visit. My first football game in South Bend wasn't until after I graduated (from LSU), but it still stands out as one of my best college football experiences. It wasn't about the exciting atmosphere (even the tailgaiting is laid back), but had more to do with the history of Notre Dame, the cold weather, and just the overall experience. Admittedly, my expereince was stoked by the fact that I had been an Irish fan since I was a kid, and that if finances would have allowed I would have gone to school there. Both are great places to watch a football game. I guess I enjoy the Notre Dame experience a bit more now that I'm older and a little more subdued when I watch a football game. Just my 2 cents!
I always pictured the ND stadium full of turtleneck-sweater-wearing, tea-sipping, pretentious, holier-than-thou dorktards. But maybe that's just me.
I could definitely see this, but it does look like an awesome place to go to school. Plus, the ND alums I've met aren't all that pretentious at all. When I was on my tour, there was a kid who was starting his graduate work at ND, so he took the tour to get the lay of the land. Every time our tour guide would go into a building where any ND employees were, he introduced the new student, and the employees were genuinely interested in him; they gave him their cards, told him to stop by their office for coffee, etc. It's a small school with about 8000 students, and it seemed as if the staff must care about the individual students. That was cool.
