Straight Gangsta

"Play Like A Gangsta Today"

Growing up in the hood has its advantages and being able to understand how gangsta’s operate is one of them. Understanding how to politic the system can be the difference between being able to walk home safety and not. My high school was the ocean that fed into two lakes of street gangs, GD Folks and One Way. Now in order to keep your shoes, hats and lunch money you had to either be affiliated or smart enough know all of the lieutenants that made sure that boyz looked out for you. Now these cats ran the streets but it still didn’t change the fact that many of them ended up dead at very young ages or in jail for the rest of their lives. It looked cool on the surface but at the end of the day they still lost.

Even in the world of college football we run into that same gangsta hangin' around the band room taking advantage of boyz that can’t defend themselves. Notre Dame showed up in the ACC with a do rag on, the flat bib cocked strong to the left with a blue and gold bandanna hangin’ out of it’s left back pocket. They checked everybody in the room and said, “We’re in this joint with all sports but football but we’ll play 5 games a year in the ACC on our terms. We’ll let you boyz host a home game from us once every 6 years and that’s how it’s doing down so you can tell ya momma that or not!”

 It was like the cat that used to walk in and just take some young punks lunch money or better yet, he would let him stand in line for it and then take his lunch and his hat as he went to sit down. Am I mad at Notre Dame for punking the ACC? Absolutely not! Does Notre Dame have the power to do just what they did? Absolutely! They are still a very popular brand in the world of college football because of it's alumni base. They’ve got so much pull that they essentially told their wife to be cool with the fact that they’ve got a girlfriend and as a matter of fact, they want them to go shopping together to build a deeper bond.

These duns are doing what Big Momma called back in the day, shackin’! I want to look like I’m in a conference but I want to keep my options open. So I’m not going to commit all the way. However, I want to come through and hang out with my women as I see fit. Straight Gangsta do you hear me bruh? And I’m not mad at them because they've got the power to do it.

Unfortunately, the life of a gangsta always ends tragically. They completely punk’d the ACC and got what they wanted but it still doesn’t change the fact that they’ll fire Brian Kelly in another year or so because he can’t win at the level that they expect him to. Notre Dame’s goal is to go to BCS Bowls and win National Championships. You need horses to do that. As I explained years ago in the Hot Joint "The Most Delusional Program In Sports" they’re administration still thinks that it’s 1945 and it’s still a premiere football program and it not! Especially not to 18 year old All-American recruits. The best kids in the country no longer want to play at Notre Dame bruh!

They haven’t won a title since 1988 and there isn’t a kid playing football right now that was even alive to see it. Secondly, when coaches pull up the top 150 players in the country, state schools that are powerhouses like USC, Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, Ohio State etc can talk to all 150 of them. ND can only talk to 30 of them because of  it's academic standards and they'll be lucky to sign 1 or 2 of them. Where as, USC will sign 15 or 20 per year. The Trojans have already gotten commitments from 12 of the top 150 for 2013 and it's still early.

 I remember a couple years ago when Florida was rollin’ they sighed 13 of the top 50 players in the country. ND can’t beat schools like that because they simply have better players. So they can gangsta boyz all day but they’ll continue to flounder around and fire coaches because of the lack of success on the field. If they don't lower the standards they've got to be cool with going 8-4 annually! However, Notre Dame is so delusional they think that they can win titles in today's BCS era and it won't happen because you've got to basically run the table and at best have one loss in order to do it. That ain't gonna happen in South Bend!

They’re going to take 5 “L’s” this year starting this weekend with #10 Michigan State because they’ve got opponents scheduled that just have better players from top to bottom than they do. Not only are they going to East Lansing Saturday they’ve got Miami in Chicago, #5 Oklahoma in Norman, #17 Michigan at home and #2 USC in LA. Now after that carnage Brian Kelly will either get fired or be on the hot seat because ND just doesn’t get it! You can’t be a football powerhouse and an academic powerhouse at the same time! Duke can do it because they only have to sign 3 guys per year on average. In football you're signing 25 per year. You're not going to find 25 All-Americans with the grades that WANT to go to Notre Dame all at the same time! They simply can’t occupy the same space. It’s impossible. You can’t ever be a gangsta and win!  Just ask some of the cats that I grew up with. That’s if they’re still breathing pimpin'.

Holla At Ya Boy!

Jay Graves

Get @ me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport