Notre Dame fans have made this suggestion before. In fact, they have made it many times before. It is not that it was explicitly ignored; it is that honoring it would have unnecessarily risked offending some fine people via unintentional exclusion.
Now, though, they have bigger things to worry about than if a middling sports writer happened to acknowledge them on a website so obscure it requires two dots in its address. In fact, they would probably be happy to see any local South Bend establishments recognized at all.
“With respect to article ideas, how about a few travelogue pieces about visiting the South Bend/Mishawaka area?