Left Seater wrote:terry,
What Mack did say was that the conf won't take anyone that isn't a full member.
He's wrong on that point, at least when it comes to speaking in such absolute terms. There definitely have been discussions about ND joining the Big XII for all sports except football.
http://articles.southbendtribune.com/20 ... notre-dame Granted, there's a long way to go from holding discussions to ND actually joining the conference under those terms. And truth be told, when push comes to shove, ND might not get the votes to join the conference without football. West Virginia was particularly opposed to ND's relationship with the Big East, and the Big XII schools may view it as creating a possibility for Texas to go independent while leaving the conference around as a landing place for basketball and olympic sports. But to say that the Big XII wouldn't even consider partial membership for ND is just plain erroneous.
He also indicated that ND's deal with NBC wouldn't preclude them from joining.
I agree with this. NBC traditionally has taken a hands-off approach to ND's scheduling. However, I think the more salient question is whether joining the Big XII would prevent ND from honoring its obligations under the NBC deal.
I think the answer to that question is yes, unless the NBC deal can be reworked considerably. If ND joins the Big XII for football, let's not forget that ND's Tier I and Tier II TV rights would then belong to the Big XII. In a nutshell, that means that NBC would have no chance at Texas-ND, Oklahoma-ND, and, if ND continues to play them on an OOC basis, Michigan-ND and USC-ND. That's at a minimum. I'm not sure that NBC will want to limit itself to two ND games per year, which is about all it will get if it's restricted to Tier III TV rights.
Now, if ND football were to remain independent, it would be a completely different story.
Still, the larger question is why? Why would ND join a football conference at this point in time? If anything, I think ND's position, in terms of its ability to remain independent long-term, has been strengthened by recent developments. The four-team playoff model leaves a path to the playoff for ND without joining a conference. And in years where ND fails to qualify for the playoff, they now have the Orange Bowl as a possible fallback. Yes, they probably will have to meet certain minimum requirements, but given that the Orange Bowl is also locked into the ACC champ, and most ACC teams don't travel particularly well, ND's role in the Orange Bowl game is primarily to put butts in the seats and pairs of eyeballs in front of TV sets. Given that set of facts, I tend to believe that the minimum requirements for ND to play in the Orange Bowl will be less than they are for AQ status in the BCS. I think an 8-4 record would do the trick. What would an 8-4 season get ND this year? A berth in the Pinstripe Bowl, against the #4 selection from the Big East -- if the Big XII is unable to fill its quota of bowl-eligible teams, that is.
I can think of only two reasons why ND would even look at joining a football conference right now. First, if NBC decides that it won't renew ND's deal, and there is no corresponding offer from another network. That, of course, would more or less force ND's hand. But I haven't heard anything to that effect, and ND still has four more years to run on the current NBC deal. The second scenario is if no conference would permit partial membership to ND, and ND's athletic department decided that the interests of basketball and olympic sports trumped ND football. In any event, there always will be non-football conference affiliation options available for ND, although those may be less advantageous than one of the higher-level football conferences (e.g., the Atlantic 10, also the non-football playing members of the Big East could form a so-called Catholic Conference should the Big East split up).
Even if ND is talking about its football team staying independent and putting basketball/olympic sports in the Big XII, I still question whether this is a good idea. The issue should be about what is best for basketball and olympic sports. Conference tie-ins for the postseason are considerably less relevant to ND now than in the past, given the changes to college football's postseason and where ND wound up as a result. And if TPTB at ND believe that ND should have more Big XII football schools on its schedule (I've heard as many as six games per year being discussed under the potential deal with the Big XII), then the football team ought to be able to sell the merits of a series with ND on its own, particularly given that a home-and-home guarantees any team in the country one of two games on national TV, and the possibility of a significant regional telecast for the other. Basketball, both men's and women's, would take a hit in the Big XII. The biggest issue would be recruiting -- in the areas where ND typically recruits most successfully, it's much easier to get kids excited about playing in the Big East than it is to get them excited about playing in the Big XII. Also, the Big XII doesn't sponsor men's soccer, men's or women's lacrosse, or women's rowing, so all of those sports would have to find new homes at ND. The biggest sport at ND that would be impacted in a positive manner by a move to the Big XII is baseball, But there again, the impending changes in the Big East probably improve baseball for the better in that conference (UCF and SMU have respectable baseball programs; Syracuse, by contrast, doesn't even field a baseball team), so the gap between the Big XII and Big East in that sport will actually narrow somewhat.
Going back to a point you made earlier, I've never heard ND say that a CCG was a deal-breaker when it comes to joining a conference for football. And while I don't have access to the inner workings of Swarbrick's athletic development, I try to follow this issue somewhat closely. Remember, ND almost became the 12th member of the ACC awhile back (although that was under a different AD and was nearly a decade ago, so I guess it's possible that some things have changed since then.) I don't doubt Swarbrick might have said that, but there's a danger, I think, in reading too much into what he says. Last year, most of the denizens of ND's homerboards (and more than a few posters here) had our bags packed for the B1G when Swarbrick made comments about the B1G that weren't the verbal equivalent of a one-finger salute.
If one were to assume that maintaining football independence, if possible, is one of the goals of ND's athletic department, then one has to take the position that continuation of the status quo probably benefits ND in that regard. And due to its desirability for a number of conferences, ND has been able to achieve a more or less uneasy stalemate when it comes to conference realignment. Now, this is only my opinion, but I think that if the next wave of conference realignment ever does come, the ACC will be decimated. I think the ACC stands to lose 4-8 members in that move to the Big XII, the SEC, and possibly the B1G. After that, I think the next domino to fall would be a merger between what remains of the ACC and the eastern football-playing members of the Big East. That would end the Big East as we know it, and the new conference might not allow hybrid membership. That, of course, places ND in potential jeopardy. Given the Big XII's low membership total, as well as its recent flirtation with Florida State (which is the piece that potentially causes the ACC to unravel), it makes sense that ND might say whatever it can to keep the Big XII from casting eyes at the ACC. Smh.
Van wrote:Fuck it, let the Pac 12 take in ND during the next round of expansion. That's a much more natural fit for ND than the Big XII could ever be, whether it's academics, rivalries, campus cultures, whatever. The B1G still makes the most sense for ND in those regards, but the Pac is ahead of the XII there.
Agree with you that the Big XII isn't a real great fit for ND when it comes to rivalries, culture, etc. But if ND decides it wants to join a football conference (which I'm not even sure is the case, let alone should be the case, but I'll still play), then the Big XII might be its only realistic option. Eliminate all the non-AQ BCS conferences off the top. From there:
SEC: Do I even really need to explain this one?
Pac-12: Unless a football-only option exists, this would be a non-starter. Travel is too expensive and time-consuming for olympic sports.
B1G: From the perspective of ND's fanbase, this conference plays the role of AP in any conference determination. Too much historical bad blood here, and even ESPN has acknowledged that it would not be in ND's best interests to pigeonhole itself into the midwest as much as conference membership here would.
Big East: Too unstable, and no marquee programs, unless one counts Boise State, which quite clearly is a new kid on the block in that regard.
ACC: Florida State's recent flirtation with the Big XII exposed the instability in this conference, which is considerably greater than it looked to be, say, six months ago. Not nearly as good a cultural fit as many among ND's fanbase make it out to be -- recent expansions notwithstanding, this remains a southern conference at its heart.
By process of elimination, that leaves the Big XII, which also was racked by rumors of instability in the past. But with Texas and Oklahoma now apparently firmly committed to the Big XII, this conference may have gotten much more stable in a hurry.
Btw, one of the reasons why I'm opposed to ND joining a conference is that I don't see any of the existing conferences as being a good fit for ND. I haven't changed my mind about that.