(02-14-2016 01:52 PM)GE and MTS Wrote: I'm over Notre Dame. If they want to join the Big Ten, then the conference will make room if they can but the Big Ten won't wait for them.
Florida State, I imagine, is not good enough on their own academically, not to mention their location of being on an island. They would certainly need one of Georgia Tech or Miami to be added along with themselves to tag along to satisfy the academics (assuming that Miami is regarded as good enough to cover for Florida State). I don't think the conference would want to have a "West Virginia" problem of having Florida State on an island, but would Miami and/or Georgia Tech leave the ACC without additional friends? I don't think so. North Carolina is likely the grand prize that the Big Ten would want from the ACC. I don't think there is a package of schools to bring North Carolina to the Big Ten that the Big Ten would approve, i.e. Wake Forest. UNC cares enough about Wake Forest that they agreed to play each other as a non-conference football opponents because they weren't playing enough since they are in opposite divisions.
I don't think Oklahoma is good enough on their own and would need the cover of another academic school to get Big Ten entrance. I'm not sure that Kansas is good enough cover for them, just as I am not sure Miami is good enough for Florida State. Likewise with UNC, I don't think there is a combination of schools that would be sexy enough for Texas to join the Big Ten that would be acceptable to the Big Ten. Texas plays what, like 9 games of their schedule in the state of Texas? At best, Texas would have four home conference games, the Red River Rivalry (which would replace the fifth home game in a 9 game conference schedule), and three non-conference games in-state.
TL;DR Version: Notre Dame will probably always have a spot saved for them or room will be made. Florida State would need to tag-along with a top notch academic or be in a group of academics to be invited while bringing a nearby partner. Oklahoma is probably not good enough on their own but require less help than FSU. Texas and UNC may be pipe dreams because the Big Ten can't offer them a package that checks off every box.
(04-11-2016 09:02 PM)SeaBlue Wrote: Do not be confused. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend... Unless your enemy is Michigan and you're not Ohio State. So, carry on...
You'll soon have plenty of stories to share as conference mates... how Michigan did you wrong.. Talk about that pre-Harbaugh years... yada yada dada
ND has no friends. The enemy of its enemy is merely a temporary co-combatant, not a friend. I view all conferences as bad things, with some having more temporary value or usefulness than others.
I am far from a fan of the ACC, for instance. In my view, its main value is to put a stick in the eye of Jim Delany, for example, using its partial membership stance to keep ND (football in particular) out of the clutches of the Big Ten.
Other benefits are football games in the Southeast for recruiting, a good basketball league and some warm weather baseball venues in March/April.
But, I don't care about the ACC beyond that, much as I cared little to nothing for the Big East. Conferences are at best just marginally useful, bureaucratic constructs, not institutions that should engender any loyalty or sentimental feelings.
If anything, conference realignment has proven that.
To me, one is as a bad as the other, with the personal exception that I dislike the Big Ten more than most (the SEC is neck and neck, I have lived here as an out-of-place, unrepentant Yankee in SEC land for 33 years)
Joining the ACC for football is only marginally less awful than joining the Big Ten. Joining any conference for football is a total surrender of 128 years of ND history, tradition and "branding".
It will damage ND and be a total surrender to persons and entities who/that do not have ND's best interests in mind, in fact, probably just the total opposite of that.
I personally view conferences as awful, evil things that strip individuality and limit things like interesting bowl matchups and intersectional games and rivalries.
I didn't like that ND basketball gave up its independence to join the Big East in 1995. I was a bigger ND basketball fan in the Seventies and Eighties than I am now.
Once ND gave up its basketball independence and became just like everyone else (in a conference), I lost some of my fan zeal. Part of my ND fandom (particularly in the last 25 years or so) is based on my contrarian streak. I liked that ND went against the grain and was different.
I don't like the fact that ND has sports in the ACC and in particular I dislike that ND will play hockey in the Big Ten.
I will lose much of my interest in ND football if they run up the white flag, particularly if it joins the Big Ten. Sorry.
I would rather that each school set its own schedules, cut its own TV deals and that the bowls are open to any and all good matchups for that particular season.
At best, I view conferences, any and all of them, as merely temporary business arrangements, to be used and cast aside when no longer worth using, nothing more grand or useful, "good" or wonderful than that.
I have never understood the concept of "conference pride" or "conference brethren" and never will. All of this conference chest thumping has always been completely lost on me.
I wanted Villanova to win the basketball championship game, not "conference mate" North Carolina.
My opinion is that there are many thousands of ND fans with similar views, if not as extreme.
If ND joins the Big Ten in full, you will have many of these conference malcontents among you in your conference.........
If ND joined the Big Ten, I definitely would not watch or pay any attention to non-ND Big Ten games and would daily hope that the conference would implode, crash and burn.