(07-28-2020 02:56 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:50 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  Notre Dame also does show loyalty to a few schools (Navy, USC, and Stanford).

I don't think ND has any strong loyalty to Stanford. They're just a means to increase access to California recruiting for years when USC plays at ND.

Agree. Their only loyalty to California is the annual USC - ND game. If need be ND could easily replace Stanford with Cal or UCLA for West Coast Recruiting for the years USC plays at ND.

(07-28-2020 03:58 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  We don't want conferences becoming entrenched bureaucracies with lots of power.

Too late.

(07-29-2020 11:54 AM)schmolik Wrote:  CBSSports.com is pushing the idea of Notre Dame joining the ACC in football not just for 2020:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...yond-2020/

"The Fighting Irish have been resistant to join a conference, but what if they like it?"

"Swarbrick (Notre Dame's AD) told The Athletic last year that Notre Dame would be "much better off" going all-in with the ACC. The money would definitely be bigger. Even with and the CFP distribution, Notre Dame's revenue doesn't approach that of an average Power Five program."

"That doesn't mean Notre Dame is walking down the aisle with the ACC. It's a different program. Independence cannot always be clearly quantified. Notre Dame considers itself a separate entity. " "Independence allows scheduling freedom. It allows coast-to-coat marketing of the school. " (obvious spelling error)

The article points out Notre Dame's game at Georgia which aired on CBS and was CBS's 2nd most watched game last season. If the Irish join the ACC as a full member, they will have fewer opportunities to play at SEC teams and appear on CBS. But that contract's ending in a few years anyway.

Dodd has tried this narrative a couple times in the past. This is the Covid addition!

(07-29-2020 12:04 PM)panite Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:56 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:50 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  Notre Dame also does show loyalty to a few schools (Navy, USC, and Stanford).

I don't think ND has any strong loyalty to Stanford. They're just a means to increase access to California recruiting for years when USC plays at ND.

Agree. Their only loyalty to California is the annual USC - ND game. If need be ND could easily replace Stanford with Cal or UCLA for West Coast Recruiting for the years USC plays at ND.

Back around 2000 or so, the then president of ND described Stanford as ND's "aspirational peer". (in case anyone wondered where that weird term came from)

ND has played Stanford every year (except two in the early Nineties) since 1988.

If ND wanted to replace Stanford with Cal or UCLA, it would have done it long ago.

Some people minimize the relationship between the two programs, but ND kept Stanford on the annual schedule while booting Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue to the side.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/pla...d=stanford

(07-29-2020 11:54 AM)schmolik Wrote:  CBSSports.com is pushing the idea of Notre Dame joining the ACC in football not just for 2020:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...yond-2020/

"The Fighting Irish have been resistant to join a conference, but what if they like it?"

"Swarbrick (Notre Dame's AD) told The Athletic last year that Notre Dame would be "much better off" going all-in with the ACC. The money would definitely be bigger. Even with and the CFP distribution, Notre Dame's revenue doesn't approach that of an average Power Five program."

"That doesn't mean Notre Dame is walking down the aisle with the ACC. It's a different program. Independence cannot always be clearly quantified. Notre Dame considers itself a separate entity. " "Independence allows scheduling freedom. It allows coast-to-coat marketing of the school. " (obvious spelling error)

The article points out Notre Dame's game at Georgia which aired on CBS and was CBS's 2nd most watched game last season. If the Irish join the ACC as a full member, they will have fewer opportunities to play at SEC teams and appear on CBS. But that contract's ending in a few years anyway.

Dodd has written similar articles over the past fifteen years or so.

Before him, others wrote essentially the same article.

"Notre Dame needs to join a conference" is a familiar sports "journalist" theme, brought out every year for the past two and a half decades.

Remember Rick Reilly? In August 2012, he wrote a similar article forecasting doom and irrelevancy for Notre Dame unless it joined a conference.

He picked a bad year to write it, ND went 12-0 that regular season.

Since Rick wrote that article, ND football has gone 76-27 (with almost a third of those losses in an otherwise outlier 4-8 2016 season) with two undefeated regular seasons, a BCS title game appearance and a playoff appearance.

Anyone remember Rick Reilly, lol?

Keeping Stanford on the schedule has more to do with ensuring an annual west coast trip than it does amity towards Stanford. ND is going to recruit in Michigan and instate just fine. That’s why the Big Ten rivalry games were dropped but Stanford stayed on.

I think the ND admins are trying to ease their fan base into a reality that someday the other conferences will force them into joining one in order to have playoff access. I think they’ve decided that the ACC is the one because they know they can throw their weight around and win.

With an 8 game conference schedule ND can keep USC (old rival/high profile) and Navy (old rival/usually a win) while leaving room for a cupcake and one other high profile game against a Mich/Ohio St/Texas/Oklahoma/Florida/LSU.

Expect to see about half of the @Navy games to get played near West Coast Naval Bases (SD, Bay Area, Seattle) so that the Irish can keep that West Coast presence up.

Here’s a question: what would ND’s ideal ACC division look like?

(07-29-2020 01:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here’s a question: what would ND’s ideal ACC division look like?

Clemson
Miami
Wake Forest
VT
Duke
Syracuse
Pitt

Kind of all over the map. That was a quick guess.

(07-29-2020 01:31 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Keeping Stanford on the schedule has more to do with ensuring an annual west coast trip than it does amity towards Stanford. ND is going to recruit in Michigan and instate just fine. That’s why the Big Ten rivalry games were dropped but Stanford stayed on.

I think the ND admins are trying to ease their fan base into a reality that someday the other conferences will force them into joining one in order to have playoff access. I think they’ve decided that the ACC is the one because they know they can throw their weight around and win.

With an 8 game conference schedule ND can keep USC (old rival/high profile) and Navy (old rival/usually a win) while leaving room for a cupcake and one other high profile game against a Mich/Ohio St/Texas/Oklahoma/Florida/LSU.

Expect to see about half of the @Navy games to get played near West Coast Naval Bases (SD, Bay Area, Seattle) so that the Irish can keep that West Coast presence up.

The only part of your post that may be even remotely true is the Navy playing in San Diego part.

In 2018, ND played two games on the West Coast, including the Navy game in San Diego.

If Navy plays ND in San Diego, that will be two West Coast games that year, not as a substitute for Stanford.

The rest of your post is completely wrong and simply your personal projection.

(07-29-2020 01:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here’s a question: what would ND’s ideal ACC division look like?

There is no "ideal" ACC division for Notre Dame.

IF ND joined in football, I think an ACC North would have its anchor.

That would be better than the Big Ten tossing ND into the Frozen Tundra of the Big Ten West, although any conference setup would suck and would straight jacket ND.

ND, like the rest of the ACC should have three annual games and then rotate the remainder.

ND's three should be Pitt, BC, and Miami. All three games have some history.

Past these three I would think Syracuse would matter because of the chance to play in the Meadowlands from time to time. GT in Atlanta would be of value. Louisville is the school closest to ND.

From the State of NC, Wake Forest is probably ND's preference.

UVa and VT are probably a tossup.

Rotating Clemson and FSU is a likely desire.

That gives you something like:

Pitt
BC
Miami
Syracuse/GT
Louisville/WF
UVa/VT
Clemson/FSU
NC State/Duke/UNC

TerryD with the typical Fighting Irish defensiveness. Let’s break that post up sentence by sentence to see exactly how much is true:

Sentence 1: The trip every other year to Stanford is most definitely a recruiting trip.

Sentence 2&3: Instate recruiting and indeed recruiting throughout the Midwest’s urban Catholic centers has always been good to ND. This absolutely factored into why ND plays Purdue, Mich St, and Mich less.

Sentence 4: There absolutely could come a time where the independents are froze out of the playoff system. There are a ton of threads on this forum on how the Big Ten and SEC could become mega conferences and pit their winners against each other.

Sentence 5: The Irish would absolutely prefer to be a prima donna in the ACC rather than on equal footing with the Big Ten’s too programs. They’d have leverage in the ACC so if push came to shove that’s where they’d go. ND hates the Big Ten.

Sentence 6a: so you’re telling me that if ND could only keep 2 rivalry games they wouldn’t choose USC and Navy?

Sentence 6b: And that you wouldn’t want a home game against a MAC cupcake while still having room for a blue blood from another conference? Look at your own scheduling history—there’s always at least 1 buy game on there and there’s a rotation of big name schools from the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 (2020 Ark & Wisc, 2021 Wisc, 2022 Ohio St, Cal, 2023 Ohio St, 2024 TAMU, Purdue).

Sentence 7: The one about playing Navy on the West Coast that you actually agreed about.

Completely wrong? I don’t think so.

The ACC splits better east and west rather than north and south.

The ACC schools that share an annual game with SEC schools are all in the "west" - FSU, Louisville, Clemson, and GT. ND could easily fit this group and Pitt would make a good addition to that group because they have the possibility to have near rivalry games with Penn State and West Virginia.

Here’s my take on ideal divisional opponents in the ACC for ND:

BC
Syracuse
Pitt
UVA
UNC
Duke
GT
Miami

obviously they can’t have all of them because that’s 8 schools.

What I can see happening is either joining as a member of the Coastal with Pitt, UVA, VT, UNC, Duke, GT, and Miami with BC as their protected crossover in the Atlantic.

Your other option is putting them with 3 of their preferred schools and doing rotating pods (1996-98 WAC style) but with protected rivalries in years that 2 pods are scheduled to meet.

Ex. Florida St & Miami might be in separate divisions with a protected crossover.

https://www.si.com/college/tmg/_storyPre...6051776052

Quote:As an enticement to accept that, the ACC added the offer of a full ACC revenue payout, which combined with Notre Dame's share of its television contract with NBC would be a boost in income for ND of more than 35 million dollars.

For that, however, he ACC clearly wants Notre Dame to accept a permanent position in football sooner rather than later, a move which would guarantee ND's financial athletic security.

They're going for it, if what they're offering in the article is true I think they pull it off.

Also: No football divisions for the ACC this year, and each team can play one non-conference game.

Sounds good! I am excited!

https://twitter.com/accfootball/status/1...34112?s=21

Notre Dame’s schedule lost: USC, Stanford, Wisconsin, Western Michigan and Arkansas

Notre Dame’s schedule added: North Carolina (A), Syracuse (H), Boston College (A) and Florida State (H).

We’ll see on Navy, but that’s the game ND wants to keep.

It is interesting that ND would rather keep an away game against Navy than a home game against Arkansas.