Where Should Notre Dame Go? You Know the Answer.
What about Notre Dame?
In this mad scramble to create so-called Super Conferences, the Irish seem to be the last Dominoes—I mean, domino.
Or do I? This seems to be a world where college football follows the franchise model of Pizza Hut and McDonald's. But here’s the thing about 16-team (and beyond) conferences: They aren’t conferences. You don’t need an engineering degree from Purdue to know that the math doesn’t work.
How are 16—18! 20!—schools going to play a 10-game schedule that makes any sense from a standpoint of traditional rivalries, competitive balance and getting college students to bed on time?
Adding school after school in quest of television revenue—why are state universities so obsessed with this?—is only going to create a bigger mess.
This isn’t Walmart or a pizza chain, where more franchises are the sole reason for being.
The thing that amazes me is that so many media and fans who follow and love college football just accept that a couple of mega-giant conferences—the SEC and the Big Ten—surrounded by lesser conferences that have no chance of competing because they generate fewer TV dollars. . . is a good thing.
I think this is the worst thing—not the best thing—that can happen, if you like the tradition, pageantry and competition that made you fall in love with college football in the first place.
But I also know that I’m relieving myself in the wind—of change that is inevitable in college athletics.
And so, like the old geezer that I am, I will make like Paul Harvey and say, ``Page Two!’’
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So what should Notre Dame do?
Of course, Notre Dame should throw in with the Big Ten.
ND's situation is especially interesting because it has made a bold and intriguing new hire. Will first-year coach Marcus Freeman follow in the footsteps of Brian Kelly? Or will he be more in the mold of Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham?
With all the turmoil in college football, that question looms larger than ever.
Notre Dame and the Big Ten are like those high-school sweethearts who went their separate ways and reunited at their 50th reunion. And then wondered why it took them so long.
In its early days—think Rockne and the Gipper—Notre Dame knocked on the Big Ten door many times. It tailored its recruiting rules, its schedule, its academic standards for athletes to make it acceptable to what was then called the Western Conference, only to be told no. Many times.
So Notre Dame said, OK. We’ll go play a national schedule. We’ll play USC in front of massive crowds in Chicago and L.A. We'll create a Subway Alumni by packing them in at Yankee Stadium against Army. And we’ll like our independence.
In the ‘90s, Jim Delany, seeing the obvious, wooed ND to become the 12th Big Ten team after adding Penn State. He held that seat open, leaving the Big Ten with an unwieldy 11-team conference. That, by the way, was the ONLY 12-team Big Ten that made sense in every way.
The faculty at Notre Dame pushed hard for the Irish to join the Big Ten, feeling strongly that being in a league with Michigan, Northwestern and so many other respected academic institutions would raise ND as an institution of higher learning. Which they naively thought was the most important purpose of their university.
By then, the Irish were used to going it alone. It wasn’t about the money. The Big Ten would have been more lucrative. But ND, which had no experience sitting around a table with partners, wasn’t interested in the give-and-take of a partnership.
And no, this ACC boondoggle doesn’t count. The Irish basically have a take-it-or-leave-it relationship with the East Coast conference. Which is probably groveling more now than ever.
Here’s the question for Notre Dame: What Price Glory?
The Irish can keep pretending they have more in common with Tobacco Road than they do with the City of Big Shoulders. Except that ND’s donations, alums and heritage say otherwise.
Oh, and by the way, Notre Dame obviously can make more money in the Big Ten. And if the Irish still don't want to be in the mathematically challenged Big Ten, their second choice should be the voracious SEC. But ND has never been completely about the money. If it can make a little less and maintain its independence and uniqueness.
Too bad there aren’t more sentiments like that in college athletics.