...in response to some things he said on an abcsports.com piece (12/10/2002) with respect to ND. The first is irrelevant to the current thread (West Virginia fans were miffed that the Gator Bowl picked ND instead of WVU, and Bowden, as an alum of WVU, was pushing the idea that the pick was unfair).
The second thing he said was that ND should be in a conference. I actually got a polite response back. Anyway, the following distilled my thoughts on the matter, and I think I still believe them. (I may have posted this here some years ago.)
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Why hasn't Notre Dame football joined a conference?
This isn't a simple issue. There are many factors explaining it, some of which are clearly pecuniary, but others are historical or related to traditional opponents on ND's schedule.
The "natural" conference for Notre Dame is the Big Ten. The other Big Ten schools in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, etc., surround South Bend, and ND traditionally plays more teams from the Big Ten than from any other single conference (although this year, it was 3 Big Ten teams and three Big East teams).
Back in the golden years (pre-WW II) Notre Dame tried on multiple occasions to join the Big Ten but was rejected every time. The reasons aren't absolutely clear (a Catholic school joining secular colleges?), but when ND went knocking, the door stayed shut.
Now, in more recent times, the Big Ten made overtures to ND, but by that time Notre Dame was accustomed to its position as a national independent. During the 30's and 40's Notre Dame's athletic department carried on Rockne's effort to arrange a national schedule, playing (among others) Stanford and USC in the West, Army and Navy in the East, Oklahoma in the south, as well as the more proximate Big Ten schools in the Midwest.
As a result of this history, Notre Dame's football "conference," for many years, has been national, not regional, in scope. This goes hand in hand, to some extent, with Notre Dame's gradual development into the leading Catholic university in the country, a factor that transcends regional boundaries. This might not be directly relevant to football scheduling, except for the fact that it has generated a nationwide fan base (for example, see Steve Rushin's article in SI at the end of November, "Planet Notre Dame"), the so-called "subway alumni."
This is probably annoying to many fans from other schools, but it's not a unique concept. In the NFL, we've heard for years about "America's Team," although it's not always clear who that is! Back when the Celtics ruled the NBA, they drew more fans at away games than most other teams did (this was repeated by the Lakers and Bulls in more recent years). The "up" teams get more favorable press, more analysis, sell more merchandise, and so forth. Is this "unfair"? Of course not.
Some who call for ND to join a football conference seem to assume that being an independent is a "lack" of something, which can be fulfilled by joining a conference. But here's what Notre Dame already has: a national schedule, allowing its fans in various parts of the country to see it play; traditional scheduling relationships with a number of teams that would suffer if ND joined a conference; a strength of schedule that would probably suffer if it joined a conference; a national fan base that contributes to relatively stronger TV ratings in national broadcasts; the option to go to bowl games and retain all of the associated fees, without having to take only 1/10, 1/11, 1/12, or whatever it would be in a given conference; and a strong, if intangible, sense of tradition that is built largely on its national-scope, independent status.
Terry, if you were Notre Dame's AD (or President), would you give up many of these things (as you surely would have to) in order to join a conference? Well, as they say, every deal has two parts: price and terms, and I suppose anything can be made attractive enough.
But I think the argument can be made that Notre Dame, by remaining an independent, has remained true to its traditional character-and that that's a good thing.