(vi) His dalliance with the ACC which nearly put us in that conference as a football member; and (vii) his renegotiation of the original BCS deal.

Granted, (vi) did not achieve its intended results, so some may be tempted to place it in the "no harm, no foul" file. But I don't think White should get any credit for the NCAA bailing him out of his own stupidity. Moreover, it showed that he did not value independence, nor did he have any clue as to what helped make ND different. Further, he was willing to give up a cornerstone of the football program (very prematurely, at a minimum, as it turned out) to put us in a conference with which we had little history in common, and little if any institutional connection other than the fact that there are a number of good academic schools in the conference (which, by and large, do their student-athletes a disservice on the academic side of things.)

As for (vii), I'll willingly plead guilty to not knowing all of the facts, so it may very well be that White negotiated the best deal for ND that he could get. With that said, the perception that deal created was that: (a) White had an implicit, if not explicit, willingness to make ND a junior partner to the power conferences; and (b) given the provision that ND would get $1 million in years that it didn't qualify for the BCS, that he valued monetizing the brand over using the brand to produce excellence.

I've mentioned on here before that I'm pretty tight with a guy who played football at Tennessee back in the day. White's son is now their AD. When he was first hired, my exact words to my friend were, "I hope for your sake that he's a better AD for your school than his father was for my school."

White may have been a competent AD for about 85% of all Division 1 institutions. At Notre Dame, however, he was an unmitigated train wreck. Say what you will about Jack, at least he has kept ND football at least nominally independent. I doubt White would have been able to do the same, had he remained in office over this time period, or even that he would have been interested in doing so. On the other hand, if you want to argue that Jack has doubled down on some of White's other annoying tendencies, such as prioritizing monetizing the brand over utilizing it to promote excellence, you'll get no argument from me.

It seemed to be part of a trend of lacking confidence in the program so hedging bets to take guaranteed money.

Vi I would need more information on. I don't ever remember that as being a serious threat.


I would also vigorously dispute a position that it is an accomplishment that Jack "nominally" kept us independent by ceding five games and scheduling authority. I think that deal is a net drag on the program and puts us into a terrible rights agreement. That is not an accomplishment.

Five games was unreasonable. Four games would have been more than enough and I think we should have pushed for three. We probably had to cede some room on our schedule to get the placement for basketball and olympic sports. Then again, I would have been okay with the reconstituted Big East for that purpose.

As for Point vi, that came up after the ACC had admitted Virginia Tech and Miami and before BC joined. I heard someone refer to it as a "done deal." Reading between the lines, I think ND had a deal in principle with the ACC to join that conference. The deal provided for delayed entry for football (I had heard as long as ten years) and was contingent on the ACC being able to play a conference championship game in the interim. The ACC did in fact apply to the NCAA for permission to play a conference championship game with 11 members, and was turned down (note: this was in 2004, I think the answer probably would have been different ten years later.) I think that development invalidated the deal, and the two sides couldn't reach subsequent agreement as to the timing of ND's entry. Only after that did the ACC turn to BC.