"Even crazier, according to recent reports, the Irish may not even host a game since it is 'too cold' in December." That's the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. A quick Google search returned no such "reports," but to the contrary returned reports about all of the prep ND is already doing to prepare to host a home playoff game. And for God sakes, it's the first week of December. Northern college teams are hosting home games just a week or two before all the time. The NFL season is still in full swing at that point, and plenty of outdoor cold weather NFL teams play games in much worse conditions in late December and January. That's just an idiotic suggestion that shows the author of this piece knows jack shit.
per year, if that can be worked out. ND is in a good position to renegotiate the ACC deal.
RENEGOTIATE ACC DEAL:
The ACC should be desperate in keeping ND on their teams’ football schedule, to show they are playing a high quality opponent. This helps the ACC with both TV exposure and improve their teams’ strength of schedule for college playoff rankings. ND’s benefits are to play as strong a schedule that makes sense while keeping their independence in football and ACC alignment for other sports except hockey. Also stipulate that ND has the option of dropping out of the ACC if certain team(s) are no longer part of the ACC. Some of the key benefits for ND if the following changes are negotiated.
SCHEDULE: ND plays specific ACC football teams on a more frequent basis based upon what is best for ND to fulfill their number of games commitment:
o Every year – Stanford. This keeps this tradition active and helps recruiting in California (especially Northern California). Since this is a priority for ND and counted as an ACC game, then it actually is a reduction in the ACC games/year from 5 to 4 games per year.
o Every other year teams – Florida St. & Miami. This gets ND playing in Florida every other year against teams that have/recently had elite status. ND potentially has the last game of the year in LA (USC) one year and the next year in Florida (FSU or Miami). ND ends the season playing a quality opponent to hopefully improve their strength of schedule and ranking going into the Playoff selection rankings. Also, this helps recruiting in Florida and California (by playing Stanford each year, but no longer as an end of year game at Stanford – as long as the USC game is continued as an end of year game when they play in LA). Clemson (who is slipping) has had recent success, but still does not have the established tradition that Miami and FSU had (and could have).
o Every 3 years – Clemson, SMU, Georgia Tech. Play back-to-back home and away games. Clemson for competition, and the others for recruiting. There are 4 schools in North Carolina, so that area will be well represented in the general rotation for the left over teams.
o All other schools are played on a rotation basis for the ACC annual commitment slots available.
o Playing at off- campus stadiums: I understand that some like the tradition of playing at some great campus locations like Virginia, Duke, etc., however it may be in ND’s best interest to play at the closest NFL stadium to make it a bigger/special event and more seating allocations for ND. I understand it may hurt the opponents season ticket sales for that year, but perhaps season ticket holders get the premium seats at the NFL stadium. The special event nature of this game has definite upsides for ND recruiting and perhaps even for the ACC opponent.
BC – Foxboro Stadium (Pats)
Syracuse – Meadowlands
Some NC Schools – Charlotte
Virginia/VT – DC area (Occasionally, especially VT)
SMU – Cotton Bowl/Irving
Service Academies (Continue at NFL/Foreign locations)
EXIT STRATEGY: If there are certain changes in the teams within the ACC, then ND has the option of leaving the ACC without financial penalties or they can renegotiate based upon ND’s terms.
o If Florida St. or Miami leave the ACC, then ND would schedule the team that is left to play every year. Playing home and way in Florida against a major opponent is critical for ND to stay in the conference.
o If 2 of Florida St., Miami and/or Clemson leave, then ND can immediately exit the ACC without financial penalties or stay in the ACC without any financial penalties whenever they decide to exit. ND also gets to renegotiate some points (i.e., dropping one of their annual commitment games).
o If the ACC agrees to the above, ND may need to give something back to the ACC to get this type of agreement. Since Stanford is now in the ACC, then if playing them in the future accounts for one of the ACC annual game commitments, and since ND wants to play Stanford annually, then this actually reduces ND’s commitment from 5 traditional annual ACC games to 4 traditional annual commitment games. I would much rather play any ACC team in the rotation, than play current/recent lower quality opponents like N. Illinois, Miami (OH), Tennessee St., Central Michigan, UNLV, etc. Therefore, based upon the concessions that ND can get with the ACC, ND could potentially trade off one additional ACC game a year if get all other terms above, since playing Stanford every year was something that ND intended to do prior to this year’s conference realignments. I would not offer it proactively, but reactively based on getting the appropriate concessions.
Tidewater area to play Virginia or Virginia Tech. The Tidewater area is a vey fertile recruiting area in Virginia. Notre Dame has done OK there.
We have over 1.5M people here and zero sports teams - worst area in the nation. I went to the UND / VA game a few years ago - my first time at UVA. Their stadium is very nice - much nicer than anything near here.
We do have excellent athletes in this area - shame.
Best bet would be playing at Norfolk State’s stadium which has 30k seats, about the size of Wake Forest’s.
a fertile recruiting area. Not just for Notre Dame.
I heard it fulfills the requirement when they come up in the rotation; if ND chooses to play them more often, that's up to them.
the shots. In other words, we tell them what counts.
renegotiate. If 2 of the following 3 teams leave the ACC, it is over for the ACC anyways:
- Florida St.
- Miami
- Clemson
The article that was attached to the original post in this thread, saying Notre Dame and Florida St. could join the Big 12 Conference makes no sense. The Big 12 is the weakest of the 4 major conferences, and ND should never join the Big 12. Stay in the ACC until the next shoe drops:
- Super League for college football.
- The 3 major ACC teams leave.
Try to avoid joining the Big Ten as long as possible, to see if the Major football conference forms - could be outside of the NCAA.
Football rules the roost, so there isn't a conference out there that will accept ND without football. The idea we can somehow snap our fingers and make things so is outmoded thinking.
...by then for football. Some sort of sanity has to be restored at some point to every other sport.
When that happens, if we land in the Big 10 for all sports but football and football is part of whatever breakaway league exists that's fine by me. But I would fight to the bitter end to preserve independence until that implosion happens so we have a seat at the table for discussions and not 1/20th of a seat.
...there's going to be a massive reorganization as all the old conferences re-establish themselves for non-football sports.
I don't necessarily see ND in the B1G in that scenario, especially if the ACC or Big East are options. Having said that, the B1G would be a better non-football sports option than either of the other two.
very good, and certainly better than the Big East.
...that I wouldn't mind the Big 10 in that scenario. Like you, it wouldn't necessarily be my ideal, but if football is out of the equation then I could stomach it.
games. Make it so, waterboy (our AD, not you).
For all the grief that we get for supposedly throwing our weight around, I wish that we did it more. Swarbrick negotiated a terrible deal with the ACC, it's up to Bevacqua to renegotiate it.
Not in the way you're describing.
The ACC is not about to let ND slip any further away if they can avoid it.
to have to travel to California on Thanksgiving weekend. That's something ND should get credit for.
FSU and Clemson are about to leave the conference. I suspect that the ongoing court cases are going to create pathways out for lower than the nominal buyout value, and once one team leaves, it opens up more cracks as the remaining teams can argue that the original agreement is no longer valid, as the conditions that bound it have been broken.
We don't need the ACC. Whenever we want, we can call up the Big 10, and they'll take us. But the ACC sure as shit needs us, because even if it's only two ND football games a year, those are going to be worth more than whatever shit they have left on the schedule after Clemson and FSU leave. We can, and should dictate terms, and then, when it suits us, we can leave. Our ACC attachments are purely transactional. Nothing more, nothing less.
But in the mean time, we can extract concessions.
frustrating to play the terrible schedules that we have. Requiring 5 ACC teams when most of them are subpar, compounded with the tomato cans that Swarbrick set up for Kelly, makes the season pretty dull.
There's a "Delete" button when you edit your message and click "More options".
Cuts down "ignores" or chastisement by Andy.
It was not my best friend today.
post. Hopefully weve only responded to one of the duplicated posts and you can delete the other.
the 5 game rotation now
If they can get out the ACC deal then they are going to either the Big Ten or the SEC. If Notre Dame decided to pursue independence then I'd have to think we'd go to the Big East over the Big 12.
The much bigger story in that article is this:
A moonlighter whose day job is a high school teacher in Arkansas with a background in SEO, and a stint at that bastion of credibility, Fansided.
The Big 12 sucks.
independent in football and be a full member of a conference. I don't care how much money we'd bring to a conference, the other schools WILL NOT go for it. If we want to get a BYE in the playoffs, we have to be a full member of the conference which would mean that the conference is in charge of our scheduling, not us.
People can rail on Swarbrick till the cows come home but the overwhelming majority of people want us to remain independent and Swarbrick has positioned us to be in the playoffs on a regular basis while the conference power players likely would like to force us to join something.
If we ever join a conference (as a full member) it will be the Big10. It's a power player and it's geographically and academically aligned with ND...it's a no-brainer if it ever gets to that point.
I still believe that football should split off and then you can have your geographic conferences for all your other sports. Have a premier league style with 3 tiers and have promotion/relegation. That way you'd have monster matchups every week in the top tier and you'd have tons of eyeballs on the promotion tournaments in the lower tiers. It was be a massive amount of money that TV would throw at something like that. It could even be bigger than the NFL because it covers so many random areas of the country who are just college-junkies.
the article makes sense. But as per your second paragraph/sentence, independence in football is paramount. We probably would need to play something like 4 games against conference teams. I'd love to be back in the Big East for basketball though. A boy can dream, I guess.
I'm thinking we could be in the driver's seat if Bevacqua steps up right now and leads all the ponies, unlike Jack. Is he still hanging around? If so, he should be shown the door. Give the young guy a chance to do it right.
I don’t believe that, but it may be something the Big 12 requires.
We have leverage, but not a ton of leverage here. I’m not sure we can get into the best basketball league in the country with offering up just 4 football games.
I hope we can. It would be a far better situation than we’re in now.
Ole Swarby is swimmin around in a puddle of his own makin.
Waterbeverage paying immediate dividends would be great!