If ND is going to make a run at March, they have to improve immensely on the defensive end. Currently, Torvik has them at #200 in adjusted defensive efficiency and #240 in defensive eFG%. I mean, those are just horrific numbers. Obviously, they have been playing sans Hammond so maybe he will make a big difference when he returns. If nothing else, it will be another player logging significant minutes.

Good news is, MSU is really beaten up as Hall definitely won’t play, not sure on Akins as he hasn’t played in their two-games this weekend either. Torvik has ND +2 but that MSU data obviously includes both Akins and Hall. And has Marquette as a pure tossup 50/50 game. ND should couple point favorite vs UGA.

ND has a legit chance to win all three of those games. Clearly, will have to play much better especially on defense but definitely not out of the question to go 3-0 or 2-1.

I'll believe that ND will be able to beat teams like MSU, Marquette, and Georgia this season after the team shows the ability to do that.

They have had a couple decent to good shooting performances already, particularly against YSU who is a pretty decent team. Weak defensively but overall Torvik has them currently at #151.
But honestly, this ND team is absolutely screwed in most games moving forward they don’t shoot it pretty well. They just aren’t good enough defensively to overcome it.

That said, I tend to believe water finds its level and ND definitely has some quality shooters. But yeah, if they throw up bricks, this team is doomed.

the “ sorry state of ACC men’s basketball”?

The ACC is consistently the best or close-to-the-best conference in basketball. It’s not Jack’s fault that it’s down right now. Plenty to hate about the guy, but getting our basketball program into the ACC was objectively a good thing.

Our football schedule is now diminished significantly by the half-dozen boring games (other than Clemson for now) every year. The benefit of being in the ACC for basketball has dissipated now that the league sucks, which crushes our SOS. It's also a horrible cultural fit and we have to deal with home cooking from the crooked Tobacco Road officials in all sports.

If Jack had been forced to make a decision purely for basketball and purely based on strength of league at the time of the decision, then I agree that it would be silly to criticize him. There were myriad other factors in the decision, however, and many sensible people recognized the move as terrible at the time it was made. It sucked then and it sucks even worse now, but at least Brian Kelly got to pad his wins and get a hefty pay day.

A temporary dip in the quality of men's basketball doesn't make the decision bad.

The access to the ACC's bowls is crucial, although I'd like the next round to allow ND to take the ACC's Orange Bowl slot if they're ranked higher than the ACC champ.

I would also like fewer games each year vs the ACC in football, but if FSU and Miami get themselves right, there are opportunities for good games there. We need tier 2 and 3 teams on the schedule, the ACC can give us those.

Plus the ACC is outstanding for a lot of other sports, including baseball and soccer.

And it's been shitty for football. Those games are horrible and they tank our SOS, as well as our overall cachet. I don't care about the bowls outside of the playoffs and I think "crucial" oversells the point.

One could argue whether this dip was foreseeable and whether it's indeed temporary. The ACC had some lousy years immediately preceding ND joining the conference and it's on a pretty bad stretch right now. Regardless, my main point was that it was a bad move for football and any ancillary consequences as a result of that decision are on Swarbrick.

I really don't care much about soccer and, besides, I think we could be doing just fine in another conference. Look at the baseball recruiting right now under Stiffler. The overwhelming majority of recruits come from the Midwest and Northeast. We don't need to be in the ACC to land those guys.

I know a lot of the football-only fans feel this way, but that's not a realistic viewpoint.

And as I said, if it weren't for the ACC deal, ND would be staying home this postseason. Think that's going to help with recruiting? I'm here to tell you it definitely would not.

The ACC was not our only option to preserve bowl access.

Be specific, please.

With any of the conferences. Or maybe entered into a shorter term deal or stayed with the Big East. This latest round of realignment only reinforced how coveted ND is.

To call the ACC the only option is absurd. It may have been the only option we pursued, but that doesn’t make it the only option. I guess we’ll never know.

...it's your position the Big 10 or the SEC or the Pac12 or the Big12 would have signed a deal with Notre Dame saying that in exchange for an average of five games per year scheduled against their teams, Notre Dame would get full access to all of their bowl slots and a place for all their non-FB teams to play.

If that's your position, suffice it to say I disagree.

And also suffice it to say all those conference have dogmeat teams ND would have to play as part of any of those hypothetical deals. That you prefer those dogmeat teams to the ACC's dogmeat teams really isn't relevant to the conversation.

But the ACC unequivocally was not the only option. There were better matches for us or we could’ve worked with the bowls to create other tie-ins while waiting it out in the Big East. At any point, we could’ve (and still can) decided to renegotiate as well, but we didn’t.

The results stand for themselves.

What leads you to believe that we would have had deals on the table from other conferences?

You cite that ND is coveted but there is little chance the BIG would have cut a deal with us where we get access to their bowl games, etc. Same with the SEC.

Maybe the Pac 12 or Big 12 may have but then how are they any different than the ACC in terms of one of your other issues with the ACC - slop opponents?

I don’t think Swarbrick even bothered to pursue other deals. ACC offered and he signed us up in apparent perpetuity.

If you don’t think other conferences would’ve made ND a deal, then I don’t know what to tell you.

to other possibilities, don’t you
think?

The SEC and BIG would laugh us out of the room if we proposed being able to take their bowl games in exchange for a few games a year. Those two entities are likely bigger than ND at this point. They don't need us. Sure they'd like to have us but they clearly don't need us to get big contracts, eye balls for their TV partners, etc.

So at the end of the day, we'd be left trying to cut deals with the Pac 12 and Big 12. Are either of those more palatable to you than the ACC? Maybe they would be but it seems to be both are basically the ACC in terms of quality of opponents, etc.

So offering to do exactly the same in exchange for them giving away the store had 0.00% chance of working. We played Michigan, MsU and Purdue annually and often added NW or others for a 4th game.

Reality is we went to the ACC because they agreed to what others didn’t.

Why couldn't we negotiate with a handful of minor bowls to serve as an option in years that we don't make the NY6 as an at-large team?

When the move was made, Swarbrick touted it as a way to preserve access to the lower-tier bowls. I don't think playing in those meaningless exhibitions should have been the driving force behind joining a conference that was never going to be a good fit and diminishing our football schedule in the process.

Do I think we were in a position to dictate terms to the SEC and the Big Ten on the same terms as the ACC deal? No, probably not, but we could've worked with another conference to lodge our other sports without demanding a tie-in for the lower bowls. That's just one example of another deal that we might've struck other than a 15 year lockup and 6 shitty games per year just to earn a Pinstripe Bowl berth.

Either way, we're stuck with the ACC deal and I think it sucks. Ten years later, we haven't formed any meaningful rivalries with any of those teams. We didn't fit in the conference back then and we don't fit now.

there are tie ins for the middle of the pack teams from Big Conferences. They went and signed those deals so that year after year they could get a team from one of the BIG 5 even though other teams might be better.

Given that fact I dont see them wanting to sign an agreement to take ND in "down" years and then scramble for someone to replace us when we get a better offer.

You can reject whatever you want but you have to provide some sort of evidence to support your claims. Most of the bowls have conference tie ins. How many of those bowls would be willing to renegotiate with their conference partners to let us take a potential slot?

Look, I am no fan of Swarbrick and I do believe there may have been a better deal out there with the ACC (less games or maybe we got to pick 3 of the 5 teams annually so we wouldn't be stuck with slop games against Duke, BC, etc.) but you seem to be arguing for a path that might not be all that realistic in today's climate.

The reality is that we were going to have to align with one of the major conferences in some fashion. The SEC and BIG were not going to take us half ass........... they were gonna demand us all in or all out. So that leaves the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12 for bowl options. They are all the same to me. Or as you suggest, somehow get lower bowls to renegotiate their conference contracts just to give us access while we park all our non-football sports in a some lower tiered conference.

I guess we just disagree about the value of the ND brand. The Big Ten took us already for hockey and it was widely reported that they were waiting for ND before closing up shop on the latest round of realignment. If they're willing to take us as a full member, like every other conference, then I'd have to believe that we could negotiate an arrangement to house our other sports. There's value in that type of deal for the conference and it would work better for us. Ditto for the bowls.

to be a full member, not a partial one.

The SEC and BIG would want us to negotiate new TV deals. But as a partial member, we'd likely keep the NBC deal. That's a non-starter for the BIG and SEC.

There is zero chance either would take us as a partial member.

schools are not traditional Power 5 schools. It is a niche sport that caters to the Upper Midwest and NEw England. Trying to analogize what we could have done in Football and Basketball based upon what we were able to do in Hockey seems crazy.

Look at the past few Frozen Fours and you will find names like Denver Minnesota State, St Cloud State, Minn-Duluth, Quinnipiac and BU. The Big Name schools are come predominantly from the Big 10 with the exception of BC and Providence.

double a 6 million travel budget for all sports.Truth be told only conferences east of the Missisippi had any shot at ND.The ACC and BIG would be the only suitors and the BIG has already played their hand leaving the ACC alone

interferes with critical thinking.

Playing Louisville, NC State and Syracuse in football and squeaking out a First Four NCAA bid despite winning 15 conference games is just swell.

I am indeed biased against people who make bad decisions on behalf of institutions that I support.

you are absolutely falling for the Swarbrick/Kelly shell game regarding football scheduling.

I'm not excited about seeing anyone from the ACC other than Clemson on our football schedule, but that five-game commitment leaves seven games on the schedule. While I do believe that, as an independent, Notre Dame needs to "over-schedule" to a degree if it's serious about having a resume that stands up to major conference champions in front of the playoff committee, but that is entirely possible, even with the five-game ACC commitment.

The problem is that Swarbrick has treated those games as a murderer's row, rather than the four breathers that they truly are. He sold the lemmings the line that, "We have BC and NC State and Wake Forest ... every year, so we need to schedule breathers from that by playing Marshall and Toledo and UNLV and Western Michigan and Ball State and Bowling Green ...."

It looks like you're one of the lemmings.

I'm just dealing with the reality of the situation, which is that the ACC package has been treated by ND as a de facto conference slate with the standard fare of lower league cupcakes (and now FCS teams, starting next year).

I agree, however, that the ACC football slate does not necessarily have to destroy the strength of schedule if supplemented with better opponents.
Five or six games is still far too many boring games with no buzz for my taste though and I'd rather see our other sports in a conference, or multiple conferences, that are a more natural fit for ND.

of ND fans favoring more aggressive football scheduling, but to me that doesn't mean a top 20 team 11 or 12 weeks out of the season.

Without the benefit of reviewing historical scores, I feel that I'm familiar enough with Notre Dame schedules over the years to assert that even in those seasons with the most challenging schedules, there are always uninteresting games that don't create much buzz. Start with Navy, until we entered the wilderness. Rice, Tulane, Pitt for many years until Johnny Majors arrived. Air Force, Purdue once Jack Mollenkopf retired in 1969, Northwestern, with very few exceptions, etc., etc.

We apparently disagree that relying on the ACC for the "no buzz" games is materially worse than Notre Dame's historical scheduling, and I think any difference is justified by the benefits to other sports, overall. Again, if I believed the ACC arrangement prevented Notre Dame from having an appropriate football schedule, my position would be 180 degrees different.

As for other possibilities to provide reasonable conference memberships for other sports (again, without significantly diminishing the football program), you have asserted here that such options existed.

Posters on both sides of that issue are left to argue the existence/non-existence of deals not pursued, not consummated or not possible.

I will note that I don't consider it a coincidence that we struck a deal with the weakest P5 football conference. I don't think the Pac-12 made sense due to geographic considerations, but I'm not convinced that they would have granted Notre Dame "partial membership" regardless. I'm among those who consider it laughable to think that the SEC or Big 10 would have considered such an arrangement. That leaves the Big 12, which is about to expire -- and I don't think they would have gone for it, either.

I'm still stuck on the point about other conferences, particularly the Big Ten, not offering ND a partial deal. We're already a member of the league for hockey. At this last round of realignment, it was widely reported that the Big Ten was done after adding USC or UCLA unless ND were to come calling, in which case they'd accept us in a heartbeat.

Why wouldn't the league add ND for hoops, baseball and soccer? I'm stipulating here and elsewhere in this thread that it would not be on the same terms (i.e., full access to the minor bowls).

today than it was when we joined the ACC or that Hockey is entirely different from the other sports?

Sounds stupid to say this but you have to give something to get something. What would the Big 10 gain from us agreeing to play a slate of conference games similar to what we did with the ACC. Keep in Mind at the time we joined we had been playing 3-4 Big 10 games a year for a long time. What do they gain in an ACC type deal 2 games and they give up bowl access when they already have 4 schools with long histories at the top of the sport?

I am sure they want us now because the NCAA is headed to a world of 4 conferences and you will need all the names you can get.

I'd like to get out of the ACC deal right now.

We're locked in until 2036, but if I had my way, we'd be actively negotiating out of it right now. With a 12 team playoff on the horizon, the notion of tying our decision to access to irrelevant bowls seems increasingly absurd. Who cares whether we get to be in the Cheez-It Bowl?

At least for basketball. It would be a step down for some of the other sports, admittedly, but a better fit overall and we would recapture full independence for football.

Down compared to last years but Big East has two ranked teams and ACC has three. As the NCAA evolves into super conferences you are going to need to be in one for football and for most other sports it is an inferior conference.

If independence is your goal a seat at the table through the ACC is probably the Best option. As said elsewhere Big 10 / SEC will be all or nothing. PAC 12 is dying if USC and UCLA leave and same with the Big 12.

effective field goal percentage. Can't compete vs. quality competition when you never turn them over and allow them to shoot a good %.