While the brushfires of college football conference realignment have subsided for now, the embers are still red hot, and that is not good news for Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish program would like to retain its independence, with all of the scheduling flexibility and financial rewards that brings, but it will come at an increasing competitive cost.
In the last round of conference realignment, rumors had Notre Dame moving to the Big Ten, or the ACC; even the thriving SEC and a barely-living Big XII. The Irish didn’t jump, but that option is getting harder and harder to stick with.
For Notre Dame fans and alumni like me, the idea of the Irish in a conference brings mixed reactions. We like to think that our school still commands the power and respect to dictate its own college football terms. Others should come to us; TV networks with their opened checkbooks, teams with open dates on their schedules.
But it doesn’t work that way anymore.
That’s what a couple of decades of mediocrity will do to a program. The diminished stature, and resulting reduction of options, is the price to be paid for the failures of Bob Davies, Ty Willingham and Charlie Weiss. Through his first two seasons, despite the initial enthusiasm, Brian Kelly has posted back-to-back run-of-the-mill 8-5 seasons, and has yet to return Notre Dame to glory.
Staying out of a conference presents challenges that could affect Notre Dame’s ability to remain an elite program-if you can even still call it one.
Scheduling
Superconferences, with a couple of divisions and a year-end championship, limit the number of non-conference game opportunities, and could put Notre Dame’s traditional rivalries with schools like Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue and USC in jeopardy. The move to a conference, like Navy’s to the Big East, could also add to the squeeze.
The recent announcement of annual Big Ten-PAC 12 matchups could add to the crunch, which would be especially troubling if there are changes to the BCS selection process.
“You may see almost an RPI dynamic come to the forefront,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick says about a possible strength-of-schedule elements to bowl selections. “It may be harder for the MAC to get those games. I have no idea what’s coming in the next postseason, but I think they could place a premium on that sort of thing.”
Recruiting
This is a double-edged sword for Notre Dame. Traditional Irish opponents like Pittsburgh joining a conference like the ACC offers a predominantly-southern conference inroads into an area-Pennsylvania-where Notre Dame has always been a strong recruiter. Remaining apart from strong conferences deprives the Irish staff of a foothold in talent-rich regions like the southeast, where the program would benefit by new rivalries in, say, the SEC.
Rankings
Sure, Notre Dame has a deal to earn a BCS bowl invitation if the Irish are ranked high enough in any given year. But the rise of superconferences could be the death blow for the BCS. Four dominant conferences with 16 teams in each, like today’s ACC, SEC, Big Ten and PAC 12, could easily break away and begin a playoff system that crowns a national champion and leaves the BCS-and every team not aligned with the conferences-behind.
I understand the appeal of independence. It has served Notre Dame well for nearly a century. But times are changing-quickly-and Notre Dame may have no choice but to change as well.
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