Waiting game..eventually someone has to force ND

With sources telling The Courant that the ACC has a 16-team model in place with its first choices being Notre Dame and UConn, it seems as though ND can just play the Big 10 card if ACC threatens taking UConn and Rutgers and destroying the Big East. I don't believe Notre Dame will keep their Olympic sports in the Big East and I believe they have too much pride in their Olympic sports to not have them playing in one of the big conferences which will only take them with every sport including football. So I guess the question I'm asking is how far will Notre Dame go to keep their independence in football and if the Big East does fall apart, would they be more willing to put everything in the Big 10 or the ACC?

1. To the last man.
2. Unknown but irrelevant, see #1.

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The subject of this thread actually dovetails with Pudge's recent response in the thread about the addition of Memphis. The next television contract, which will be negotiated in the fall, will determine what action Notre Dame takes regarding their football team & conference realignment. I suspect that the Domers are working furiously behind the scenes to deliver the Big East to Comcast-NBC at a competative price. If the new contract comes in better than what was originally offered by ESPN last summer, then the Irish operate their football team at status quo. If, however, said contract doesn't offer competative value, there might be rumblings in South Bend to consider moving their football team to a conference.

UConn should have pushed for the BE to invite Louisiana Tech, Troy State, New Mexico St., and San Jose St to the BE. If those teams had been invited, ND might have thought twice about BE membership.

Uh, where is there anything on these supposed sources talking to the Courant?

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-big-east-expansion-0214-20120213,0,5149585.story

Quote from "On the fly" by Shawn (turn left) Courchesne: "Reports say Conference USA and the Mountain West-both raided by the Big East in an effort to save itself-have decided to bring their remains together as one. Call it victims sharing the grief of being robbed." Of course he COULD be tongue in cheek, one never knows when he's being serious or goofing around.

ND will do everything they can to stay independent in football. The only thing that will drive them to a conference is some change to the formula that makes it significantly harder for an independent school to be part of any playoff/national championship formula. That is what drove their BB program to the BE. They needed better access to the tournament.

If some type of change is coming, and one can guess it is with Navy joining the BE and BYU frequently mentioned for the Big 12, then which conference gets ND for all sports will be driven by the only thing that drives ND (and every other school): Money. ND will land in the conference that lets them most closely replicate their current deal: Retain their lucrative exclusive exposure/income with NBC for home games; allows them to maintain their annual games with traditional rivals; and gives them a good TV deal for all non-NBC games. You could make an argument for the BE being the most logical choice for giving them a significant portion of the wish list (exclusivity/TV income) but that precludes their traditional rivals which will absolutely drive their alums nuts if they have to give UM, MSU and USC up and replace it with games against Memphis, SDSU and Rutgers.

My best guess is they end up in the B1G since they have been invited there before, they get to keep a bunch of "traditional" rivals within that conference and they can probably get something on the TV side from them.

Interesting little nugget hidden down in a semi-related article.

I don't see ND ending up in the B1G unless they decide to 100% abandon their TV contract. The B1G will not budge on that, and frankly, they're making plenty of money already without ND, that they don't need to give in to their TV demands. I think if it's anything, it's the ACC, since they do have some traditional rivals there in BC, Miami, Pitt, and Cuse.

ND's traditional rivals are Navy, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford and USC (not in that particular order). They play those teams every year on an even home and away basis. BC, Pitt and Cuse are way far behind those 6 in terms of scheduling (and alumni opinion of importance) and they have not played Miami regular season since Jimmy Johnson was the coach at Miami. Moving to the ACC means they have to give up 3 of those games annually (ACC is moving to 9 conference games). Move to the B1G, they can keep all 6 of them and with the Pac10 alliance gets the USC and Stanford games pretty easily too. And the B1G would most definitely want the additional revenue ND would bring to the table. Remember, this is all about money.

This from the mouth of a very "associated" ND friend of mine (multiple family members over generations played football there) - the only ones on that list that matter are, in order, USC, Navy, and Michigan, and to a lesser extent, State. After that, the Pitt's, Miami's, Purdue's, and Stanford's are secondary rival games. The games that alums would absolutely go up in arms about if they were lost are USC and Michigan, and the school has VERY deep historical ties and commitments to Navy, but for some reason won't play them in Annapolis.

This makes little sense to me. If ND wanted to keep their TV contract, the B10 would gladly give it to them.

Why? Because each Big10 team makes a lot more than ND currently does. So the Big10 gets the revenue from all ND away games?

The B10 is all over that.

that's consistent with what I've heard from ND friends too, though some older guys put Michigan State equal to michigan since that rivarly goes back to the earliest days of Irish football while Michigan goes back to 1980 or so. What I have heard about Navy, and nobody seems to know exactly why, is that Notre Dame made a committment back around 1945 that they would always play Navy as long as the Middies wanted the game. That committment was renewed in the 1970s when Navy was going through a major down period, and again a few years ago. I've heard this from Navy folks and from ND folks. Though nobody seems to completely know the origins of the agreement.

As far as UCONN's situation, I have this feeling that UCONN is in a situation somehting like where Syracuse found itself in 2004. More or less biding its time until the ACC comes calling. I think it took longer than they had hoped but it came.

Re: Navy, my friend said he thought it had something to do with Navy allowing ND to use facilities for football during WWII, I don't know in what sense, or what facilities, but he thought it had something to do with that, but the thrust of it is that the school has always felt it owed a deep gratitude to Navy, and has maintained its ties for that reason.

I heard essentially the reverse - that Navy established an officer training program at ND during the WW II, which helped tide the school over until enrollment returned to normal when the troops returned home.

That...and it is an easy win to pad their schedule (or at least supposed to be)

Navy doesn't want ND at Annapolis because it makes far greater money playing them elsewhere. NMCM Stadium is very decent but smaller than the Rent and ND is a money game for the program.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Navy needed officers during the 2nd World War & Annapolis was overwhelmed with applicants. Those that they turned away, they referred to Notre Dame.

My source who has been 100% accurate says that the University of Connecticut and Rutgers University have both put out to bid and selected an agency for a new, dual marketing plan that does not mention the Big East. Coincidence? Maybe. Now it could be conference realignment related, as it's as good as time as ever to do it. Since everyone is skeptical of these mercurial sources, I'm going to just going to throw caution to the wind and tell you his name is Beckett. Sam Beckett. And the ad agency is the Estragon and Vladimir Group.
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