I said it gets them exposure. You’re talking about the quality of recruits. The quality of recruits will not go up with a steadier diet of NC State and Boston College and less of Wisconsin.
You also ignored my point that this is all about money. (It’s all about money.)
Finally, yes, there’s very good reason to doubt that 1-loss ND playing in this year’s dumpster fire of an ACC would have leapfrogged any of the four selectees. There’d have been a P5 bias expectation for them to leapfrog Cincy but for the fact that the Bearcats soundly beat them in South Bend. There’s zero chance ND was passing Alabama or Michigan.
Why can't the ACC and ESPN be proactive with this situation and try to persuade ND to join the ACC full time in football with more money and benefits (which should benefit all of the ACC schools financially) than what NBC could offer ND? The BIG and BTN made alot of concessions to get MD in the fold; the ACC/ESPN partnership could try to do something similar to entice ND with the end game of every ACC school ultimately benefitting financially with ND a full time football member.
I think this will be an outlier; and not a regular occurrence. Cincy will be gone for the AAC and even if they had stayed, that team would not be a regular contender for the CFP (unless it expanded). Pitt vs Wake is not an attractive matchup for a championship game; and I don't see that happening for a long time. Clemson imo will be back to normal next year and in contention for the CFP. As long as that's the case and they are 1/2 of the ACC championship game, the ACC championship game will get higher ratings than next year's and future AAC championship games.
Btw, I'm not sure an 8 team CFP is a done deal. I thought the ACC, Big 12, BIG, and Pac 12 were against expanding the playoffs at this point (while the SEC would be in favor of an expansion) based upon the SEC expansion. With the inclusion of TX and OK, any expansion in the playoffs could benefit the SEC the most. Personally, I think for the other P5 conferences to approve an expansion, there would have to be a guarantee of more revenue to the P5 conferences regardless of who is in the playoffs; and P5 conference champs would get automatic qualifiers for the expanded CFP.
If this were to happen, ND might have more incentive to join the ACC. That and if the P5 conferences continued to increase the number of conference games in football scheduling might put a squeeze on ND.
I mentioned the NBC deal in my OP. I know it's about money.
I imagine it's in the ACC-ND contract that if ND wants to join a conference in football it must be the ACC. Of course, these conference contracts mean little these days. But I'm not so sure they'd prefer the B1G or SEC either.
Re how lousy the ACC was this year, we ended with 4 ranked teams. Same as the B1G (before any of you go ballistic, I know those 4 were higher ranked and I'm not comparing Wake Forest to Ohio State). But the Big 12 only had 3 and the PAC-12 had 2.
Again about the lousy ACC, 2 years ago (ignoring COVID year), there was only 1 ACC team ranked. 3 years ago there were 2. Clemson masked a lot of mediocre football, but as someone mentioned upthread all that matters is the very top. And Notre Dame hasn't been at the very top in almost 35 years. I'd wager they won't again for a long time. Because if it goes to an 8-team playoff ND will probably get invited most every year but will lose in the first round most of the time. I still say conference games matter in preparation.
The B1G has had 1 national champion since 2002. The ACC has had 3 in the past decade. Stop slagging on the ACC.
I hear you; but if the ACC/ESPN offered ND a significantly stronger financial package than NBC, would that be enough incentive for ND to break their desire to remain independent? I get that it's a long shot because if money was most important, ND would've joined the BIG or the SEC at this point.
I would hope that the combination of money, like minded academic schools and geography would be the appeal for ND to join the ACC/ESPN as a full-time football member, wherein the ACC's geography does in fact overlap large ND alumni bases (New England-Boston, NYC/NJ, DC, Southeast - NC, GA and South FL) compared to the current makeup of the SEC and BIG.
The ACC's package is already bigger than NBC's. 15 million vs 33 million, or some such (and that number would go up with ND in). And the big10's is another doubling. If doubling isn't enough to get ND in, then there's not much we can do. We have not much to offer them right now that they can't already get otherwise. They're already playing ACC schools, already in national prominence, already have every game on broadcast TV. Maybe we can send them over some cases of Jameson?
The only reason ND is involved with the ACC right now is because there's no way the B10 would have given he kind of scheduling concession we do.
1200. DDMF.
I don’t disagree with you that the ACC compares decently to the B1G in recent years, at least at the very top, although of course all three of those trophies sit in Clemson, not Tallahassee or Coral Gables or Blacksburg. The ACC has also vastly outperformed the PAC, and I personally don’t really view the new Big XII as a full P5 conference anymore.
My view is, rather, that all of these conferences are being left in the dust by the $EC, and NIL once it really gets rolling is only going to exacerbate that gap. Things historically have gone in cycles. I don’t foresee how the $EC doesn’t dominate in perpetuity now, though—at least as long as football is king.
Last edited by AustinDevil; 01-02-2022 at 12:55 PM. Reason: Typo
I think the 12 team playoff increases chances. The more schools who are getting into the playoffs, the more schools it becomes desirable for top recruits to attend.
I think we're going towards a super conference anyway, where the SEC cuts the cruft and brings in some other top schools from around the country, so what happens in the immediate future likely doesn't mean much IMO.
1200. DDMF.
How many of you have ever been to a Notre Dame football game? 80,000+ fans, even to play us (lessee... at $100 per ticket, that's eight big ones per home game). South Bend airport filled with corporate jets on game day; donations out the wazoo. An exclusive TV contract with NBC. A lot of players want to be Golden Domers. And, it's a really good school with connections around the world.
Why can't NCAA football have a team that has a national fan base? And why should such a team have to be in a conference for football?
Kindly,
Sage
'My Irish-American grandmother, a huge Notre Dame fan, has been in heaven these past 60 years is looking down on this discussion, not at all pleased with what she reads. There could be repercussions. I'm making it clear that I'm not against ND'
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
I have seen a game at South Bend, and have seen them on the road against FSU and against Navy. It is a show.
South Bend is a fabulous trip, well worth the effort if you can.
(Of course, I got to meet up with Sage, Stray, devildeac and others before the game — that too was a big part of the fun!)
So lets do a thought experiment:
round 1:
ND Pitt
OSU Utah
BU MSU
Ole Miss OkSt
Based on their ACC games, ND pitt is probably competitive.
Turns out we found out that utah/OSU WAS competitive
BU probably wins big over MSU
OSU Ole Miss seems like it has a fighting chance of being competitive.
So that's 2.5 out of 4 games. If we even get 2 out of 4 games in that round that are competitive, I think we're already doing better than the current semis.
In the next round, we get at least
Cinc-ND and Michigan-Baylor, both of which look to be better matchups than what we got in the semis, and of course the two blowouts.
So going into the semis, we probably get ~4 of 8 competitive games. I'll take that, and I think the networks do, too.
1200. DDMF.
Actually, one of those is in Tallahassee.
It's all about finding the right coach. FSU can be back. Miami, I don't know with the stadium issues but the U still has some cachet. VaTech, Pitt could be back. I'm not sure any of the other teams have the capability to be sustained football schools.
Alabama and Georgia play 15 games this year. Not too long ago 12 was the max. Expanding playoffs, CTE, etc. how long is college football sustainable?
Edit: (As long as the money is there)