Notre Dame and ACC perfect fit

By WoadBlue
SouthernPigskin.com

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The days of ND being able to have its cake while simultaneously eating it are fast drawing to a close.

Most have heard the adage that once you realize something must be done eventually, you are smartest to do it immediately. If, for example, you know that the brakes on your pickup must be replaced and you procrastinate, you could end up with a totaled truck and a lengthy hospital stay.

Once the Texas Aggie leadership realized that sooner or later the school must join the SEC in order to avoid becoming Bevo's permanent servant, the move was made as quickly as possible.

If it must be done eventually, get it done as soon as possible so that you can best control the situation, maximize your negotiating power, and soften the landing. If the Aggies had waited, they might have found themselves in a much less attractive position, even one in which they had to accept scraps. Passivity and childlike hoping that those Longhorns would prove trustworthy could have made A&M the gawky dolt left standing in the game of conference musical chairs.

Eventually, Notre Dame, which due to its national TV fan base is the largest prize now or ever in the conference sweepstakes, is going to realize that the best long term plan for its entire athletics department is to join a conference for all sports. I am not alone in having discussed how the recent conference expansions, and the scheduling deal between the Big Ten and the Pac, will make it harder for ND to have good football schedules annually if it remains an independent. Nor am I alone in having noted that once Pitt and Syracuse join the ACC, ND's interest in Big East basketball and non-revenue sports will be restricted almost to games against the other Catholic schools.

The days of ND being able to have its cake while simultaneously eating it are fast drawing to a close. If ND joining a conference for all sports is going to happen, and it is within a few years, then Notre Dame will be best served by arranging the move now, before such time as it is forced to accept whatever might be offered.

ND is never going to join Big East football, even if Navy, Army, and Air Force all join. That leaves two options: ACC and Big Ten. Most who think superficially assume that ND getting in bed with the conference defined by its region makes the most sense. And that is exactly what ND can never risk.

Notre Dame became the nation's only truly national football program, a school with a mystique that no other can match, precisely because it was not admitted to the Big Ten and never played a midwestern schedule. With Big Ten power brokers, especially those associated with Michigan, acting to try to keep any Big Ten schools from playing ND, it had to play primarily in the northeast. That is where the vast majority of Irish 'subway alums,' the non-graduates of the school who follow its sports passionately, have always lived.

Without the subway alums, the ND national TV fan base is not among the 25 largest in the country. With them, it has the largest national TV fan base in the country. As the Catholic population down the east coast has grown, so have the number of ND fans living in VA, NC, SC, GA, and especially FL. And the Irish subway alums in those Southern ACC states are dwarfed by the Irish subway alums who live DC northward across PA, NJ, NY, and New England.

ND would be led by idiots if it were to join any conference that took it away from playing on the East Coast at least thrice per year. The cost of ND playing 10 games in the midwest each year (six Home games and 4 Big Ten Away games) would be a slow loss of its east coast subway alum fan base, which would make Notre Dame little more than the midwestern Catholic school in the midwestern conference.

And that would be the death of the Irish mystique.

ND football has four regional needs it must meet in order to recruit and keep its fans happy and fully on the bandwagon: midwest, northeast, South, and southern California. As ND serves all its midwestern needs by playing Home games in South Bend, joining the Big Ten is not a viable option to keeping ND the nation's only truly national program.

If ND can keep the SoCal game, it can meet all its regional needs by joining the ACC.

ND has chosen to play in Hockey East, with BC, rather than play with the Big Ten teams. Mike Brey would take Irish basketball into the ACC in a heartbeat. ND baseball, lacrosse, and soccer coaches and boosters would all jump to the ACC as quickly as would Brey and basketball boosters.

ND cannot afford to join any conference but the ACC, and changes to other conferences are bringing that day closer.

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In my last piece, I made a case for why Notre Dame will eventually join the ACC. Now I need to show why ND needs to be negotiating now to make that move. The earlier that ND initiates the process, the more likely it can secure a large number of concessions.

And right now, the ACC is in a weak position that means the Irish would be able to dictate almost anything if it joins for all sports. It is hard to imagine how ACC football could have fallen so far down, but it has managed to hit rock bottom and then burrow deeper. As football is KING, the sport that not merely drives the bus but takes care of gas, oil, tire pressure, and navigation, ACC stock is sickly.

Smart investors buy low not just because of cost, but primarily because buying low guarantees increased power over that into which one buys. And the Irish football ego having to join a conference can assuage its bruises one way: being the lead sled dog.

First among reasons for ND to make the move quickly is that it needs to decide which school, if any, will be best for it also joining the ACC. Until I began to think about the benefits of both the ACC and SEC having no divisions I could not have imagined the ACC adding ND without a 16th team. But should the ACC choose to schedule football as it does basketball in that there are no divisions, a 15 member conference may make more sense than a 16 member conference.

The Irish deliver more of the northeastern TV audience than Penn State and Rutgers combined. That being the case, why split the money 16 ways when a 15 way split means as large a market share and more money per member?

If either Rutgers or UConn were to enter the ACC with ND, it would gain a great deal. As ND would love to maximize its hold over northeastern TV viewers of college football, and gain among northeastern fans of college basketball, why would ND want to prop up a school located in the region?

Football scheduling is the biggest factor keeping ND out of the ACC, and ND joining now while the ACC is far down in football should mean that ND is able to receive the scheduling that would best serve its needs. It would be a straight trade: ND joins the ACC and so elevates national interest in ACC football far beyond anything that even FSU and Miami both finishing Top 10 could provide, and the ACC agrees to arrange scheduling to make it easiest for ND to join.

Regardless of whether there are divisions, ND needs to play certain ACC schools often. For reasons of geography, history, and recruiting, the ACC schools ND should demand to play most often are Pitt, BC, Syracuse, Miami, GT, and Maryland.

In addition to which teams ND would play most often, there is the matter of where the games will be played. ND became the ND of mystique by playing primarily in and against the east and by playing many neutral site games. At the very least, ND should demand that every other time it is the Away team versus Syracuse the game will be played either in Yankee Stadium or Giants Stadium. That will maximize ND's power in the NYC TV market, which will benefit the ACC greatly.

ND also should make demands regarding when certain games are scheduled. ND now has a pattern of closing its regular season in CA, one year at Southern Cal and the next at Stanford. Once Stanford is playing nine Pac games and one Big Ten team annually, it will not play ND more than two years on and two off, and probably not more than twice per decade. ND should demand that Miami be rotated with SoCal on its schedule, playing one in South Bend in October and the other as an Away game Thanksgiving weekend. In addition, ND should demand that it close its Home slate each year the Saturday before Thanksgiving, one year hosting BC and the next hosting Pitt. Those four teams, all with important history against the Irish, rotating to be ND's final two opponents each year will make its schedule move the way that all major powers want, and deserve, conference schedules: concluding with the biggest rivals.

If ND acts quickly while ACC football is embarrassing, it could be admitted with every demand it makes. If ND waits, and the landscape changes continue, forcing it to join a conference for all sports, and ACC football has recovered, ND could find itself having to take what is offered.
 

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