"The same can be said about its increasingly rare independent status.

As surrounding conferences have expanded, multiplied, and in some cases, faded away, formed and reformed by television contracts and revenue figures, Notre Dame’s football program has stood alone — an outlier among the crowd.

But for how much longer?

During an online presentation on the future of college athletics on Wednesday, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick speculated on the dominos that would have to fall for the Irish football team to ditch its independence in favor of a conference affiliation.

It’s a move Swarbrick neither welcomes nor expects.

“Our goal is to remain independent,” Swarbrick said. “I think it serves the university’s purposes and our educational purposes to maintain our independent model. The things that could change that are ones that I think are generally understood.

One is if our independence proved to be too great an obstacle towards participating for the national championship. That would be a consideration.

“Secondly, if we didn’t have a broadcast partner who wanted to support us and allow us to use football to promote the university as independent, that would be a challenge.

Those are really the only two right now. We don’t have any issues with building our schedule, especially in light of the ACC agreement. We don’t have a problem with access to postseason.

“So those are really the two major risks that I see, and I’m glad to say that I don’t think either is imminent.”


Amidst an ever-changing collegiate athletics landscape, Swarbrick also avowed that one thing wouldn’t.

Notre Dame’s football independence.

At least, not imminently.


He also talks about a number of other issues such as paying players, the future of the NCAA, the College Football Playoffs and ND's move to the ACC in most sports.


http://www.ndinsider.com/football/notre-...6873e.html