(06-09-2019 04:53 PM)bullet Wrote: (06-09-2019 01:56 PM)Statefan Wrote: (06-09-2019 12:14 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (06-09-2019 09:22 AM)esayem Wrote: My main point is some conferences are better for some schools than others; the ACC is the BEST conference in the eyes of UNC, UVa, and Notre Dame.
I wouldn't necessarily include Notre Dame, as their clear preference is "no conference". Also, we don't know if Notre Dame actually preferred the ACC to say the B1G or Big 12 in an "all things even" sense, it may be the ACC was just willing to give them more than those conferences were. Remember, Notre Dame preferred the Big East over the ACC - until the ACC destroyed the Big East with the 2011 raids.
As for UVA and UNC, that's undoubtedly correct. The ACC is obviously their preferred home, and the ACC would have to deteriorate significantly for that to change.
Notre Dame has wanted to be an ACC member for at least 40 years. The ACC would not allow ND the special favor of a curtailed football schedule for decades. That was the rub. The Big East was just a place to park their other sports. Don't take my word for it, give Boo Corrigan a ring over at State and ask him what his daddy told him about ND. Sometimes it takes a long time for a couple to make enough adjustments to walk down the aisle.
ND does not play 3 ACC football games a year and is not eligible for the ACC title game. That's it - the only caveat. Just like Syracuse not fielding a baseball team.
Notre Dame talked to the Big 10 throughout the 90s. They signed a deal to join the Big 10 as a full member in 1999. The faculty approved it overwhelmingly. The president approved. But it got killed by the trustees who wanted to keep independence.
Really?
Notre Dame Gives Thumbs Down to Big Ten
From Associated Press
Notre Dame will stand alone in football, as it has for more than a century.
The university rejected an invitation to join the Big Ten on Friday, intent on preserving its unique national identity and fearing the move would hurt football recruiting.
University trustees followed the recommendation of President Edward Malloy and nine senior university officials and voted unanimously against the Big Ten's overture.
The storied football program, independent for 111 years, features a coast-to-coast schedule and impassioned alumni across the country.
"Notre Dame has a distinct identity that is the product of more than a century and a half of institutional independence," Malloy said.
Football Coach Bob Davie said the decision was bigger than football.
"It involved a reinforcement of the heritage and culture of the institution--not only looking back into the past, but also projecting where Notre Dame expects to be in the future," he said.
Malloy presented the Big Ten proposal in October to the 55-member board and said the issue had drawn the most interest of any during his term as president. The school's alumni association reported 99.5% of its members opposed changing Notre Dame's "brand name."
Although the move was opposed by students, alumni and the athletic department, it had some support in academic circles.
The Big Ten affiliation would have made the South Bend, Ind., school a member of the Committee on Intercollegiate Cooperation, a consortium of all 11 Big Ten schools and one-time conference member the University of Chicago.
In October, the school's Faculty Senate voted 25-4 in favor of joining the CIC, but made no mention of the Big Ten.
"It wasn't a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination," said Rev. William Beauchamp, the school's executive vice president.
By joining the Big Ten, Athletic Director Mike Wadsworth said the Irish would have received between $1 million and $4 million less in income in 2007--the first year they would have played a full Big Ten schedule.
But Wadsworth said that loss would have been "inconsequential" in a budget projected to be $500 million in 2007.
Wadsworth said the move would have hurt football recruiting.
"We talk so much internally about recruiting and the nature of our admissions requirements and being a smaller school," Wadsworth added. "One of the things we always had as an advantage is the selling of the national program, that and television exposure."
The Big Ten is expected to woo other schools--with Syracuse or Missouri reportedly the likely candidates--to give the conference 12 members.
The faculty vote was to join CIC, not the Big 10. People forget that.
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Jim Delany botched the 2010-2013 Big Ten Expansion
