(09-06-2020 07:51 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (09-06-2020 06:25 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: As the Big Ten and SEC continue to get richer and richer is maintaining that ever increasing income disparity sustainable?
The Irish either need to get themselves a better tv deal or join a conference where they can collectively leverage for a higher payout.
I think ND has been pretty clear about independence. They have a strong, deeply rooted cultural commitment to independence, meaning they are willing sacrifice important things like media money, bowl access and an easier path to the playoffs to maintain it. We know this because as you and others have noted, ND could join a Power conference and make more money, have better bowl access, and have an easier path to the playoffs.
But this is also not absolute. ND has also said that the one thing that would compel them to give up independence is if the playoff structure was changed so as to make it prohibitively difficult to make the playoffs as an independent, because their overriding commitment is to compete for national championships.
But the experience of 2018 has made it clear that being independent does not create unreasonable barriers to the playoffs and so if anything it makes it less likely that ND will permanently join a conference under the current CFP regime. Joining the ACC this year is consistent with all this, as because of the decisions even the P5 conferences that are playing in the fall made about OOC games, it's clear ND could not have played an independent schedule that would have allowed them to compete for the title.
Pretty well summed up.
As with everything else going on today, you need to look at history to understand how we got here.
ND was a football independent every year from 1887 until this season (temporary safe harbor). 133 years of playing football without a conference affiliation.
It is who ND is. It is its cultural identity, its brand, the way it sees itself, the way it thinks it can best market the university to...everyone, football players, prospective students and the general public.
It is foolish for other fans to expect ND to want to voluntarily give that up. It has become an ideal at ND, the 11th Commandment, so to speak.
It is much more important to ND than more TV money or an easier path to the playoffs, as unfathomable as that is to non-ND people.
Other fans may not agree or understand, but they really do not count, at all. It is not their call, they do not get a vote. They do not need to understand.
As the independents fell by the wayside after 1990, this became even more important to ND, something to value/cherish, something to protect at all costs, similar to if this country was the only democracy left on Earth, surrounded by something else, the Last Bastion, so to speak.
When a thing is rare it is more valuable, and over time as football independence become less and less prevalent, ND became more determined to hold on to it.
Hence, the 1990 NBC deal and the partial deals to the Big East (1995) and the ACC (2012).
It wasn't that important yet in the 1920's when ND tried to get into the Big Ten (Western Conference), but the blackballing by Michigan led ND to another path, a barnstorming, play all over the country, play anyone, any time football independent.
Knute Rockne and his successors did kinda of a good job rebounding from the Big Ten rejection and ND built itself up precisely by not joining a conference.
Because of that, football independence became entrenched at ND. Not because ND is "greedy" or other such bull****, but because of this exact history.
It became a "See what we did without you bastards" thing. It fostered an "us against everyone else" attitude, a sort of "Bunker Mentality".
It also fostered a "Oh, now you want us ?" attitude after ND became the brand, the "gold standard" in college football, a national power.
Because of that, conferences became something to dislike and avoid at ND.
(Before anyone brings up basketball or other sports, please understand that those sports, while important, are not in the same universe as ND football. Also, ND basketball was independent from its inception until it joined the Big East in 1995).
When I look at the other 14 schools of the ACC, I do not see "conference brethren", whatever that is.
I see 14 adversaries, banded together in a slightly less adversarial temporary business relationship, brought about by certain exigencies.
If you do not understand these mindsets at ND, then sure, you are going to be perplexed, I guess.
Those mindsets are EXACTLY why the arguments since 1990 of "You can make more TV money" or "You could have an easier playoff path" have been met to date by ND people going "So What"??
Maybe not all ND fans see the college football world this way, but certainly a large enough majority do so or we would not be having this discussion.
(I am not picking on the ACC, it would be the same no matter the conference).
People in this thread ask what are ND's goals.
They have always been the same (though not achieved for 32 years):
Win a national championship, but do it as a football independent.
That is it. Those are the goals. Win games and stay indy.
Now, it is very possible that ND will be FORCED into a permanent football conference, by Covid or playoff considerations or some other thing.
But, understand that it is not something that it WANTS to do.