The SEC and Big 10 raid the ACC of their top 4-8 brands.
Notre Dame wants to remain an independent in football.
The Big 10/SEC will not admit ND as a non-football member.
Then Notre Dame would appear to have three choices for the non-football sports:
Rebuild the ACC with whatever remnants (BC, Wake, Syracuse, etc.) by adding Big East and/or Big 12 schools (West Virginia most worrisome).
Join the Big East, perhaps with ACC remnants like BC etc.
Join the Big 12.
Most likely, the choices are 2 vs 3. Big East vs. Big 12.
Question: How important is it for the Big 12 to win the Notre Dame derby over the Big East?
If it’s important, then the Big 12 would do well to raid the Big East of its top brands (UConn, Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette) to eliminate Option 2 above for ND.
This becomes a front burner issue only when an SEC/Big 10 raid of the ACC looks imminent.
There won’t be much left of the ACC after the B1G, SEC, and Big 12 raid it; it won’t be enough to constitute a conference.
I do NOT see them returning to the Big East in its current form for non-football sports. Competition and revenues outside of basketball won’t be good enough. There’s a reason they left the Big East in the first place.
Which means…they will finally surrender to conformity and join the B1G.
ND joining a conference is great news for the Big 12 because it slides another high option, on the board, to us because they were never coming to the Big 12.
Even better if the B1G takes them WITH Stanford!
SEC takes their 4 and we get full pick of the next best 4
If the B1G, SEC and Big 12 all have minimum 18 teams… who exactly will ND be able to schedule week in week out?
They will most likely have to start scheduling more G5 teams, and networks aren’t going to pay ND anything close to what they pay them now if that’s who they’re going to be playing.
The B1G already announced they are considering extending their conference schedule to 10 games. Trying to fit ND is going to be a scheduling nightmare
When the ACC falls, I have a feeling that the first shoe to drop will be FSU/Clemson to SEC. At that moment in time SEC/BIG will both sit at 18 but there will be premium brands on the board in a destabilized ACC. The second wave likely within days to weeks at most will be Miami and Notre Dame to BIG and UNC/UVA to SEC.
At that point SEC/BIG will be locked down at 20 schools each and they can do their 4 divisions of 5 thing I posted elsewhere with each division winner getting a playoff spot. I question BIG or SEC ever going over 20 schools due to the brands left in the Big 12 and after the initial ACC pick-over not bringing enough to the table even though they are solid brands.
Good news for Big 12 is that we will have a number of good ACC schools to choose from. Really a surplus: Pitt, Louisville, NC State, Duke, VT, GT, Syracuse, BC.
My guess is Pitt, Louisville, VT, and NC State will go to the Big 12 based on football prowess and in general carving a nice niche out in applachia country.
Duke, Syracuse, BC will go to the Big East although I think BY would push HARD for Duke over VT or NC State…
GT and WF probably don’t have a ready made home although they may go the the Big East as well or they be left completely out and end up in whatever the American is or remaining PAC teams are at that point.
I’ll go on record ND remains Indy then joins the big12 for all sports then makes a big12 deal to play 5 or 6 games. Sec and Big10 won’t let ND do that and ND will want to be associated with the 3rd best conf which is the big12 like they did with the Acc. ND won’t stay with a depleted Acc or go big East.
In the big12, they’d play 5 or 6 football games then it leaves room for 6 or 7 non conf like they want and they can still schedule usc, navy, Mich etc.
Yes the big 12 isn’t there territory but ND wants respect from being associated with at least the 3rd best conf overall if the Acc goes away.
ND simply doesn’t want full blown football conf affiliation and if you talk to them or alums you’d know. It would kill ND bc they would be judged as not winning a conf and have to play 8 or 9 conf games. Right now ND plays their schedule and some Acc teams then gets ranked then they are good.
The way ND is lately, they can’t win the sec, Big10 or maybe not even the big12 and they don’t want the judgement or constraints on their schedule.
ND was built on independence and they know full blown conf affiliation will kill their brand bc they will be 4th or so place and judged by people saying dam ND can’t win the big12 and is getting killed in the sec or Big10.
Byu could be Indy still but ND is one of the few that can remain Indy bc they have tons of t shirt Catholic fans so the media can’t ignore them which is why they still get a good Indy deal. I seriously doubt they ever join a conf unless forced to which will be tough. They’d have to say no playoff birth unless in a conf or something like that.
Notre Dame can do anything it wants as long as NBC is stupid enough to give them a bunch of money, but it might be harder for ND to get quality games when the new conferences have to fill in their conference schedules. IMHO ND stopped being ‘big name’ 20 years ago.