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You may have missed it, but Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno said he doesn't want Notre Dame to join the Big Ten.
Never mind the Irish haven't expressed interest in joining the league lately. And never mind that the Irish have an affiliation with another league for every other sport they play -- be it the CCHA for hockey or the Big East for almost everything else.
JoePa being JoePa, he said what he said anyway -- and it is worth looking into.
Listen, the Notre Dame joining/not joining a conference argument is one that comes up every few years and will until the school eventually joins a league.
And by eventually, yes, at some point in time Notre Dame will join a conference.
Just don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime -- and I'm 28.
Simply, it just doesn't make any sense for Notre Dame from a business sense. Here's why:
- As long as Notre Dame has its sweetheart deal with NBC, the Irish are going to bank significant revenue. Plus, other networks (ESPN, ABC, CBS) are clamoring to televise the rest of the Notre Dame schedule because the Irish, deserved or not, equal ratings. NBC seems happy with the arrangement and the network is getting one coveted night game per year, so there is some give-and-take. So giving up that NBC money would be... well, it'd be dumb.
Now, if a conference were to agree that Notre Dame gets to keep its NBC money and its home game/four-hour advertisements for the school, it'd be intriguing. But conferences Notre Dame would look to join (re: the BCS leagues) would likely never make that deal.
- Notre Dame currently commands a pretty favorable position overall within the BCS. The school has its own seat among the conference commissioners -- something no other individual school has -- so it has more power than any other FBS school.
Period. End of thought.
And in the high stakes and back room world of college football, power is silly to give up. As long as the rest of the conferences are going to allow Notre Dame to be in the room to be the biggest 1 of 120, again, no reason to join a conference.
- For basketball -- and other purposes -- it makes more sense to stay with the Big East in non-football ventures. Notre Dame participates in a ton of sports and have a good affiliation with a league. Plus, the Big East, for basketball, offers a broader base for the Irish to recruit and bigger cities for the coaches to sell. And, as long as the Big East stays as the massive entity it is, there are more peer schools, both academically and athletically, in the Big East than the Big Ten.
Before you get all annoyed about the academic statement, consider the Big East has a bunch of private schools (Georgetown, Villanova, Syracuse, St. John's, DePaul, Marquette) and the Big Ten has just one (Northwestern). It is just a better fit.
- There's no playoff.
This is the biggie. If college football ever goes to a playoff (and a real one with at least eight teams, not the 'plus-1' model that has been talked about seemingly forever or a four-team incarnation of a playoff), it might force Notre Dame to join a league. It's hard to imagine the Irish being allowed to have their own rules when it came to a selection process and unless you're talking about men's lacrosse, the day of the Independent is dead. And even there, with two-time defending national champion Syracuse joining the new Big East league next year, the day of the Independent in NCAA selection committee sports might be going away soon, too.
In fact, you could call power Johns Hopkins the Notre Dame of men's lacrosse now, but I digress...
I can't imagine if there was a playoff Notre Dame wanting to put itself into a potentially disadvantageous football situation, which it would be in if the playoff were to come about. Then, and only then, could a conference be in Notre Dame's future.
In other words, don't be waiting for it.
