congrats to the domerz

[PurdueSTL]

....on trading up from the no-cost, no-risk, Big East, to a warmer, slightly costlier commode onto whch you can defecate.

I used to think Purdue/ND in football was a relationship worth keeping, but I honestly couldn't care less about ever playing those avaricious, effite tools nowadays...

I'm LMAO at how blindly stupid the ACC is--were they paying attention to what happened to Big East football? It vaporized into irrelevance--thanks largely to the selfish snobs South Bend who suckled off the BE for all their other sports, and refused to join in and help build football -- NO WAY do Syracuse, Pitt, et.al. bolt for greener pastures if they're annually playing the domaz in football!!

The ACC got a slightly better deal, but not by much--beyond football, ND brings NOTHING to the
table that isn't already there in the ACC - and at a significantly higher level.... I'm PROUD that the B1G did not cave to these ridiculous terms.

I will further LMAO when the time surely does come when a solid 8 or 9-win LEGITIMATE ACC member team like Maryland or UNC is relegated to a crap bowl, because the 'primo' bowl committees prefer yet another mediocre doma team!

[JoeMcKim]

Any team with only 8 or 9 wins realistically doesn't deserve to be in the national championship discussion.

[slide_into_first]

ESPN has wanted a football playoff for a long time and destabilized conferences with actions like the Longhorn Network. The plan is to have fewer conferences with more teams; something had to give. While I usually root for the underdog, and can remember when Notre Dame was the NY Yankees of football, there is something different about them, whether it is their history or the sincerity of their fans, that made me a closet Notre Dame fan. If they had joined the Big East in football, the ACC would have destabilized instead. I think they would have been better off joining the BigTen a long time ago, but they didn't.

[slide_into_first]

What I'm saying is, teams that travel well get better bowls.

[JL21]

They're not even joining the ACC for football, are they? Aren't they just sort of trying to play a few more ACC schools in football?

It seems like a straight basketball move.

[TheoSqua]

They're not even joining the ACC for football, are they? Aren't they just sort of trying to play a few more ACC schools in football?

It seems like a straight basketball move.

They'll be playiing 5 ACC games instead of 8 and won't qualify for the conference championship.

So they basically joined the ACC but traded the rights to win the ACC Championship for the flexibility to schedule 3 additional non-conference games.

I think it's a win for both sides. The ACC gets 5 games a year against Notre Dame and ensures that ND won't go to a conference like the Big10 going forward, the ACC also gains more leverage with ESPN on renegotiating their TV contract.

Notre Dame gets a guaranteed 5 games against a solid conference while still being able to schedule more ratings-friendly games and retains their ability to broker tv deals with the likes of NBC.

So both sides win where it matters: tv money.

[ndistops]

The Big East fell into irrelevance because the ACC raided it for BC, Miami and Va Tech, and then when the Big East did a great job restocking, the ACC raided it again for Pitt and Syracuse. Notre Dame is not and was not responsible for keeping the Big East upright in football.

The move was a good one for both sides. The ACC was already going to be the best basketball league once Pitt and Syracuse join up, and ND's hoops, while not a blue-blood, is a strong program and will make the league just a touch better. ND basketball gets to avoid having to play the Houston's, UCF's and SMU's of the world in what remains of the Big East. (I love(d) the Big East basketball league, but once Pitt and Syracuse left it wasn't really going to feel like the Big East anymore.)

Football-wise, the ACC gets 5 attractive non-conference matchups every single year, with ESPN paying for either 2 or 3 of them depending on the season. ND avoids future scheduling issues that are already cropping up with Michigan State and Michigan opting out of some dates in later years, the Pac-12 not allowing any more non-conference play beyond September outside of the traditional USC and Stanford matchups with the Irish, the Big 12 having a nine-game league schedule and so on. ND gets a recruiting foothold in the South, the most important region for recruiting in football. The ACC also now has the security of knowing that if ND is to ever join a conference (and I feel like that day is coming), it's going to be the ACC.

It should be a mutually beneficial relationship. Sorry for the long-winded post.

[JL21]

I can still keep hating them for their Catholicism, though, right?

[slide_into_first]

Only if you are an equal opportunity hater

[JoeMcKim]

Notre Dame is already playing 3 ACC teams this season and also playing Pittsburgh who's headed to the ACC also, so if you want to get technical they only really have to play 1 more ACC opponent then they're scheduled to do so. They need to play a rotating schedule of ACC teams so they're not playing the exact same ACC teams every season, which I assume the plan is to make everything equal. They'll probably have to sacrifice the Northwestern or Michigan State game, or at the very least not being able to play them every single season.