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Starting with the status quo
With summer on the way and any number of conference-realignment shenanigans possible in the college football landscape, I thought I would take some time over the next few weeks to survey all the different possible long-term destinations for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and see if I could talk myself, and possibly some of you, into them. These options will include the Irish maintaining the status quo of independence along with alignment to all of the remaining major conferences: the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and even the SEC. I’ll do my best to not tip my hand as to my own opinion during this process and just adopt the perspective of someone arguing for this, and in return I’ll ask that we keep the feedback from getting too personal.
Alright, now let’s start this series with the idea that is least likely to get negative comments posted/bomb threats sent to my house – continuing football independence.
The case for Notre Dame continuing its longstanding tradition of football independence is, roughly, the 2023 Michigan Wolverines football season. Why do I say this?
College football is headed in a direction that will make it increasingly difficult for Notre Dame to schedule statement games in the regular season. In their desire to create difficult slates year in and year out, the Irish are reliant on big-time programs opting to schedule them out of conference as a marquee opponent. This has been especially important in the ACC-affiliated era of Irish football, with Notre Dame’s traditional Big 10 rivals off the schedule and the ACC a one-team show for most of the last decade (and, unrelatedly, the USC Trojans having become an unreliably competitive arch-rival). Series with the likes of Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, etc. generally became the anchors of the seasons in which they took place.
The Irish have traditionally been able to schedule these kinds of games with regularity because their opponents also benefit, both financially and competitively, from touting a massive non-conference game against a blue-blood opponent. But the country’s top programs increasingly clustered in a couple conferences and absolutely stacked conference slates becoming the norm, both of these incentives are diluted. From a competitive standpoint a difficult non-conference tilt becomes an unnecessary burden to teams that already have plenty of measuring-stick games on the schedule, while the financial payoff decreases when the Notre Dame is just one of several titanic clashes on the season instead of the unquestioned Game of the Year.
So a future in football independence is likely to yield a lot more schedules like the one Notre Dame fans are staring down in 2024, with an increasing number of service academies, MAC schools et. al. filling spots that likely would have been more exciting in the past. This is, in my view, the strongest argument against retaining independence from a fan’s perspective; it could also be a good thing if the ultimate goal is to win championships. Which brings us back to the Skunkbears.
If you follow this site or pretty much any other beat site for a team whose fans dislike Michigan, you are no doubt well-versed in jokes about their Charmin-soft 2023 schedule. The Wolverines did not play a ranked team until Nov. 11 and had to wait until Thanksgiving weekend to play a game where it felt like they had a chance of losing; even their conference championship game was a layup. But they ultimately had the last laugh, because that schedule also enabled Michigan to progress throughout the course of the season, mostly stay healthy, put everything they had into the one regular season game they really needed to win, and then compete from a position of strength in probably the most evenly matched playoff of the CFP era. In other words, far from setting the Wolverines back, their soft schedule worked to their advantage, allowing a team that had the goods to save its best for last and ultimately come out on top.
If the Irish were to play, on average, an easier schedule than they have in years past as a consequence of remaining independent, the blueprint is there for them to have seasons like this in the near future if they can recruit and develop talent at a high level. So while all of this might make for a less exciting season week to week and, perhaps worse, validate long-standing and generally inaccurate complaints routinely levelled by critics of the Irish, it might just make it easier for the Irish to bring home titles, which Michigan fans would no doubt tell you can cover a multitude of sins. In other words, the best argument against independence might just as well be an argument for it.
The other primary issue with independence in the 12-team playoff era is that the lack of a conference championship game means the Irish cannot get a first-round bye and are thus at a competitive disadvantage. However, it bears mentioning that the route to a first-round bye through a conference championship also requires an extra game, which will usually also be against a team fighting to qualify for the playoff. It is not at all obvious in a 12-team playoff field that the route that requires a first-round playoff win is harder than the one that requires a conference championship win just to get in, especially since an undefeated Irish team will very likely be highly seeded among the non-bye teams and draw an 11th or 12th seed team at home in the first round of the playoffs. To put it more simply; you’re playing the extra game either way, but at least with independence that game is already in the playoffs and doesn’t run the risk of bumping you from the field.
The other arguments for Notre Dame’s independence are the traditional ones that you have no doubt heard before, and which I still largely agree with in a vacuum. I think I know my audience and therefore don’t feel the need to rehearse all of that here. But the changing landscape of the sport creates a new challenge to independence which needed to be addressed, and I believe I have here – let me know if there are any others you foresee in the comments. We’ll get into the really spicy ideas soon enough.
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