Suck of the Irish

Posted on by

Imagine two laughably unthinkable things happening, both at the same time: Notre Dame joins a football conference, finally, and the ACC rightfully collapses. It could happen folks:

Here’s how Notre Dame can exit their affiliate membership and completely destroy the ACC as we know it:

  1. Notre Dame’s cleanest exit from the ACC deal: Sue for breach of anti disparagement clause over the 2025 CFP sabotage. Win = walk away penalty-free
  2. Partial-member buyout: ND’s buyout is ~$50-100M today (way less than a full member’s $165+), but a successful breach lawsuit makes it $0 + possible $20-50M in damages from the ACC.
  3. Hypothetical future: ND flips to a Big Ten partial deal in 2027
  • 5 rotating B1G games/yr + fixed rivalry
  • Keep full NBC money + $15M affiliate check
  • Auto bowl ties & stronger CFP path. Big Ten gets massive ratings.

In the end, ACC loses its golden goose and FSU & Clemson leave shortly after. The ACC collapses.

Nuclear Button unlocked.

Now that’s funny. Notre Dame leaves, but was never a part of the football leg of the conference, and gives more reason for Clemson and Florida State (thought: did they lose on purpose to diminish the conference brand? Hmmmm). Likewise, I’m hearing Miami is actually interested in jumping, too.

Now you know as well as I do that a conference owned by Mickey couldn’t let it just completely dissolve, but the ACC could remain intact and add some new members, while significantly diminishing in prestige and strength. But…BUT…

What if Notre Dame somehow partners with Washington State and Oregon State, along with the defecting ACC teams, and creates a refined PAC conference with a network to be named as the flagship for the new group? You once again have a Power 5, and the G5 teams that seem to have the resources to join a P5 conference (the expanded PAC or the weakened ACC) and the G5 element gets dropped form the CFP altogether?

It’s all just a show, it seems. Maybe orchestrated in ways we’ll never know.

27 thoughts on “Suck of the Irish”

  1. You can count on Notre Dame to take the most self serving path.

    I wonder how many recruits Marcus Freeman talked into graduating high school early. Just so they could join in the extra practices allowed for bowl/playoff teams.

  4. The rest of the Power 4 should shun Notre Dame if they try this. The ACC did not disparage a member because that school doesn’t participate in the sport in question.

    What ND is trying to sell is that the ACC should not have looked out for their full member at the expense of a partial member.

    If ND tries to get another similar arrangement with a Power 4 league, every one of them should give the Irish the middle finger salute.

    • ND is trying to play both sides. They want their precious independence in football, but they also expect the ACC to stump for them because they’re a member in all of the other sports. I will laugh my a$$ off if this blows up in their face.

      That being said, I don’t want any of this to result in the ACC falling apart. As bad as they are in football, there’s a place for the ACC in college sports. The PAC-12 was mostly irrelevant in football, but I think most people agree that the sport is worse off without them. If the ACC dissolves, that will be the final nail in the coffin for football conferences. Next step, mega conference.

      • I agree. The ACC is a proud league for hoops, baseball, and a number of other sports. They have had great individual football teams in the past and some programs with great traditions.

    • ee, you remember when the saying way “Florida has the arrogance of Notre Dame but not the trophy case.” Now Notre Dame has the arrogance of Alabama but not the trophy case.

      To say nothing of the trophy case being filled in Athens.

      • Don’t forget Auburn’s trophy case. I think they just claimed a few more natties.

  5. For weeks it was the Lanr Train dominating the news, now we get ND for weeks.
    CRAP

  6. If this comes to fruition, FSU to the SEC works for me. Someone has to replace Vandy as the Conference doormat.

  7. Take a look at Brett McMurphy post on ND ad calling their “most dominate 10 game run.
    I am not skilled enough to put it on here

  8. The ACC is not a great football conference today, but I would be far from laughable if the conference imploded. The ACC has a long history of greatness in college basketball, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and golf. The ACC has managed to produced great football teams from time to time. The fall of the ACC would be sad, not laughable. It is possible that if the ACC collapsed today, we would see the SEC and B10 grow even larger by adding their teams. This would usher college football in to the power 2 with 40 plus teams overnight. If you find the destruction of regional rivalries, the loss of tradition, and the scavenging of programs laughable, then I guess this is funny to you. The current college athletic landscape is far from great, but sure, let’s root for the failure of others.

  9. This only gets better when some attention whore politicians step into the fray.

  10. “It’s all just a show, it seems. Maybe orchestrated in ways we’ll never know.”

    It’s all just kayfabe now. And we’re the suckers they hope keep saying, “It’s real to me, dammit!”

  11. Wtf is so great about FSU and Clemson that they’d expect to have a better landing spot if they left the ACC? Do we want more teams that degrade the sec?

    • I don’t.
      I wish they would shrink the conference.
      Quality over quantity.
      Maybe absorb some of them and have a two tiered SEC…SEC and SEC-Minor..
      Put all the ACC teams in the Minor league and use it to develop players for the SEC that could be pulled up (like baseball) when and if they’re ever ready.
      (I’m trolling the Nerds here).

    • Vandy has a better case by any means.
      But they’ve been a little more graceful about getting shivved.

  13. ND must be doing something right if we are now on Day 4 of the ND haters venting nationally over ND’s decision not to play in the Pop Tarts game. It’s like when the Athletic moves to the top of the page any story about a UGA player getting a driving citation. The larger number of and venom contained in the responses give a good indicator to me that our program is still at the top of the sport. (Note: not in any way meant to excuse or justify the driving habits of our players).

  14. ND is the last surviving reminder of the good ole days of college football. They still think they are too good to play with the great unwashed. NBC is losing their butts on the deal, as the quality of the ND yearly opponents is USC only. While they do have a built in fan base of Catholics it’s not what it used to be. They should have joined the B1G a long time ago but the B1G wouldn’t let them wag the dog.

  15. This too shall pass. Notre Dame will probably use this leverage with ACC to either extract better financial terms from them.

    As we have learned this season, the 16-18 team mega conference concept is not sustainable for college football when realistically you are playing 12 regular season games. It can work for other sports that have longer seasons.

    It is just a matter of time before the PIF, the Qataris, or the funds from the UAE, Abu Dhabi, and/or Bahrain come calling with a similar Super League concept proposed to UEFA.

  16. No one thought that Texass would ever leave the BIG 12 since they thought that they owned it, but they finally saw the light and joined the SEC. Don’t be so sure that Notre Dame will not join the BIG 18 eventually.

Comments are closed.