Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
In the News
Conference expansion is back, baby! Reports are suggesting that Texas and Oklahoma are in serious discussions to join the SEC.
Notre Dame’s game this fall against Virginia Tech will be broadcast on the ACC Network.
The NCAA lost more than half of its revenue over the last fiscal year but that didn’t stop president Mark Emmert from making an additional $2.9 million.
Jim Harbaugh said Michigan will beat Ohio State or die trying, so Rest in Peace to everyone in Ann Arbor.
The SEC is making their team’s reach a 80% vaccination rate or risk forfeiting games this fall.
Bobby Bowden was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness with his pancreatic cancer.
Oklahoma State will be honoring Barry Sanders with induction to their ring of honor and also building a statue which begs the question, this didn’t happen 15 years ago?
Wake Forest lost a couple of key offensive players to injury for the upcoming 2021 season.
From the Archive
Three years ago we looked at coach’s on the hot seat, how many are still around?
The Portal
Freshman defensive end Deonte Williams is leaving Florida State.
Mike Wyman was a 4-star recruit last year and is leaving South Carolina.
Freshman running back Chris Lovick is leaving Tulsa.
Helmet Talk
We’re dipping into the FCS ranks this week with a look at the Keydets of Virginia Military Institute who sport a rather unique inter-locking logo with three colors. It’s been a tough rebuild in Lexington for head coach Scott Wachenheim but VMI made the playoffs last year.
Unfortunately, their uniforms give off serious Boston College vibes which is a let down paired with these helmets. Hopefully in the future they move on from Under Armour and get a nicer look overall.
Recruiting
Local running back TreVonte’ Citizen (.944) committed to LSU.
Hawaiian linebacker Tevarua Tafiti (.910) committed to Stanford.
Offensive lineman Dave Iuli (.922) gave a verbal to Oregon.
Clemson picked up commitments from a pair of IMG products in athlete Keon Sabb (.975) and cornerback Daylen Everette (.981).
IMG product Kaytron Allen (.947) is a running back that committed to Penn State.
Offensive lineman Gunner Givens (.946) committed to Virginia Tech.
Alabama has a verbal from tackle prospect Tyler Book (.981) another IMG product.
Purdue picks up defensive lineman Joe Strickland (.911) from Indianapolis.
Kennan Nelson (.929) is one of the top safeties and committed to South Carolina.
North Carolina received a verbal from running back Omarion Hampton (.943).
House of the Week
Today we’re back in the Hollywood Hills just a short walk north of the Sunset Strip. This home is so new that the Google Maps street view still shows a very modest property before folks decided to buy up the surrounding land and create something enormous with a massive price tag.
A farmhouse mansion seems like an oxymoron, no? Did you see how big that front door was!?? I love the pool and how the trees hug the surrounding property, it seems like a lot of land for such a tightly packed neighborhood (check it out on Google Maps I’m not kidding). As someone who prefers a lot of color on the interior this mansion wasn’t much for my taste. Lots of windows with white, brown, and gray washed out and bland colors. I’d still live there.
Tunes
The Strokes released their most recent album The New Abnormal right after the pandemic broke which is a fitting title. They’d end up winning the Grammy for Best New Rock Album this past March and are in a little renaissance of sorts following a 7-year layoff from making music.
One of the album’s singles “Bad Decisions” sounds a lot like a Blink-182 song during the intro. It quickly morphs into the distinctive Strokes’ sound, though. It’s a really good jam.
On This Day in Sports
Here’s a weird one. On this date in 1827 the very first swimming school was established in Boston and was so strange to the public that President John Quincy Adams visited to check things out.
At the Cinema
This week the Ringer Rewatchables podcast covered Fight Club a movie from 1999 that didn’t do well with critics or in the theater but lives on in a big way to this day. Where does everyone stand on this one? I thought the podcast covered a lot of the aspects that made it an important but flawed film really well. The late 90’s was a weird time and 1999 was weird in this growing internet era.
The movie never really grabbed me, though. I thought in an artistic way it was a fun movie to watch but I’ve never really been into the hyper-masculinity this movie celebrated (and arguably parodied!) so it was an interesting time to see its popularity grow in the DVD market right as I got to college. This was probably the favorite and most-watched movie for many of my friends throughout the early 2000’s.
Hot Take
Stolen from our Slack chat and one of our writers: College football fans have done an absolutely terrible job fighting back against conference realignment and should be ashamed of themselves.
Trivia
Who is the last Notre Dame player to total at least 10 sacks in a single season?
Wow, RIP Big 12, I’ll lose my defense optional midday entertainment this fall! Maybe pac 12 after dark can provide some excitement.
Stephon Tuitt 2012, has it really been that long?????? The elko/lea years had 0 I’m fairly certain, and if there was a 10 sack season in the van gorder era I may have a heart attack… maybe some random 2016 nonsense, but I was under the ocean most of that year, literally and spiritually. So it has to be a bob diaco, and I know for certain tuitt had 12+ in 2012… uggg
Wow. I can’t believe the SEC already has new graphics with the 2 new additions included.
They move quickly.
Texas might be the program, other than ND, best positioned to go Independent. Why join the SEC? That athletic department doesn’t need the money. Who wants to try to compete with Bama every year? They could go and join the AAC for non-football sports. Surely NBC would give them a TV contract too. Oklahoma Texas followed by ND USC could be the biggest broadcast day in the country every year, and NBC could broadcast both games back to back.
If the playoff expands to 12 teams, this would be a great decision for Texas.
Texas already has the Longhorn Network (ESPN property), but yeah, point remains they could position themselves as such a huge brand to not need a conference. I think that would be a projection though, and SEC gives them added prestige + instant money. Tough to pass up that combination.
For competitive reasons for football staying in the Big12 makes sense with the 12 team playoff. The winner of Texas/OU has a really, really good chance of making playoffs. But this isn’t about competitive reasons in football.
Reminds me of the Jack Nicholson line in The Departed when told he didn’t need more money: “I haven’t ‘needed the money’ since I took Archie’s milk money in the third grade. Tell you the truth, I don’t need [women] any more either… but I like it.”
How much prestige is there is losing 4 or 5 games every season? It would be a terrible decision for Texas and bad for college football in general.
Man, I dunno. Not even ND is fully independent — we’re quasi-independent in a single sport. Even if Texas tried football independence, they’d need a home for their other sports, which brings us right back to the Big XII. And ND is one of the few truly national programs out there. Texas is not. Few people outside of Texas care about Texas, particularly when Texas is a .500 team of little consequence.
Like many other conference changes (hi Nebraska), this strikes me as a combination of greed, myopia, and misguided reasoning. Putting an SEC patch on the jerseys isn’t magically going to make Texas a better football team, although I bet many people think that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
I have my suspicions that the ‘original’ SEC teams will simply turn up their dominance of recruiting in Texas, which already started when they added A&M, to an even higher level, and UT and OU will suffer for it.
I think you’re exactly right. Alabama isn’t voting for this out of kindness to help Texas get off the mat.
The “we’re gonna have a baby to save our marriage” move. It’s an obvious disaster isn’t the making to anyone not a direct participant.
From an ESPN artcile breaking down the What Ifs of them going over to the SEC AND the BXIII falling apart creating 4 Super Conferences AND a 12 team playoff:
I haven’t yet gamed out what a 12 team bracket with 4 16-team super conferences would look like, but logically it’d be close to the top 3 for every conference (Or 4-2-3-3 OR 5-1-3-3). Even still, would there be many 3 loss teams that high up with a 12 game schedule? I would have to imagine the conferences would do everything they could to spread the power teams out enough that they wouldn’t constantly be beating up on each other.
I get the feeling instead of the current argument about why the #2 SEC team with 1-2 losses should get into a 4 team playoff, it’s just going to shift to why the #4 or #5 SEC team with 3-4 losses is “really one of the 12 best/strongest teams in the country” and therefore they should get in.
Yep. This is going to suck intensely.
I guess ultimately it (probably) won’t matter, since most teams will STILL get destroyed by OSU/Alabama/Clemson on their way to the final four anyway.
Question then becomes do those 64 teams break off and form their own SuperLeague, or do the Group of 5 conferences still get a seat at the 12 team playoff? If it’s a 12 team playoff of just the 64 teams, who cares about the bottom 6 teams anyway? If G5 teams are allowed in still, they’d probably get a 7-12 seeding and might make a few games more interesting and would probably prevent a 4th or 5th SEC team from getting in.
My guess (and this is pure speculation):
It quickly becomes apparent that the SEC + Texas/Oklahoma will have the biggest NIL deals and will make up like half the expanded playoff every year. Clemson and perhaps FSU decide to join, followed by Ohio State.
By the end of the decade, that super conference is a de facto professional football league that plays more or less separately from the rest of college football.
re: NIL deals
The more I think about those, the more I think those could oddly provide a bit more parity than we’ve been seeing recently. (I’m also very open to being persuaded that they’re terrible and will consolidate power even further.)
Pre NIL – The draw of going to Alabama was winning a National Championship, being a Heisman finalist and getting drafted. Even if it meant, as a QB, you’d sit for a year or two until it’s your turn.
Post NIL – Saban just said their QB is getting ~1m in NIL deals already. What’s the backup QB getting? He’s presumably one of the 10 best QBs of his class. Why not go to Auburn/Ole Miss/Utah/Arizona and try to get 600k in NIL deals (or some other large number greater than the $0 he’s getting now), start immediately and still get drafted? In my head, NIL might prevent a small group of teams from constantly stockpiling all of the talent.
I agree about the increased parity. Lots of different schools have advertisers (boosters?) with money to offer, which may be appealing to kids who are amenable to being the big fish in a somewhat smaller pond for a price. But I’m also open to being completely wrong about everything on NIL, because it’s difficult to wrap my head around the ways in which the new rules can and probably will be perverted by some bad actors.
I think Saban is probably exaggerating somewhat, but his point is well taken — Alabama is going to ensure its players are better compensated than anyone in college football.
I would be shocked if this results in more parity.
I just have a hard time seeing the value for a deep-pocketed booster to pay QB2 & QB3 hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorships to sit on the bench. Also, I get that there’s serious money on the outskirts of CFB already, but does anyone really know how much? Seems like there’s very good potential for “good” schools with larger alumni networks to have more deep-pocketed donors/potential sponsors. There could be sleeping giants in schools like Illinois, UCLA, Cal.
Depth players aren’t going to get paid significant money anywhere. If it’s like Jalen Hurts getting more money and — more importantly — the opportunity to play, Bama isn’t going to care when they have Tua who is better already.
I interpret (and agree) with what ACS is saying is that Saban is going to make sure the Tua’s and 1st round picks of his roster aren’t going to be suddenly going somewhere else because they have the opportunity to get paid more there. He’s going to make sure they are aggressive in having their program be the best bet for the best players for all angles.
I tend to doubt NIL is going to bring a lot of parity. If you’re the hypothetical top-10 QB (from your comment a bit above) you’re not going to go to UCLA or Illinois because of NIL money, you’re going to go to Bama/tOSU/Clemson like they currently do….And then probably transfer if you’re not starting by year 2 anyways, like they already do.
The hook for the elite is still going to be “if you’re good enough, you’ll play right away and it’s the best of all worlds and then you’re in the NFL with guaranteed millions”. That’s still going to be a better hook then a rich non-power saying “here’s a million to come to our program” when weighing it against the opportunity from the giant schools, who still have a lot more to offer.
Maybe we’re arguing the same thing? I also don’t think depth players are going to get paid, which is why I think perhaps if you’re a 5* RB who will be sitting behind a 5* RB at Bama, why not go be RB #1 at Illinois?
Difference now is that Illinois sucks and Bama is good. Difference with NIL is that you’d get nothing at Bama and Bob Rooooooohrman can write you a check for $750k to be in one of his commercials if you go to Illinois. Will the OL at Illinois still be way worse than at Bama? Absolutely, but get another couple commercials set up with a few other folks and boom – several would be OSU/Mich/PSU 4* commits just went to Illinois instead. Get a couple of key injuries and suddenly Clemson isn’t as tough as they once were (see 11/7/20). Would Bama have beat UGA if they didn’t have a Tua on the bench to replace Fields?
Maybe some will, but I don’t think it’s going to be that drastic.
For instance, Bama’s #1 RB recruit in 2019 (Trey Sanders, #1RB in country, #6 player in country) was 3rd on the team in carries last year. That kid’s going to Bama because he’s playing right away.
Their 2nd RB in the class Kelian Robinson (mid 4-star, 233 player over, #15RB) didn’t play. He’s from DC. Does he take some NIL money in the future to go to Maryland or something? Can’t say it’s impossible, it makes a bit of sense, but the Trey Sanders’ are the ones still going to Bama is more my point.
I tend to wonder (and have doubt) about just how many $750k commercial opportunities are going to be open to these kids. Folks are motivated strangely by college athletics but is some Illinois donor(s) really going to be dumping millions of dollars per year in 4* recruits?
And, even then, look at the budgets and donations that Bama gets, they have lavish facilities. They wouldn’t sit around and be out-classed, as Saban says.
There could be a minor arms race that benefits lots of kids (which, hey, that’s cool!) but I really doubt that Illinois or UCLA or other “rich school, bad team” is going to emerge to pay six figures to a significant enough amount of players to affect real parity in the sport.
Two reasons: Bama can still sell the recruits on getting drafted high, and their boosters will just throw money at five stars regardless of if they play.
I’m cynical, but I tend to believe those individuals have been getting paid already to come to said school.
I actually think the 1-time transfer rule is going to be the biggest disruptor, but that the NIL will get the publicity for it. The 1-time transfer allows you to essentially be a free agent twice. Look at basketball this year. Illinois was a #1 seed Cockburn (star center) and Adam Miller (starting freshman) both entered the transfer portal. Maybe they truly wanted to leave (even though Cockburn decided to eventually stay after mulling other schools), but I tend to think it was to see how much they could get on the open market.
I don’t think basketball and football are 1 to 1’s obviously because of the # of kids and the physicality of the sport, but this transfer rule is going to be big and not just because of playing time will kids leave.
It’s going to be interesting times. I also loved how nobody fact checked Nick Saban on how much his QB is getting paid, but ran with it as though his word is gospel.
Disclaimer – this isn’t a judgement on what is right or wrong. Just what I think is happening.
Saban isn’t known as a liar, and even if he were, it would be foolish of him given the spotlight and scrutiny he receives.
I’m confident NIL will just make the superpowers stronger in recruiting, especially Bama. Saban’s sales pitch that he has more 1st round draftees than losses in his career at Bama (think about that a second) plus the almost guaranteed hype around his stars will pretty much guarantee his guys will have more opportunities for hitting the NIL jackpot.
I dislike unlimited NIL for several reasons, but at least it will once and for all dispel the “student athlete” hypocrisy.
We’ve already confirmed that Notre Dame football players are no longer taking classes.
Nice non sequitor
Sequitur*
Can Jack Coan not make $10 million from NIL and still attend classes at Notre Dame as a student-athlete?
I’m assuming you’re confusing student-athlete and amateurism?
I’m not confused at all, and thanks for the spell check.proud of you.
Jack Coan will never make $10 million, and will not lead us to a natty either.
When kids choose schools based on how much money they can make, it’s clear that money, not academics, is driving the decision.
Actually, one reason ND cannot beat the big boys is this whole 40 year degree recruiting pitch. It assumes great players go to school expecting to join the normal work force, thus the emphasis on getting an ND degree.
The truly elite players, especially the skill ones we don’t get nearly enough of, do not expect to join the normal work force, they expect to make bazillions playing on Sundays, so they pick not based on academics but on who will best prepare them for the NFL. That’s Saban’s death-dagger pitch. And now with NIL, that will further impact ND elite recruitment as the NIL jackpots will mostly go to the stars at the true championship programs, which, sadly, ND is not. At least not until we can quit being embarrassed by the true big boys.
Athletes have been choosing schools based on many factors, including putting football first, even at Notre Dame, for over 100 years.
I’m not sure all that much will change with recruiting due to NIL.
What I do know is that NIL doesn’t dispel student-athlete hypocrisy at all.
Exactly. Despite the usual pay-the-players simps talking it up, this will only result in further centralization in college recruiting. ‘Oh man that QB can get sponsored by a gas station chain in Nebraska’ versus ‘Bama boosters will just straight pay players’ will not work out for the better.
But the “Bama boosters” only have a finite pool of $$ to pay their players. Admittedly, I know nothing, but I don’t think of the state of Alabama as teeming with disposable income. I still have some faith in humanity that there are some rich folks out there somewhere that were less than interested in participating in under-the-table payments for college football players but are willing to do so now that NIL is a thing.
2(I sure am taking a solid stance on something I earlier said “I’m also very open to being persuaded that they’re terrible and will consolidate power even further.”)
A quick google search shows the University of Alabama got $224 million in a drive in 2018 from 62,000 donors and are undergoing a 10 year drive for the athletic department for $600 million.
They have enough for best-in-class facilities, tons of analysts and a huge recruiting operation, they don’t want for anything — quite the opposite, they’re setting the tone for the sport. It may be a finite pool, but it’s a very, very large pool.
Oooh this is spicy. It’s easy to see a future like this, now more than ever….The NCAA’s grasp on college football is loosening very quickly with the court cases. Players have more power than ever with NIL and the new transfer rule.
Schools still have the huge money of TV contracts, as always, follow the money to see the path forward. I wouldn’t be shocked if in 10-15 years from now the landscape of what we see as “college” football will be drastically altered. Kinda scary, but maybe also overdue in a lot of ways.
The coaches on the hot seat article feels about 10 years old, crazy how fast the landscape changes. And nothing but respect to college coaches and their ability to fail forward, a rare trait indeed. Kliff gets fired and somehow ends up with the cardinals job because he coaches mahomes in college and was kind of buddies with mcvay. Addazio ends up at CSU and coach o spends a ton on coordinators and wins despite the fact he sucks.
Listed to rewatchables pod, really enjoyed it and I had enjoyed that movie. I was 16 in 01 and worked at a movie theater. We had a cult movie classics and fight club was by far the biggest draw (which was one of the questions). Anyways we delayed the airing of it from September to the end of the run because it was right after 9/11 and they blow up buildings at the end. I recall that and some idiot I work with thought it would be funny to burn graphic images Into other movies at the time because Norton does it
I’m not a huge fan of the possible Texas/OU move to the SEC — or the “march” to the super conferences. If I wanted to watch that, I would watch the NFL. I like that college football has a wide variety of schools in different regions playing slightly different styles with different blue bloods spread out. It seems like too many schools are going for the payday over anything else.
If Texas/OU had to move, why not the Big 10 or ACC? For example, a move to the ACC would give them stability, create interesting matchup with Clemson, FSU, Miami (and occasionally ND), and likely lead to the ACC instantly renegotiating their tv contract. Also, why do they have to move together?
Outside of higher guaranteed money I don’t understand the motive for Texas/OU. You join a more competitive conference and you have no power in the conference and will never be a favored son. Take a look at A&M last year to see how much the SEC powers care about you when you’re just a pawn. If A&M had been LSU, Florida, Auburn we would have seen a full court press from CBS/ESPN on how they were more deserving than ND/OSU were to make the playoffs. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like it was just kind of yeah we’d like A&M in, but we’re not too upset if you leave them out.
I think the smarter play for Texas/OU would’ve been to go after OSU, Clemson, FSU, Miami, Penn State, Oregon, Washington to see if you can set up a new “national conference”. I know way easier hypothetically. This whole thing reminds me of the show Ozark, the Snells getting in bed with the Byrds cause all they saw was $$’s and ignoring the control they were giving up.
TRIVIA ANSWER:
Stephon Tuitt, 11, 2012
Discussion topic: if this realignment is confirmed, what dominoes fall next?
A race to get to 16 members now, I’d imagine. B1G looking at the other 8 Big XII members to see who’s the best fit (ISU & KU?). ACC grabs Cincinnati and tries to get ND in full-time. Not sure what moves the PAC 12 has, other than to try to pick up OSU, TTU and 2 other schools (KSU and Houston, maybe)?
I am no expert, but college sports is about to drastically change in my opinion. I was thinking 4 super conferences get formed with 16 colleges each, but I have a sneaky suspicion we are about to see one giant mega-conference formed with the NCAA dissolved. I don’t know if it makes sense for the Big 10, ACC, Pac12 to add more teams just for the sake of getting to 16 if they don’t add value. It’s likely most new colleges will just dilute their revenue payouts. They’ll have to be very picky with who they choose.
I think if the whole structure changes, and all of the agreements get torn up, then it makes sense to add teams now. Maybe a 32 college conference with the best of the SEC, ACC, and Big 10. It seems like Pac12 schools don’t have sports as a priority, but I am probably wrong. So possibly 64 teams of what is mostly the P5 right now.
Additionally, if this happens, the NCAA tourney gets rebranded and may be restructured. It’s $2B revenue gets divided mostly amongst the 64 teams instead of 300+ colleges. In this scenario, prime basketball schools become almost as valuable as football schools. Non-revenue sports at the have-not schools get decimated in the process without the shared funding. College sports are essentially killed, and we get glorified minor leagues. With old rivalries ended, much of what brings passion to college sports (bragging rights, potential cinderella upsets, etc…) is no longer there. Personally, I might still watch my teams, but at that point, I would probably stick mostly to the NFL because the quality will be higher.
I can imagine many schools shutting down as well. The facilities arms race has trickled into the G5 schools, and a lot of these places will become like D3 schools that struggle to fund their athletic operations…
Clemson to the SEC.
It seems like the SEC might be trying to make its own mega-conference:
SEC has been in serious contact with Ohio State, Michigan, Clemson, and Florida State.
Not clear if this will materialize, but they have their eyes on a true 20 team MEGA conference.
OU and Texas just the start. #ScoopCity
— Jack McGuire (@JackMacCFB) July 23, 2021
I don’t really know how this would work out for them. The playoffs would be obsolete then if all the top teams are in one conference.
This would be the type of conference I would support ND joining. Otherwise you are left playing 2nd and 3rd tier teams at best.
I have my doubts about some of that, but generally, yes. The SEC doesn’t care what anyone else is doing. They’re building a conference that will utterly dominate NIL and a 12-team playoff.
I say Clemson to the SEC because right now is the historic pinnacle for their program, and they’re not about to waste it futzing around with Syracuse and BC.
Ohio State will follow them, I think.
Yea there’s a bunch of money in it for them. And maybe it doesn’t matter for the playoffs. basically other conferences get their top team in if it in the top 12 (or whatever it is) and then the next 6 or 7 teams from this conference get in for the playoffs (12 team I’m thinking).
What does a conference schedule look like?
If something like this happens, I’m glad to have Jack at the helm. And if it doesn’t happen this year, I hope it happens before he steps down.
If there does end up being some 64-plus team mega conference of the now power5 teams that eventually ND must join, it would be cool if scheduling was organized like the World Cup drawing for the finals which recognizes the need to spread out old school powers and teams from the same region. So basically each cfb team inthe mega conference is placed into an 8-9 team single-year conference group draw where they all play each other, leaving 2-3 games for rivalries and other out of “conference” games that each school can decide on their own. Maybe the two best records from each group moves on at the end of the season, again like the world cup knock rounds, so the regular season means something and feeds naturally into the playoffs. Schedules are also fresh each year but comparable and leave room for tradition games.
right ok but what if we just had college football instead of soccer