This past Thursday news of USC and UCLA suddenly leaving the Pac-12–after nearly 100 years together going back to the old Pacific Coast Conference–to join the Big Ten left the college sports world shooketh, as the kids say. For a bunch of fans who have grown almost numb to conference realignment, or NIL deals, or talk of professionalization of football, this feels different. It could be a game-changer, especially for Notre Dame.
It was just a little over 2 months ago where I wrote THIS piece claiming a Super League™ wasn’t happening any time soon and full professionalization at some D-1 football schools was going to have to jump through some some pretty difficult political hoops. Two months ago! Now, I still feel that way about those specific issues but last week’s news was a fairly large click in that direction plus USC & UCLA ejecting themselves out of the Pac-12 has potentially massive implications for Notre Dame’s future.
Will the ACC Survive, and How Much Does Notre Dame Care?
If you want to be extremely football-centric (not an unfamiliar POV for some Notre Dame fans) you could boil things down to basics and say that as long as the Irish have a legit path to the CFB Playoffs they’ll figure out the money and figure out what to do with the rest of the athletic teams on campus. You might be able to convince yourself that even with 3 to 5 teams leaving the ACC that Notre Dame would still hold firm with football independence and let their other sports languish.
Fewer and fewer people still seem to be holding on to this thought, though.
Being a part of an ACC without Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, and Duke would be a pretty bleak situation. The Olympic sports would be diluted and the football program would still have over a decade of scheduling 5 ACC leftovers bringing us a lot of NC State, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, etc. matchups. That seems awful.
And what exactly would be the plan in 2036 when Notre Dame’s current deal with the ACC is up?
The Big Ten is Officially a National Conference
Once upon a time, the Big Ten existed in just 7 U.S. states: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The distance from Ohio State in the east to Minnesota in the west was a bit under a 2-hour flight. Soon, we’ll be living in a world where the Big Ten adds California to its membership with New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Nebraska already a part of the modern league.
Plus, Oregon, Washington, and other western programs are waiting for their phone calls to be returned about membership.
It feels significant that the desire to join the Big Ten for Notre Dame football has seemingly done a 180 for Irish fans from even as little as a week ago. There are reports that USC is committed to continuing its annual rivalry with Notre Dame. That’s probably easier if the Irish stay out of the Big Ten, to be honest. But, it’s something that could be negotiated if Notre Dame does join the conference.
Is This Now or Never?
It seems naïve to think that the Big Ten and SEC will not continue their expansion plans. The ACC is very likely going to lose a ton of value and we may be 3-5 years away from teams from the “Power 2” leagues beginning to think they don’t need to schedule Notre Dame that much anymore. The Irish could remain independent for football, really at any cost, but it would come with the negative that those 7 non-ACC games would have to be extremely strong. Keeping Stanford, Navy, a couple G5 teams, and hoping USC or another power program carry the schedule may not be enough to be a serious contender.
We have to think of the money, too. Notre Dame staying put in this current situation is going to be a huge financial hit. The current NBC deal sucks and the ACC TV money is both poor and far too long-term. Neither of these would be renegotiated for much more in the future and could possibly dwindle to the equivalent of a Group of 5 payout. I think Notre Dame has been fine for a long time knowing Big Ten teams are making $10 million more per season if it meant the Irish stayed independent. Soon, that calculus will change in a big way.
What if that gulf is $50 million when the new Big Ten TV deal begins in 2024 and what if that gulf is upwards of $80 million in 2037 when the new ACC deal would begin? As Dan Wetzel notes, the Big Ten was angling for $1 billion per year with their new TV deal (or twice the payout per team that Notre Dame receives in their NBC/ACC package) and while that figure will go up with USC and UCLA in the fold the real story is that this guts the Pac-12 and Big 12 (also losing Texas and Oklahoma) from commanding big fees. The money will continue to flow to the Big Ten and SEC at the expense of the other leagues.
You could argue that the Big Ten will take Notre Dame in the future no matter what, but if you’re already using that thought process, isn’t it time to rip the band-aid off now and make the jump?
What about the Pods!?
Figuring out the placement of new teams and future scheduling is one of the fun pastimes when it comes to these big conference-jumping moves. There’s been a lot of bandwidth spent wondering how Notre Dame would fit into the Big Ten today and which teams it would be grouped with for the future. For example, being in a pod or division with Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, and Michigan would be just about the worst-case scenario.
I also don’t think it will matter or play a part in the decision whether or not to join. If there’s one thing to negotiate it’s to keep USC as a protected annual rivalry for football. Beyond that, it’s a massive waste of money for Notre Dame’s non-football sports to be in a division with the western teams just to play USC in football every year. I can’t see that happening.
Scheduling layouts will change in the future, too. Notre Dame isn’t going to balk at joining and pass up $100 million in TV money just because they don’t like being paired with the likes of Purdue or Rutgers. Best of all, if Notre Dame were to join then surely the Big Ten will look to add 3 more teams (Washington, Oregon, and Stanford has to be the goal) to go to 20 teams overall. The best part is that the larger the conference grows the less it will remain a traditional league and the more Notre Dame could keep a semblance of a national schedule.
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This is wild. You have to wonder what people in power at Notre Dame are thinking right now or how they’ve anticipated something like the Pac-12 being raided. Or, what they truly feel about the future viability of the ACC moving forward.
It doesn’t feel like a done deal that Notre Dame will join the Big Ten but there sure seems like there’s enough smoke. More importantly, is there another path for Notre Dame to follow in the coming years that is better? Standing pat in the ACC looks increasingly suicidal, introduces a ton of question marks for football and all sports, all while bringing in a fraction of the TV money.
I thought I’d never say this: The time has come for Notre Dame to think strongly about joining the Big Ten.
Just to be a little contrarian: what about ND joining the mega-SEC? It’s less obvious and way less likely IMO but I’m curious if there’s any chance something like that happens
I’d assume that among other factors, the relative, shall we say, academic weakness of the SEC would be a deal-breaker. Aside from the nerds at Vandy, ND would be light-years ahead of most SEC schools academically, and in that sense the B1G would be a much better fit (in addition to the geographic part of it).
Counterpoint: does the other academic standards of other schools matter any more? Not joining a conference to play school, it would be for competitive sports reasons (perhaps only path to a title) and/or financial reasons to get a part of a better media deal.
The geography I don’t think matters any more these days either, since both power leagues are likely to be somewhat national anyways when it’s all said and done.
Clearly, there’s a point to be made that the B1G is more aligned with Notre Dame than the SEC…But if you’re gonna “sell out” and join a conference, might as well do it right. Between Fielding Yost and the old days, I wouldn’t be opposed to never giving in and compromising to join that league on old grudges alone.
Oh how I get the idea that refusing the B1G would be another lovely snub, given past history! However, the B1G makes much more sense than the SEC in terms of Academics, Geography and, of course, maintaining our USC rivalry (which is important to me).
Just get ready for the B1G people to cast our joining the conference as “us finally coming around to sensible thinking”. I think our narrative is that, with the joining of USC, the B1G finally became worthy of our joinder.
Yea, at this point we aren’t really joining what the big 10 as it has historically been. It’ll be basically a new kind of thing as a national conference and part of the big 2 (instead of big 5).
ND hasn’t preserved its independence for independence sake but for other reasons. Well now we can find a lot of those reasons in this new-kind of conference.
ACC seems like toast sooner rather than later. FSU needs the money, Clemson seems like a good fit.
Curious as to where Duke and UNC land, though. Seems to me the best long term plan for the B1G is to pull on Washington, Oregon, and Stanford and have a west coast pod to keep travel and costs down for all the other sports (where Stanford doesn’t suck) and traditional rivalries up.
So if you pick up the three west coast schools and Duke/UNC plus ND, you’re at 22. Maybe try to add 2 more to get to four six team pods? Like Cal for six West Coast schools and try to get Miami, or Pitt, or BC for those markets?
Wild stuff.
Yep, the only thing standing between now and a total meltdown and complete destruction of the ACC is once what I assume would be a Clemson or Miami lawyer figuring out how to challenge the ACC Grant of Rights deal.
The super-conferences eventually getting to 24 makes sense to me. USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon and Washington, I assume would make for the 6 west coast schools. Then maybe some ACC teams (UVA, UNC, and maybe one of Duke or GT?) jump up with Maryland, Rutgers and maybe Ohio State. Then two pods of the 12 midwest teams (which I assume Notre Dame would probably be in somewhere with Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State and Michigan)
I would swap out Stanford/Cal for Colorado in a heartbeat. And swap out Penn St with Ohio St in your eastern pod.
Wow, this is freaking crazy, but honestly, I love this wild west college athletics landscape!
When my dad and I talk about it, what I come back to are:
-honestly, i trust swarbrick to make the right call. I feel like hes done a pretty darn good job with the athletic dept since coming on board, and I truly believe he’ll make the best decision for the school.
-re: semi pro super conference from a while back; it was doubtful ND would join something like that, and if that meant the irish were a tier down in college football, but did so intentionally, then I’d still be stoked to see them play on Saturdays. Maybe this is the post-Holtz irish fan in me, but I just want to watch the boys play in the fall, and could give 2 cares who its against.
Penn state? Awesome. Purdue? Bleh, but go Irish anyways.
– Watching the game is what matters to me, and yes high stakes big time games rule, but just put a darn opponent out there and let the gold helmets do work; what tho the odds be great *alabama* or small *duke*. I just need my fix.
Its wild with how set in stone college football felt for so long, it really feels like a brave new world, so from a global perspective, this is super exciting! It definitely makes up for the summertime lull.
One more thought, we have a pretty good track record with conference championship game representation in the Irish’s illustrious football history, so I dont see the big deal! Green jacket, gold jacket, who gives a sh*t.
Exactly on two things:
(1) money is a big deal. I posted this on another article but see the image.
(2) The big ten will still get at least a few more teams and will be a national conference – making it far less of a difference to join a conference than being independent.
Another way the scheduling could be done is for the conference to have 1 or 2 main rivalries that play every year and you cycle through the roughly 17-18 teams every 2 years. Which could leave roughly 2 out of conference games.
Should ND become a full partner in the Big (#17), undoubtedly they will take three more to make twenty teams. Continuing 9-3 conf-non-conf, could be problematic with two divisions of ten each. Pods of five each with limited rivals and rotating through the others like the ACC has done may be their choice. But that probably means semi-finals and finals. ND as an independent has always resisted that amount of football in December for academic reasons. Would ND accept possibly fourteen games in a season?
The Rose bowl contract (w ESPN) runs through 2026. With the Pac 12 (10 or ..) becoming a shadow of traditional opponents, would they annually have the Big and SEC champs?Including an independent ND in their future contract may be wise for them. Other bowls may similarly want options that include an independent ND rather than a non-P2 champ. As an independent, the Irish may have more opportunities and choices with the bowls.
Already currently aspire to have a 14 game season now, with 12 regular season games and ideally two playoff games added on. As you touch on in the last paragraph, the only reasons to join a conference would be probably a combination of:
1) Financial — if the huge B1G/SEC tv contracts just make the “independent tax” too much to reasonably pay, when Notre Dame could reap so much more money for joining one of them
2) Competitive — as you hit on, if B1G/SEC get to the point where they completely leave the NCAA playoff in the dust and eventually grow create their own de facto playoffs and “College Super Bowl” of their champs playing each other. Something tells me as NCAA wanes and the (not so gradual) shift towards “professional college athletes” continues, the future is probably not in worrying about bowl games or the traditional model, which if it doesn’t cease to exist will at least be dramatically changed forever (see Rose Bowl).
I think the best case scenario is the super conferences still participate in a 12 game college playoff, and the SEC is aligned with Notre Dame (as they have in recent negotiations) to ensure as many at-large bids as possible are created. Then ND stays independent and still can compete for national titles.
To clarify, I meant fourteen games pre-Playoff for a Big of twenty teams divided into four pods. Sixteen games on the way to become NC. ND would not accept the potential of two more games in December. The SEC will now stick at sixteen and work out their scheduling, but a BIG of twenty teams and keeping to a twelve game regular season with a two game conference playoff with any National Championship playoff is unworkable no matter the financials. Those BiGs who do not make any conference playoffs would not want their lucrative seven home games cut into would oppose a ten game regular season.
Along those lines of ND in the Big, future ND schedule of home and homes includes Purdue has seven games with ND, the Michigans two each, and Indiana with two over the 2024-34 plus the Wisconsin game in Green Bay.
One wonders if Jack scheduled them to also create some voices in in-conference expansion talks to preserve those. Home games also benefit the communities. The BIG could accommodate that by putting ND in a “Michigan Lake” sort of pod with ND if they joined the BIG.
Didn’t explicitly mention this but I wonder if Notre Dame wants to get in before the new Big Ten TV deal is finalized.
The SEC deal is already done, starting in 2024 and running through the 2033-34 season.
THIS article from the Athletic reports as of a couple weeks ago the Big Ten wanted to announce a deal in mid-July.
The new B1G deal will start in 2023, while ND’s deal with NBC is through 2025. Not sure how that could be worked out.
John Swofford looks like a complete idiot extending the ACC TV deal for 20 years.
Absolutely. He had to be absolutely sure the value of live college football was not going to increase over 20 (!!!!) years. And he got out just in time to not have to deal with the consequences.
This deal will clearly be the downfall of the conference – either by it disbanding or by it simply falling so far behind other conferences and being squeezed out of quality play.
Wonder if Dabo would be far more likely to jump to Bama when Saban retires because of this — or jump anywhere else in the SEC/Big 10 if in fact the ACC stays together but becomes more or less irrelevant.
You would think it would benefit everyone if ND agreed to join the conference before the TV deal was finalized (since of course the deal would be worth more with ND in the conference) — unless they think they can re-visit the TV if or when ND joins.
I don’t feel particularly sad about ND having to join a conference. But I am sad that we’re possibly going to see the death of the Regional Rivalry aspect of college sports. There are so many teams that are terrible but still draw viewers, because of the rivalries.
Stanford and Cal haven’t played each other in a meaningful game in years, but people still watch for the local rivalry. If they get split up, that dies. Is anybody tuning in for a UCLA or Stanford or Cal vs. Rutgers game? Probably not.
I do wonder if the TV networks are going to regret creating this behemoth in 10-15 years. If I was a network exec, I would be very concerned that we’re just creating a Minor League Football situation that sees viewership crater.
On top of that, a lot of schools that are used to getting 8 to 11 wins annually, are now going to be dealing with .500 or possibly sub .500 seasons now that there will be fewer games against (less talented) regional foes
Admittedly, no, but it’s not like anyone is tuning in for Cal vs Oregon State now anyways.
The carrot is the USC/Ohio State type glamour games. It’s kind of awkward the super-conferences will have marginal teams to keep off to the side, but that’s kinda how it is anyways in the P5 to some level.
Well no one is tuning in for Cal-Oregon State because no one gets the PAC-12 network, to bring up another insanely shortsighted way a conference has screwed itself.
Once it gets to 20, 22, 24 teams, it won’t matter as much. Lions-Jags or something like that typically isn’t going to be a showcased NFL game, but low-end matchups still happen all the time there in a very popular league…There’s just enough other activity going on at the same time that it doesn’t really stand out.
Yeah, but that league showcases the best football players in the world, and only 30 teams. After the top 25 or so college teams, you get some pretty atrocious football. Will the Super Leagues cap themselves and kick some schools out? Or will the Super Leagues essentially keep all of the current Power 5 schools? Because that’s a lot of untalented kids playing barely watchable football.
I’ll be interested to see if these billion dollar TV deals end up being money-makers, or if these networks start drowning from these contracts, like NBC did with the Olympics.
As soon as I saw the USC/UCLA news I figured it was inevitable that we’d join as well. You have to play the hand you are dealt. At this point, it is hard to see how remaining independent in football really is viable, unless you are happy to schedule lots of MAC games.
Savvy Jack can still negotiate from strength now, so he can carve out the conditions ND needs. Big is truly a national conference, now. Would add Baylor to the list of potential targets just to get Texas in the fold.
I agree that it seems that is important to act now while we are in a position of strength. Its hard to tell how long that’ll last.
Conferences will always want the ND brand but the iron seems to be hot now and we might be able to extract a some additional concessions by moving now rather than later (whatever those would be).
One thing that everyone keeps jumping over is the grant of rights ACC contract. ND can’t just leave before 2036 – if they do, I think that their media money all goes to ACC.
Unless some lawyers figure out a way out of that contract, ND, Clemson, and the other ACC schools considering an exit are stuck.
I’m pretty sure that kind of thing is only related to the non-football sports and I don’t think that deal is through 2036 (I think that’s only football) but I could be wrong. ND’s football media rights are mostly with NBC not the ACC deal. They were not even around when that deal was made. Most figure then coughing up whatever we make on all the non-football sports will be peanuts compared to what we’d make up with football revenue in the big ten.
I think that ND’s contract with the ACC stipulates that if they join any conference in football before 2036, it has to be the ACC. If they join a different conference then the ACC grant of rights kicks in
This article takes the opposite view of ND joining the Big, and it also includes a couple of lines about ND’s agreement with the ACC.
https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/2022/07/01/prediction-notre-dame-is-not-going-to-join-a-conference-in-football/
Ok this blog post from Trojans Wire is terrible on a research/logic level (not surprising for a USC blog/news article). The B1G media rights deal isn’t done yet; Fox owns a lot of it but others are bidding for additional pieces. If ND goes to the B1G, ND home games could very easily stay with NBC or the NBC contract could be finished out before FOX/BTN/whoever else takeover ND home games.
Also, whatever the grant of rights stipulates would probably just be a matter of fiduciary penalty; we’ve already seen schools leave conferences and get to the new conference sooner than contracts stipulated. It’s just a matter of the math working out. If ND, USC, and UCLA (and potentially a couple more) are in the fold, those B1G media rights are potentially even more lucrative per school, and the math plus the leverage/power factor with the ACC weakened make it fairly likely in my mind that ND is on a track towards joining the B1G. At this point I just assume savvy Jack is consulting attorneys and crunching numbers to figure out the most financially advantageous move , which in modern football is also the move that’s most tied to competitive viability.
Opivy – couldn’t have said it better myself.
Yea what I saw about that is that has been spread around but that (1) it’s not clear if that’s in the contract and (2) if it is that kind of thing would be far easier to get around.
I can’t remember where I saw #1 – I think in some Athletic article. I think the basic idea is no one has really ever confirmed such a report.
Oh my oh my. Raised with a HUGE anti Big 10 animus, as granddad was part of the awful history, these are hard pills to contemplate swallowing. But SEC — with all due respect, that’s even worse. (You can go back in that case to visceral anti-Catholic hatred dating from the 20s, etc.)
In my old-fashioned way, I do think the academic fit matters, and matters a lot. If ND decides to keep playing at the top level — then we will want to influence the debate, and try to maintain the genuine standard or at least aspirational goal of genuinely educating our student-athletes. And the Big 10 is a way better fit, as pointed out above.
Plus, for non football sports, much better chances of minimizing travel.
(Not to be a true paragon of naivete, but has anyone at all thought through the carbon costs of all this travel?)
This could very well be the last big move of the savvy Jack Swarbrick era (aside from grooming a competent successor *crosses fingers and says a prayer*). Gotta say it’s been such a great luxury to have Jack for so many years after the Kevin White era. The level of trust I have that he’ll make the best move and utilize whatever leverage we have properly is immense. Secure the bag, Jack!
I would rather drop out of FBS football than join the Big Ten. If the ACC collapses, move the rest of the sports to the Big East and have an independent football program just not play the semi pro teams from the two minor league NFL conferences.
I keep going over this in my head. ND to the BIG?!? I think that the ACC is a better fit from a cultural stand point, more private schools, Olympic Sports match, etc… similar to what was being said about the ACC when we first joined.
The question then, is there a path forward for ND that they can join the ACC, get a similar pay out to the SEC/BIG and prevent two super conferences. I can see there being four conferences in the BIG SEC ACC and PAC/BIG12 leftovers. One problem with the ACC is that FSU, Miami, Va Tech, etc… haven’t continued their football excellence, so the perception is that it is a week conference. Yet the ACC has more National Championships in football over the last ten years than the BIG.
Does ND going to the ACC revitalize the competitive football spirit, driving programs to increase their spending/facilities? Does it move the needle enough to put the ACC at a level with the BIG and SEC for revenue. Can the ACC grant of rights be reworked? Miami seems to be traveling down this avenue in spending already. Yet, having more private institutions in the ACC may be a drawback in that they tend to be more fiscally conservative on their spending in athletic programs, keeping lower spending on athletics as a whole in the conference the norm.
One of the fallacies that seems to keep popping up is that now that things are ‘settled’, no more change will happen. Strategically though, I think the AD’s and conference commissioners have to look at the long view as well as the ‘right now’.
I think George Kliavkoff was caught flat footed thinking that the Rockies insulated his conference from losing teams to the SEC/BIG due to travel and that the BIG12 was a wreck and unappealing, so no threats, however it seems that any grant of rights contract coming to an end lines up for conference adjustments.
So can ND keep its independence for now, for the next 10ish years until the next major shakeup? Do they need to join a conference now to stay in the power structure? Does joining a conference help them stay relevant or does it subvert what, arguably, leads to a national following in their independence?
I’d hate to see ND become just another school in a conference, however, I’d also hate to see them lose their ability to determine their own fate in school athletics if two super conferences emerge and they end up on the outside looking in.
Jack Swarbrick has a lot of critical thinking to do, however he positions ND over the next few years, hopefully we don’t end up with a Kevin White type successor to fubar it.
Yeah, I think the biggest danger is being caught on a sinking ship. The ACC is massively screwed by being locked into a media rights deal until 2035-36; with ND’s current NBC deal being done after 2025 (I think), the decade ND could have in the B1G before the ACC got a better deal could be a difference of $400-500 million. If their grant of rights fees are $140 million (which is a figure some have thrown out), ND still nets an easy $200 some million, which in the increasingly intense financial arms race of college football is a deal that might be too hard to pass up. Like you said, got to look both at the long and short of things; with college football likely to experience more seismic shifts, I personally think you gotta make a move sooner than later, I don’t think our independence lasts another 10 years. My money is on being in the B1G for 2026, with ND negotiating to have yearly California trips to USC/UCLA like we currently do with USC/Stanford and potentially keeping NBC as partial media rights holder for our home games.
How much is Notre Dame worth and is the Big willing to pay the price for admission? The annual average value (AAV) for Oregon is $30 mill, Stanford $45 million. The two LA schools decreased the Pac 12 conference AAV by $200 million (from $500 m to $300 m). The Big Ten immediately elevates the previous $1 billion annual revenue estimate to at least in the range of $1.28 billion to $1.6 billion with the addition of those two. Would ND be worth $200+ mill and elevate the Big’s conference annual revenue to $2 billion? Notre Dame is the only football ball program that could have that kind of impact and the Big would wait as long as ND wanted and may be willing to offer concessions they would give to no other program. Having ND as a conference team when the College Football Playoff contract ends after 2025 means they’ve eliminated another voice in the room and a possible competitor.
Fox now owns a majority stake in The Big Ten Network. In April, Fox executives in the BTN listened to rival companies — Amazon, Apple, CBS, ESPN, NBC and Turner – pitch for conference’s rights (sub)packages before the expansion to LA. Turner had to wait to make a formal pitch until Discovery’s purchase of WarnerMedia passed through regulatory channels to close a $43 billion deal. ND’s deal with NBC ends after the 2025 season. From the Big’s viewpoint, adding Notre Dame with its national reach, elite football status, scheduling and recruiting, etc. would bring their media rights contracts to the next level.
Some of those traditional and streaming media entities will be left empty-handed and may turn their eyes towards Notre Dame to bid for the Irish’s new contract beginning in 2026. ND might have both a traditional media and streaming broadcast rights contracts. Would ND consider turning over their media rights for current out of conference schedule to BTN that includes Alabama games in ’29 and ’30?
At this point, ND does not have Stanford games after 2024 and no USC games after 2026. So there’s much flexibility in plans for future Irish football whichever way college football goes.
I imagine that after talking with member institutions in the ACC and ND, much has shifted to discussions with ESPN on their grants of rights contract. Something along the lines of recognizing the decreasing values of their Big 12 and Pac 12, the importance for college football to maintain another Power conference that includes ESPN bowl rights and Playoffs, the possibility of Notre Dame exiting that grants of right contract and the importance of the good will involved in revision of the ACC contract especially with the NBC contract with the Irish soon ending and any interest they may have in bidding for the new one. These may be subjects of exploratory talks with their media partner who also must have been involved in the new ACC-Pac 12 alliance to increase the value of ACC football and keep the Irish involved in ACC games and not bolting to be a part of a Fox-Big Network conglomerate. Just spitballing.