What I've Heard From ND

[Dish]

As has been mentioned, and I talked about in a couple of threads over the weekend, what is going to happen is the 4 Superconferences (Pac 16, SEC, ACC, Big 16), all with 16 members. This info below is from a friend that is a higher up at ND.

There will be a football "playoff". The 4 conference title games will serve as quarterfinals, 2 "BCS" bowl games will be the semi-finals, and there will be a plus 1 championship game (which is looking like it will be at Cowboy Stadium every year).

Pac 16 will be set after today, with Texas (keeping LHN and agreeing to Pac 16 programming), Texas Tech, Okl, and Ok St.

ACC is still talking to ND, which is why you haven't heard confirmations on Rutgers or UConn just yet. Most likely it will be Rutgers and UConn.

ND has no assurances that the new football playoff will have independents invited to the party. Look for ND to finally join the Big 16. Guessing on the other members here, but Kansas, Kansas St, and Iowa St round out the Big 16. Kansas and Kansas St find a soft landing spot, and politically speaking, they can not be broken up into two different conferences.

SEC adds A&M, West Virginia, Missouri, and Louisville (despite UK's objections).

[TallTitan34]

My one fear is if they carry this over to basketball as well.

[nyg]

Interesting concept for football.  BE teams (whats left to include TCU, USF, Cinn), the Boise States, etc would have no chance to play for a national title.  

[Pakuni]

Interesting concept for football.  BE teams (whats left to include TCU, USF, Cinn), the Boise States, etc would have no chance to play for a national title.  

At which point federal legislators step in.
I suspect that if some universities attempt to set up a system that specifically excludes a large number of Division I programs, there will be lots of  litigation and Congressional involvement. Not sure whether that will derail anything, but it sure will make things interesting for a while.

[Dish]

Interesting concept for football.  BE teams (whats left to include TCU, USF, Cinn), the Boise States, etc would have no chance to play for a national title.  

Power conferences don't want to share any of the money with the likes of TCU/Boise St. This is what it's all about, $$$. Much easier to split $$$ 64 ways (among the super conferences) than have to worry about pay outs/party crashers like TCU and Boise St.

Good news for now with basketball is the current CBS/Turner contract can't really blow up the NCAA tournament. It can/will change the structure of the tournament, but even the super conferences could not get a better basketball deal right now.

[wadesworld]

Obviously recruiting for ACC football programs will now take off, but at the current moment I don't understand why the ACC is the one that is getting the football schools.  The Big 12 recently had been a MUCH better football conference than the ACC.  The ACC is, at best, SLIGHTLY better than the Big East in football, only because of Virginia Tech really.  And Syrcause and Pitt are not even good football programs as of recently.  If this were to be in effect as of this season the ACC would send a team to the national semifinal that would get absolutely crushed by whoever it played.  The other semifinalists would be teams like Alabama/LSU, Oklahoma, and Stanford/Oregon.  Then you have...Florida State?  I suppose they played OU tough this weekend, but they lost by 10 at home.  So the 15th or so best team in the nation would be playing in a National Semifinal just because they had to beat 1 other ranked team, while other schools may end up with 1 loss and beat 4 top 15 teams and be left out.  As of right now, FSU and VT are the only 2 ranked teams from the ACC (including Pitt and Syracuse).  That would be a joke.

Again, this will definitely change recruiting in college football and ACC programs will improve, but as it stands now the Big 12 should've been the ones making the attempt to expand.  That would've been a much better conference than the ACC is going to be.

[MUMac]

At which point federal legislators step in.
I suspect that if some universities attempt to set up a system that specifically excludes a large number of Division I programs, there will be lots of  litigation and Congressional involvement. Not sure whether that will derail anything, but it sure will make things interesting for a while.

I don't recall the specifics, but wasn't the BCS faced with this before?  If I recall, Boise State may have been the school, the state's congressional representatives and/or senators started to investigate the BCS due to it's exclusion of smaller schools.  They modified this by including outside BCS teams into the BCS if they finished in the top 8.

I think you are correct.  There could be some fun fireworks in the near term.

[GGGG]

Obviously recruiting for ACC football programs will now take off, but at the current moment I don't understand why the ACC is the one that is getting the football schools.  The Big 12 recently had been a MUCH better football conference than the ACC. 

Because on-field success has little to do with it.  The ACC shares $$$ equally and is now more stable.  The B12 doesn't and is in as much danger of breaking apart as the BE is.

[GOO]

wadesworld.  If the BE had stayed together for another couple of weeks, a couple of football teams from the B12 could have been picked up... but, by going to the ACC, they get stability and access to the growing southern markets, while still being in the best basketball conference.  The ACC will have the southeast and northeast.  A great combo for them.

I still can't see why ND would join the B10 over the ACC... the ACC has the better markets going forward, and some schools that look more like ND than MSU... the only school in the B10 that is like ND is maybe Northwestern.  Plus B10 is locked into the upper midwest.

If I'm ND and I decide to join a conference, it would be the ACC.

[Pakuni]

I don't recall the specifics, but wasn't the BCS faced with this before?  If I recall, Boise State may have been the school, the state's congressional representatives and/or senators started to investigate the BCS due to it's exclusion of smaller schools.  They modified this by including outside BCS teams into the BCS if they finished in the top 8.

I think you are correct.  There could be some fun fireworks in the near term.

Yep. I believe Orrin Hatch (BYU alum) led the charge to get non BCS schools a chance to play in BCS bowls.
If anything will succeed here, it'll likely be some kind of antitrust challenge.

[TJ]

Interesting concept for football.  BE teams (whats left to include TCU, USF, Cinn), the Boise States, etc would have no chance to play for a national title.  

They don't have a chance now.  TCU was ranked top 100 all last year and went undefeated and never have a chance to play for a national title.

[muwarrior69]

Yep. I believe Orrin Hatch (BYU alum) led the charge to get non BCS schools a chance to play in BCS bowls.
If anything will succeed here, it'll likely be some kind of antitrust challenge.

I think your right. Too many schools even some state schools (Rutgers?) have invested great sums of money into their athletic programs only to be shut out by the bigger tax payer supported state schools. If Rutgers does not find a home in one of the super conferences Washington is going to hear a lowd cry of fowl by the taxpayers here. Not to mention there are about 280 D1 basketball schools who will be shut out as well. Time to write your congressman and senators. I guess Butler making it to the finals 2 years in a row was too much for the big boys.

And to boot I don't even remember who won the football title, but I do know TCU beat Wisconsin.

[MUMac]

Yep. I believe Orrin Hatch (BYU alum) led the charge to get non BCS schools a chance to play in BCS bowls.
If anything will succeed here, it'll likely be some kind of antitrust challenge.

Correct, it was Hatch.  I had been thinking Utah, but could not recall the school.  Utah State came to mind, which led me to Boise State.  Boise State became the poster child, but BYU and Hatch were the impetus.

[Chili]

wadesworld.  If the BE had stayed together for another couple of weeks, a couple of football teams from the B12 could have been picked up... but, by going to the ACC, they get stability and access to the growing southern markets, while still being in the best basketball conference.  The ACC will have the southeast and northeast.  A great combo for them.

I still can't see why ND would join the B10 over the ACC... the ACC has the better markets going forward, and some schools that look more like ND than MSU... the only school in the B10 that is like ND is maybe Northwestern.  Plus B10 is locked into the upper midwest.

If I'm ND and I decide to join a conference, it would be the ACC.

Michigan might think differently about that. The only rule the ACC has is that it would really prefer all the members to be in the Eastern Time Zone.

[Canadian Dimes]

ND is in the Eastern time zone...duh.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

ND is in the Eastern time zone...duh.

Actually, that is a fairly recent move.

Previous to that, ND did not observe daylight savings time, so they spent 1/2 of the year on central time and 1/2 on east coast time.

http://www.und.com/genrel/033106aab.html

So, duh, I guess.

[TallTitan34]

Typical Notre Dame arrogance.  Thinking they were above timezones.   

[texaswarrior74]

Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State do not have the overall academic profiles that fit the Big  10/12.

In texas, Kansas is seen as a safety school for kids that don't get into UT or aTm and don't want to go to Tech or Texas State.

The Big 10/12 and ACC are the only two conferences where academics really do matter to the PTB.

KU and ISU are members of the AAU which might help their cause a bit but ISU is not. Also never see Iowa agreeing to let ISU in.

http://www.aau.edu/about/default.aspx?id=5476

[mu03eng]

wadesworld.  If the BE had stayed together for another couple of weeks, a couple of football teams from the B12 could have been picked up... but, by going to the ACC, they get stability and access to the growing southern markets, while still being in the best basketball conference.  The ACC will have the southeast and northeast.  A great combo for them.

I still can't see why ND would join the B10 over the ACC... the ACC has the better markets going forward, and some schools that look more like ND than MSU... the only school in the B10 that is like ND is maybe Northwestern.  Plus B10 is locked into the upper midwest.

If I'm ND and I decide to join a conference, it would be the ACC.

ND has stated repeatedly they want the flexibility to retain all their existing rivalry games, this includes Purdue, Michigan, and Michigan State(Big 10), the rest are USC and Navy(I'm sure I'm forgetting some, I hate ND).  Joining the ACC means they get maybe 3 out of those 5 rivals(that I can remember).  If they join the Big 10 they get 3 as a conference match up and then have 3 or 4 places for their non-conference.

Additionally, the Big 10's academic standards are where ND wants to be(ACC is good but not nearly what the Big 10 is)

And the Big 10(at least right now) has a much bigger pay out than the ACC

And the Big 10 has sent a lot more teams to the NC game than the ACC(also to more bowl games overall I think)

But other than that the ACC looks good for them

[Pakuni]

Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State do not have the overall academic profiles that fit the Big  10/12.

And Nebraska does?
It would be naive to think academics has anything to do with this.

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