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At what point do you stop believing the denials? I mean they have to deny it until something official is announced whether it is true or not.

 
Nexus said:
knapplc said:
huskerscott said:
ND has been very open about staying indepedent for football and Big East for other sports.
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As I mentioned in post #127, Notre Dame may not have a choice but to join a conference soon.
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:yeah

You have to see the Big Ten's ambitions for ND as a chess move. They're just trying to get the dominoes to fall accordingly. Like I said in my previous post, if it happens like I think it might, then ND will be the last team to join the Big Ten out of necessity. They're dependent on the Big East for everything else. If the Big East gets swallowed up by the ACC, then ND is stuck between a rock and a hard place. This would mean they'd have one last chance to join the Big Ten or get left out altogether. My guess is, they'll accept that last invite if it push comes to shove.
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i see your point about ND's move being out of necessity. I guess i really cant imagine the Big East being picked apart by the ACC and SEC. I figured the Big East would pull teams out of C-USA or the MAC, if they needed to replace teams or they wanted to expand the conference. I know those schools dont add much for Football, but Memphis for example has been pretty competitive in basketball.

 
Caven said:
At what point do you stop believing the denials? I mean they have to deny it until something official is announced whether it is true or not.
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Exactly. I'm a big skeptic about all of these rumors, but at some point you have to realize that something is actually happening, and when they make their announcement in July, it's not going to all have happened because Jim Delaney just picked up the phone that morning and asked for Harvey Perlman. This kind of move takes months in the planning. We're in those months right now.

 
Refer to post #139 for what one sports writer in Mizzou-land is saying about it.

 
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knapplc said:
billdozer15 said:
The cards to ND's future lay in their hands.
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They do and they don't. Notre Dame can always stubbornly refuse to join a conference; that's their prerogative. There are other pressures, however, which may make the decision one of "independence and irrelevance" or "join a conference just to stay alive."

If the Big 10 expands, other conferences will not remain idle. The SEC, in particular, will make moves to become a superconference. They'll target schools with geographic and philosophic similarities to their culture, and the four most obvious are Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 and Miami and Florida State from the ACC. If the SEC raids the ACC for Miami and Florida State, the ACC has to respond by acquiring other schools. Their most obvious target is the Big East, which is home to 19 Notre Dame sports. If the Big East becomes a second-tier conference, or worse, dissolves due to ACC poaching, Notre Dame may have no choice but to join the Big 10.

If the SEC goes after Texas and Oklahoma, all this changes and Notre Dame's situation becomes less a matter of outside forces than internal wants. However, if the Big 10 adds Nebraska, Missouri and Rutgers, they could easily tell Notre Dame they're either in or out, meaning that if the Irish remain independent the Big 10 could refuse to play them, putting a huge hurt on Notre Dame's BCS chances with such a huge hit to their SOS.
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On your first points- you're onto why this has become any sort of debate: The destruction of the Big East. ND football doesn't need a conference and barring a BCS change that says only conference champions can participate, then it will never need a conference. The issue is the Olympic sports, and it's a legitimate one. However, there's been little indication by the administration of a desire to change - in fact, the rhetoric against joining a conference has grown stronger as this has played out after some hedging two or so months ago - and given that the non-revenue sports are usually subsidized in large part by football, it will, in the end, come down to football.

Your second point is one I've seen elsewhere, and it's the weakest one. If the Big 10 wants to refuse to schedule ND and "hurt" ND's SOS, then I'm sure they'd be welcome to. Considering ND played more PAC 10 teams in 2009 than Big 10, I'm sure ND could find 3 teams from the ACC, Big 12, SEC or PAC 10 to play every September and keep that SOS the same.

That said, I'm going to hope you guys do join the Big 10 and hope that we phase out Michigan State or Purdue some years and get to play you again; only twice in about 40 years isn't enough. Regardless, best of luck and by every pre-preseason poll I've seen, it doesn't seem like you guys will need much of it this year.

Cheers.

 
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