[grendalor]

We are not going to be candidates for the BIG-whatever.

BC

Generally I agree.  The only thing that gives me slight pause is the idea that Stanford joining seals the deal with ND to join.  Clearly the B1G wants ND, that is now openly reported.  It's also known that ND has quite the payout to make to the ACC if they were to join the B1G.  So perhaps Stanford joining the B1G with ND would be enough to sweeten the deal for ND to get them to agree to join?  

I think that's also far-fetched, frankly, because the value we really added to ND -- apart from the amorphous prestige matchup value which wasn't valueless for them but certainly is more of a backseat issue in 2022 where it's more than ever just about $$$ -- was the ability to be physically present on the West Coast every single year for recruiting benefit.  With both UCLA and USC joining the B1G, ND could be able to finagle that if they insisted on playing one of those teams in Cali every year, even though they have no rivalry with UCLA currently.  And so it seems like we bring much less to the table for ND, apart from the academic prestige, which is less important in the current environment of how CFB is quickly transforming.  And the decline in the quality of our football performance doesn't help the equation, either, I would think -- ND doesn't like when we are so good that it is really hard for them to beat us, but they also don't like it when we are so bad that it is too easy -- they want us to be a consistent 5-8 win team that is consistently beatable for them while not being a joke opponent -- they have dropped rivalry series with other very long rivals for performance decline issues in the past as well (see -- Michigan).

[grendalor]

We are not going to be candidates for the BIG-whatever.

BC

Generally I agree.  The only thing that gives me slight pause is the idea that Stanford joining seals the deal with ND to join.  Clearly the B1G wants ND, that is now openly reported.  It's also known that ND has quite the payout to make to the ACC if they were to join the B1G.  So perhaps Stanford joining the B1G with ND would be enough to sweeten the deal for ND to get them to agree to join?  

I think that's also far-fetched, frankly, because the value we really added to ND -- apart from the amorphous prestige matchup value which wasn't valueless for them but certainly is more of a backseat issue in 2022 where it's more than ever just about $$$ -- was the ability to be physically present on the West Coast every single year for recruiting benefit.  With both UCLA and USC joining the B1G, ND could be able to finagle that if they insisted on playing one of those teams in Cali every year, even though they have no rivalry with UCLA currently.  And so it seems like we bring much less to the table for ND, apart from the academic prestige, which is less important in the current environment of how CFB is quickly transforming.  And the decline in the quality of our football performance doesn't help the equation, either, I would think -- ND doesn't like when we are so good that it is really hard for them to beat us, but they also don't like it when we are so bad that it is too easy -- they want us to be a consistent 5-8 win team that is consistently beatable for them while not being a joke opponent -- they have dropped rivalry series with other very long rivals for performance decline issues in the past as well (see -- Michigan).