Report: Big Ten ‘waiting on’ Notre Dame as conference realignment saga intensifies
The ball is in the court of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. That’s what CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd indicated Friday, at least.
The latest wave of conference realignment has rocked the college athletics landscape this week. Thursday, USC and UCLA formally announced they will leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten in 2024. The departures will leave the Pac-12 reeling, and some member schools don’t want any part of that. Dodd indicated Oregon and Washington have already contacted the Big Ten.
The Big Ten, however, is holding out for a bigger fish. Notre Dame.
Dodd tweeted, “Oregon and Washington have been told by @bigten that it is standing pat for now. Waiting on a decision by Notre Dame.”
That “decision” is one that hasn’t been voluntarily made in over 100 years Notre Dame football.
Only once in that span have the Irish ever played in a conference. They had no other choice in 2020 as all the leagues played a conference-only slate because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notre Dame won the regular season ACC title. Never before, though, has it made as much sense for Notre Dame to end well over a century’s worth of independence. The monetary rewards for joining a super conference like the Big Ten would be beyond fruitful.
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Notre Dame has a TV rights contract signed with NBC through 2025. That could obviously complicate matters for athletics director Jack Swabrick. The way realignment has gone in the last two years, though, with Texas and Oklahoma agreeing to join the SEC last year and USC and UCLA inking with the Big Ten this year allows for some leeway. These things don’t happen overnight. The agreements might, but it’ll be a few years before we see those four programs in their new conference homes.
Notre Dame could agree to join the Big Ten now, play out the rest of its NBC deal as an independent and then go from there in three years. One thing is certain: the world is watching. USC and UCLA sent shockwaves from coast to coast Thursday. Notre Dame ditching independence to join a conference would be even more monumental given the storied program’s history.
Swarbrick has to hire a new baseball coach to replace Link Jarrett, who went to Florida State after he took the Irish to the College World Series for the third time in school history. He also has to make a football-related decision that could change the trajectory for the entire sport forever.
