Is Notre Dame a top-five conference realignment addition among all Power Five schools?
Among college football “free agents,” Notre Dame is the most desirable currently on the market. The Big Ten has reportedly made that clear. The Fighting Irish joining the ACC would save the conference from potential peril, meanwhile. And the Irish getting up with the SEC would spell game over for every other league in the country.
But what if every school was in Notre Dame’s position?
What if there were no conferences? What if things started from scratch? Who are the true power brokers in collegiate athletics? Pat Forde and Sports Illustrated attempted to figure that out with the outlet’s “Power 5 Desirability Ratings.”
“This is an attempt to apply some metrics to the debate,” Forde wrote. “We ranked all 69 schools (currently in the Power 5 or ticketed to arrive in 2023) against one another in five areas, some of which we know move the needle in terms of adding value to a conference, and some of which get a lot of lip service by leaders.”
PROMOTION: Sign up for just $1 for your first year at Blue & Gold
Here are the five categories. Descriptions and a scoring system for the different categories can be found in the link to Forde’s rankings.
- Football ranking
- Academic ranking
- All-sports ranking
- Football attendance
- Broadcast viewership
And here are the rankings. Ties are represented in bold. The second team in a bolded pairing had the same number of points as the first. In essence, those two schools have the same “desirability.”
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- Notre Dame
- Texas
- Georgia
- Florida
- Wisconsin
- Oklahoma
- USC
- Alabama
- Penn State
- Texas A&M
- Auburn
- LSU
- Washington
- Clemson
- Stanford
- UCLA
- Florida State
- Michigan State
- Iowa
- North Carolina
- Oregon
- Tennessee
- Oklahoma State
- Miami
- Iowa State
- Ole Miss
- Northwestern
- NC State
- Arizona State
- Virginia
- Nebraska
- Arkansas
- Virginia Tech
- Utah
- TCU
- Minnesota
- Kentucky
- BYU
- Purdue
- South Carolina
- Mississippi State
- Baylor
- California
- Pittsburgh
- Wake Forest
- West Virginia
- Indiana
- Duke
- Texas Tech
- Maryland
- Missouri
- Georgia Tech
- Louisville
- UCF
- Colorado
- Kansas State
- Illinois
- Syracuse
- Arizona
- Boston College
- Vanderbilt
- Washington State
- Rutgers
- Cincinnati
- Oregon State
- Kansas
- Houston
So, yes. Notre Dame is one of the five most desirable schools in the country all things considered. It’s No. 3. Notre Dame ranked sixth in the football category, fifth in academics, eighth in all sports, 16th in attendance and tied for second in viewership. You could make the case that if Notre Dame had a 100,000-seat stadium and sold it out regularly, the Fighting Irish would be No. 1 in the poll.
There is a bit of irony in the Big Ten’s pursuit of Notre Dame considering would-be conference rivals Ohio State and Michigan rank No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the poll. The Irish open the 2022 season at Ohio State on Sept. 3, and they have a long history of contentious head-to-head games against Michigan. Maybe it’s meant to be. Just don’t hold your breath.