Jim Phillips won’t succeed John Swofford as ACC commissioner until later this year. Still, he’s already getting pressure from outsiders to take drastic steps after he takes over. The latest proposal comes from Andy Staples of The Athletic. Only subscribers to the site can read this, but Staples wants Phillips to talk Notre Dame, for which he once was an associate athletic director, into making itself a full-time ACC member.
Frankly, Mr. Staples, we don’t care to hear about such a scatterbrained idea, and we doubt Jack Swarbrick does, either. The ACC needs Notre Dame more than Notre Dame needs it, and it should be fortunate to have the Irish involved at all. Having worked in South Bend before, Phillips, of all people, should know this and definitely would think twice before picking up the phone to submit this idea to Swarbrick.
Irish fans were pleased to hear last week that Notre Dame will resume its football independence during this upcoming season. Apparently, Staples couldn’t give them too long to relish in at least this type of normalcy in 2021. If Michigan hadn’t been so desperate to block the Irish from admission to the Big Ten a century ago, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Now, we’ve reached a point where old habits die hard, and there’s enough money pouring in already, so return this idea to the back burner where it belongs.