There has been a lot of chatter surrounding [autotag]Notre Dame football[/autotag] and their continued independence while most conferences continue to add on schools.
One of those programs on the move is [autotag]UCLA[/autotag], who in 2024 will be making the move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. Their football head coach [autotag]Chip Kelly[/autotag] has thoughts on conference realignment and believes that Notre Dame has it right, staying independent.
Kelly explained his rationale this way, by saying that the Irish model is one that should be adopted across college football.
Notre Dame is an independent in football, but they’re in a conference for everything else. Why aren’t we all independent for football? Take the 64 teams in Power Five and make that one division, take the 64 teams in Group of Five, make that another division. We play for a championship, they play for a championship and no one else gets affected. – Kelly
This makes plenty of sense, as the recent moves are all about football and not the other sports. What about the non-revenue sports that will have to travel across the country while still trying to keep their education in focus?
Chip Kelly's comments today on the madness: pic.twitter.com/wLiuxtzvvN
— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) August 9, 2023
Kelly makes an extremely valid point, just make this about football and keep the other sports as they are. It most likely won’t happen as he would like, but the idea makes plenty of sense and the Irish are ahead of the game.
Check out Notre Dame’s history vs. each current Pac-12 team including UCLA
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