Tag: notre dame acc

Why would Notre Dame vote to bring Stanford and Cal to the ACC?

Many seem confused by this, but the politics aren’t as complicated on this topic as many might think.

As of Thursday morning, it seems that the ACC’s discussions about adding Stanford and Cal are going nowhere. The ACC does not appear to have the necessary number of votes among its members to approve an invitation to the Cardinal and the Golden Bears. Yet, that’s not the full story.

It was revealed on Wednesday that Notre Dame has a vote among ACC member schools on the Stanford-and-Cal agenda item. Notre Dame is not a full member of the ACC. It is not part of the ACC in football. It plays several ACC teams each season and plays within the ACC in non-football sports, but it is not a football member of the conference. Why Notre Dame would therefore get a vote on this and other urgent ACC matters is a point of considerable debate. As you could imagine, it’s a point of frustration among other ACC members, which is probably why a vote to approve Stanford and Cal to the conference will ultimately fail. There will be enough voices at the table to insist that Notre Dame must not get its way.

One obvious question: What “is” Notre Dame’s way? What is Notre Dame’s bigger play here? What’s the ultimate purpose of wanting Stanford and Cal in the ACC from the Irish’s point of view?

The biggest reason for ND’s stance on Stanford and Cal to the ACC is this: It’s all about the College Football Playoff.

Think about it: If Stanford and Cal are pulled out of the Pac-4, it becomes that much more possible that the Pac-12 dissolves and fully ceases to exist.

What is the consequence of that scenario if it happens? A Power Five conference dies, and with it die all those revenue distributions and allocations for the playoff and the NCAA Tournament. Notre Dame, as an independent, would not have to deal with an automatic playoff spot for the Pac-12 in future seasons. Stanford and Cal staying in the Pac-4 and working out an arrangement with the Mountain West in which the Pac-12 keeps its playoff spot and playoff money distributions would represent one small but real obstacle toward Notre Dame making the playoff every year. Killing off the Pac-12 in an official (logistical, bureaucratic, structural) way would significantly increase the Irish’s playoff odds.

Be sure to follow Fighting Irish Wire for complete Notre Dame coverage.

Now that you’ve gained that answer, watch how fans and pundits reacted to the news that Notre Dame actually does get a vote in the ACC. It was, as you could imagine, a firestorm:

Irish ranked high in CBS Sports first power poll

Dennis Dodd reacts to the first real weekend of college football and puts Notre Dame in a very good spot.

Usually outlets have a preseason power poll, then make adjustments after that. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports didn’t do that, and waited until after the ACC and Big XII started play. As much as we all love preseason polls, this makes plenty of sense to wait, watch a weekend of games, then make decisions on where teams will slot in.

After an uninspiring 27-13 win over Duke, the Irish are fourth in Dodd’s initial power poll. It’s a great place to be in, as Dodd called Brian Kelly’s squad a front-runner in the ACC, along with Clemson.

Dodd saw the problem with the “veteran offensive line wasn’t overly impressive, but it was enough in a two-touchdown win over Duke.” I didn’t have much of an issue with a group that paved the way for 178 yards on the ground. Yes, Ian Book was sacked 3 times, but he wasn’t sharp early, as two of them came in the first half.

But enough with the supposed bad, the Irish are a top 4 team, which is exactly where they want to be. The November seventh matchup with Clemson continues to loom larger and larger. It is nice to be in a good spot, but it would be even better to finish the season inside the top four.

A change in philosophy has the Irish close to elite football status

When Brian Kelly suffered his worst season as Notre Dame head coach, he made changes immediately. They have really paid off

As the Irish step into their first, and most likely only, ACC conference season, there are plenty of questions along the way as to how Notre Dame will fare. Chip Patterson of CBS Sports tried to tackle how Brian Kelly will guide the Irish through this odd season.

Before Patterson got in-depth on how the Irish would do in conference play, still weird to say that, he looked at how they got to this point. Patterson singled out Kelly’s change in player development and recruiting since going 4-8 in 2016. The head coach addressed those issues and “the results were immediate, with Notre Dame going 33-5 over the last three seasons with three top-12 poll finishes and an appearance in the 2018 College Football Playoff.”

You can say that Kelly has really excelled with the change, not hoping the players improve, but instead putting an emphasis on drastic improvements. Patterson singled out linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Kyren Williams as two players who have benefitted from new priorities. This led Patterson to come to the conclusion that “Notre Dame is uniquely built to overcome whatever obstacles are ahead in the 2020 season.”

That main obstacle being the Clemson Tigers, who pretty much own the ACC right now. Patterson knows that as “Clemson is still the odds-on favorite to win the league, but Notre Dame is too strong to think we can pencil in those two matchups as ‘win, win’ for the Tigers.”

No Big Ten or Pac-12, Irish should move up in Top 25 rankings

With two power-conferences opting out of the 2020 fall football season, Notre Dame should see their pre-season ranking improve.

With the announcement that the Big Ten and Pac-12 will not play fall football, there will be changes to many preseason rankings. When the Amway Coaches poll powered by USA Today Sports dropped eleven days ago the Irish were ranked 10th but was prior to two conferences bowing out.

Now there are just three major conferences playing football in the fall, the SEC, Big XII and ACC, there will be movement within the rankings. 247Sports repolled their experts and came up with new rankings and the Irish are just outside the top 5, ranked 6th overall.

Chris Hummer, who put together the piece, sees one huge hurdle for Notre Dame this season, their potential two games against the Clemson Tigers. He said “you could strongly argue the schedule got easier for the Irish. But … they’ll have to play Clemson twice in order to reach the CFB Playoff.” The Tigers are a huge challenge for any team and having to match-up against them twice in one season is a daunting task. They are ranked as 247Sports top team in their updated preseason rankings.

Let’s look at the positives Hummer takes note of, the arrival of “some exciting impact freshman (Chris Tyree, Jordan Johnson) who can help right away. The offensive line will be strength as always, especially with Tommy Kraemer and Robert Hainsey returning from injury.” Hummer did forget about 5-Star Michael Mayer, who along with Tyree and Johnson should make a formidable trio of true-freshman stars.

On defense there is hope as Hummer says “you have to trust defensive coordinator Clark Lea, though. He’s put together back-to-back top 15 defenses. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Kyle Hamilton give Lea two start (I think he meant star) defenders to shape the unit around.”

Looking at the rest of the opponents on the slate, the Irish will face the 12th ranked North Carolina Tar Heels, the 17th ranked Louisville Cardinals, and the 24th ranked Pittsburgh Panthers. The expectations for Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish are high in this very odd season. Expect a very fun one-off year of ACC action.

ACC to make Final, Final decision on Fall Football Today

The ACC has a meeting set up for this afternoon to discuss fall football once again.

The ripple effects of the Big Ten and Pac-12 cancelling their fall football seasons continue as the ACC presidents will have yet another meeting to decide if going forward with the season is the correct thing to do.

This tweet is a bit deceiving however, as this meeting was already set up to get an update from their medical advisors. There seems like no need to worry about the ACC joining the Big Ten and Pac-12 in their cancellation of fall athletics.

There will be news coming out of this meeting however, but it will most like just involve a conversation on how each program is doing with their testing and tracing. As we know, the Irish Football team had 9 players miss the first scheduled practice for precautionary reasons after two players tested positive. The Notre Dame student body should be given some kudos as well, as they have been tested prior to their return to campus earlier this week with some very encouraging results.

With the student body having exceptional rates on their return to campus, it gives the football team plenty of hope that the community is doing their part to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to monitor this situation at Fighting Irish Wire and bring you any breaking news that comes from this meeting.

New report has Notre Dame as actual ACC football member in 2020

Notre Dame is college football’s most famous independent. Could that all be changing for 2020? One new report says it is.

When the Big Ten turned college football upside down a few weeks ago by announcing they’d only be playing conference games in 2020, many wondered what the fallout would mean for Notre Dame if more conferences followed suit.

Sure enough the Pac-12 quickly announced the same and before you knew it, Notre Dame had lost three of their 12 scheduled opponents for 2020.

We thought right away that Notre Dame’s sweetheart deal with the ACC would provide the perfect life raft and even proposed a 10 game ACC schedule for the Irish.

Now one report has Notre Dame not just playing an ACC schedule but joining the conference for 2020.

I don’t see how you could have Notre Dame be a member of the conference for the year, allow them a chance to potentially play in the ACC Championship Game but not allow them the conference’s bid to the Organge Bowl if they did end up winning the league.

Listen, I’m as ant-conference as any follower of Notre Dame or college football has ever been.  If it’s the only way to get games in 2020 though I’d be more than happy to it play out this way.

Think for a second how great it could be:

Notre Dame bashers get their wish and for one year the Irish are a member of the ACC.  Then Notre Dame goes and wins the ACC that season, takes their Orange Bowl (or hopefully College Football Playoff) bid and then go back to independence in 2021.

If you’re wondering what the one non-conference game would be I would assume Notre Dame would either keep their annual deal with Navy as long as the AAC allows for out-of-conference games by its member schools.  If not Navy then my money would be on Arkansas seeing as the ACC and SEC seem to have their heads largely in the same places in terms of getting football played this fall.

If Notre Dame ever had to join a conference for even the shortest amount of time this has the chance to be about as perfect as one could hope.

 

Notre Dame 2020 Schedule: ACC to the rescue?

If every conference only plays conference games in 2020, what does it mean for Notre Dame? The ACC seems to be the Irish life raft.

The Big Ten announced Thursday that their 2020 football season will feature only conference games.  As a result there will be no Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin at Lambeau Field, a game that was among the biggest non-conference match-ups set for the 2020 season.

Many anticipate more conferences to follow suit, which would leave Notre Dame in an extremely tough spot as an independent.  However, it appears the ACC is at the ready to bail out the Fighting Irish.

It makes all the sense in the world as Notre Dame already has six games scheduled against ACC foes this season as Wake Forest, Pitt, Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Louisville are all on it.

How exactly this would play out still very much remains to be seen.

For one, I don’t want just a six game season, although it would certainly be better than no football at all.  At least I think.

Would the ACC add Notre Dame to one of the divisions and then only play divisional contests?

What exactly things would look like very much remain to be seen and it’s an incredible brain exercise just to try and start to do it.

There will be more here at Fighting Irish Wire as the day and week goes on but for now, here’s to hoping we get any football at all.