Tag: notre dame conference

Rick Kaczenski: Money won’t determine Notre Dame conference decision

Do you share the former Irish center’s thoughts?

Former Notre Dame center [autotag]Rick Kaczenski[/autotag] hasn’t stopped following his alma mater. Even though his coaching career never brought him back home, he never forgot where he came from. He knows what it means to be part of Irish football to his core, so the culture and everything surrounding it have been engrained within him.

When Kaczenski, a former Nebraska defensive line coach, was asked during an appearance on a Hail Varsity Radio program about the likelihood of joining a conference, he said what’s typically the biggest factor in such decisions won’t matter. In fact, he thinks the Irish have all the leverage:

Like many connected to Notre Dame in some way, Kaczenski believes whatever happens will be completely up to the Irish. Whether outsiders like it or not, Notre Dame remains one of the biggest brands in college football, if not the biggest. If that doesn’t tell you who’s holding all the cards in this situation, nothing will.

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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.

 

Desmond Howard shows bitterness over Notre Dame’s independence

At least Desmond Howard knows his opinion on Notre Dame shouldn’t count for anything.

I put about as much stock in whatever it is Desmond Howard has to say about Notre Dame as I did whenever Mark May would discuss them years ago on ESPN.

I don’t have proof of this but I’m fairly certain the 1991 Heisman Trophy winner has never actually said a kind thing about Notre Dame.

That was again the case Friday morning when Howard was a part of an ESPN panel that discussed what happens with college football’s season if out of conference games are canceled across the board.

Of course Notre Dame got brought up and of course Howard had thoughts.

“I might not be the best guy to ask this question to because I’ve always felt that Notre Dame was always given this special pass and they just enjoy this independence, and that they never had to join a conference”

“So now if this ends up being a situation that we do have a season and under the guidelines that people are talking now where it’s just people will play within their conference, and they’re left out in the cold because of decisions that they made, not to ever join the conference when they had the opportunity to join the ACC, then I think that’s their problem. It’s just coming back to bite them in the butt. So I don’t have a problem with a team or school that thought they are beyond joining the conference, and now because teams are playing within their conference that they get left out in the cold.” – Desmond Howard on ESPN – July 10, 2020

Just a kind reminder to Mr. Howard that Notre Dame tried to join a conference for years and years but it was your beloved University of Michigan that kept that from happening.  Then Notre Dame became a money making machine in the world of college football and Michigan and the Big Ten suddenly wanted them in.

I’m not going to lie, I get a lot of enjoyment when Notre Dame’s independence angers the masses like it has, does and will continue to do for years and years to come.