Far be it for me to want to enjoy a day or two of post-victory soak in the sunlight of vicarious triumph. Whatever happens through the rest of this seasonal plot-line, nothing, it seems, will get to overshadow the epic confusion and hysteria that is conference realignment and expansion. And while part of me still strongly suspects that, long term, this tendency of conferences to expand is actually part of some post-mortem bloat, even I have to admit that it’s time to consider some short term options for the preservation and perseverance of Notre Dame’s national brand. And so here we are, arguing that it’s time to strongly consider joining the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Dan Wetzel has already hit on so many of the points I’ve been making the last two days on twitter in various conversations and debates over Notre Dame’s place in this conference hoopla that I almost wonder if he follows us under an alias, but still, he bothered to put the arguments in a semblance of organized articulation, so let’s just quote him possibly paraphrasing me (oh how cool would that be?):

At that point theyâ€™re better off being proactive and taking one of the two remaining spots in the ACC than getting left to hoping the Big Ten will take them. The Big Ten always seemed like a natural fit. South Bend is surrounded by conference schools, the Irish enjoy long, historic rivalries with Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue and have regularly competed with other league members. The academics are strong. The alumni are familiar. Itâ€™s always made sense. Except if youâ€™re going to tie your football program to a conference for the next 50 years, do you want to do it in a region of the country (the Midwest) which is growing at a far slower rate than the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic? Population trends are a major concern for all schools in the region. Michigan actually lost residents in the most recent census. In football itâ€™s even more pronounced. More and more of the best players are coming from the South. Notre Dame has always been a national recruiter, mainly because itâ€™s been able to play a national schedule. That will end if it joins any conference. The Irish can keep its rivalry game with Southern California, but with the Big Ten moving to nine conference games a year, there wonâ€™t be many other open dates. Big Ten or not, Notre Dame would remain a viable player in Midwest recruiting, especially in Chicagoland, the state of Michigan and the Cincinnati Catholic leagues. Playing in the ACC would offer additional access to talent-rich areas such as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington D.C. Notre Dame would also stand out in the ACC. Its potential comes in part from its vast tradition and incredible game-day environment. As grand as its history is, however, it isnâ€™t appreciably stronger than Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska or Penn State. And as lovely as Notre Dame Stadium can be, the aforementioned offer pretty incredible game-day scenes also, as do Wisconsin, Iowa and others. There is little question that the Big Ten can provide more money right now, but money isnâ€™t the major concern for Notre Dame. The school has money. With all those alums and a $6.1 billion endowment, it has as much money as it possibly needs. Itâ€™s not a lack of revenue that has held the program back. The ACC would provide enough. The NBC deal would have to be worked into any conference membership, but itâ€™s unlikely the new league would frown upon having all Irish home games broadcast on a major network. Things can be figured out.

Unfortunately for Notre Dame, any “best option” after continued independence can really only be arrived at via a process of elimination. There isn’t a plan-B that’s really worth attempting to spin as being serendipitously better than option-A. However, that doesn’t mean the choice is necessarily a difficult one either. The process of elimination is rather simple.

Essentially, if (big ‘if’) Notre Dame is forced to join a conference, then to join the Big 10 would be brand suicide. It doesn’t amplify Notre Dame nationally. Indeed, joining the Big 10 would just contract and regionalize the Notre Dame brand. The shear force of Notre Dame’s physical location suffices to leave an imprint upon the region. The university’s mission already speaks loudly to the area’s populace. To join the Big 10 would simply redouble an already successful effort.

Joining the Pac-12-16 would also be a mistake. The obvious logistical nightmare of scheduling intra-conference matches not just in Football and Basketball, but in the non-revenue olympic sports is probably enough to eliminate this choice altogether, but the effects on the Notre Dame brand serve to forcefully make the point: The Pac-12-16 isn’t for us. To understand this point, take a look at what Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times found while investigating the geography of college football fandom today:

The fact that Notre Dameâ€™s fans are dispersed throughout the country explains why theyâ€™ve been loathe to join a conference. And that the West Coast is less enthusiastic about football than other parts of the country, making the Pacific-12 a harder sale to the television networks, explains why the conference is going to great lengths to expand into football-crazy states like Texas. … Hereâ€™s one of those cliches that turns out to be valid: Notre Dame has a highly nationalized fan base. Its best markets â€” by the total number of fans, not market share â€” are New York, Chicago and Boston, each of which rank ahead of its native market of South Bend. It also has decent numbers of fans in markets as far afield as Los Angeles and Washington. Itâ€™s no wonder, then, that the school has been reluctant to join a conference, which could limit its national exposure.

Be sure to read the full piece, as the full layout of data and visualizations is well worth it, and Nate does a pretty nice job discussing Notre Dame’s place in this mess pretty fully.

To join the Pac-12-16 would effectively be abandoning the East Coast. And the East Coast, particularly the South East part, is where college football lives and breathes today and in any predictable future. The South East is where the machine that drives college football churns, turning out rabid fan-bases and athletes who watched Friday Night Lights and thought it was an understated drama. And the East Coast, by and large, goes to bed when a lot of Pac-12-16 games are still being played. It’s unfair, but that’s what the Pac-12-16 gets for the absurdly temperate climate.

Some have suggested that Notre Dame ought to join a conference made up of cast-offs; Sort of an island of misfit toys lead by the Irish and ideally the Texas Longhorns, but we’ve seen very little evidence that such a thing is in the works or is even being imagined by athletic directors at any institutions in play at this point. And beside that, whatever conference Texas might join, it’s almost certain to be forced to agree to un-even revenue sharing and the continued existence of the Texas Longhorn Network. Which means aside from Notre Dame, the only other institutions that would join such a conference would be the ones that weren’t “elite” enough to garner invites to better parties. To join such a conference would be to weaken the Notre Dame brand by association. And, quite likely, you’d experience much the same constrictive, quasi-isolationist effects of joining the Big-10. Nobody on the east coast would care what the Bible Belt Conference of Castaways were up to.

And that, of course, leaves us with the new Super-ACC, because reality dictates that after all of this happens (eventually) there will really only be 4 conferences playing the top-tier of collegiate football, whatever that means. And assuming Notre Dame still wants to participate in such a paradigm, then, failing independence, the Irish should take an ACC invitation.

Luckily, even after the last 15 or so years of relative mediocrity for the Notre Dame program, Notre Dame still gets to play this game with a bunch of power. 3 BCS appearances may not seem much to the average Irish fan, but they represent 3 moments of legendary triumph to most programs, including the ones already sitting in any of the major conferences today. Notre Dame also, of course, enjoys a monetary situation that no other program enjoys. As even the mainstream media have been able to decode, the Irish are in the upper echelon of college football finances.

Although the NCAA did not list the 14 schools turning a net profit, Notre Dame is one of them. Athletic Director, Jack Swarbrick, has revealedthat Notre Dame actually pours money back into the collegeâ€™s coffers, to the tune of about $10 million in 2009. Other schools that have been confirmed to be part of the 14: Alabama, University of Missouri, University of Texas, University of Florida, University of Tennessee and Ohio State University.

But what so many of the mainstream media miss is that among the 14 turning a profit and/or the top revenue generating programs, Notre Dame is by and large the smallest, operating with a total student-body of approximately 11,300 (8,300 undergraduates), while the other top financial programs are massive state schools with much larger student populations (and much larger overall financial demands). This provides a financial flexibility to Notre Dame, allowing for a strategy that can serve the university’s mission without having to jump at the best short-term money opportunity (likely to come from the Big 10).

Further, an ACC membership would mean, effectively, a nearly-national footprint in both recruiting and college football’s competitive narrative. Under an ACC membership scenario, Notre Dame would play and recruit from Boston to Miami and over to Pittsburgh, effectively triangulating vital territories that aren’t part of ND’s “natural” footprint. Combined with the inherent presence in Indiana and Chicago, Notre Dame will be nearly impossible for fans and recruits in Ohio to ignore. And by maintaining the annual series with Southern Cal, Notre Dame continues to be a major player in the LA market. No other conference can offer that sort of territorial access.

I’m still not convinced that conference membership in an inevitable fate for Notre Dame, but at least the university faces a situation today where one of the choices enables the Irish to maintain several key advantages it’s utilized to maintain its brand over the last 10-20 years. And while ACC membership might be a bitter pill to swallow for the vast majority of Irish fans, such a move today may allow the Irish to garner and hold a position in the future that would facilitate independence again.

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