Semi-OT: How realignment knocked Notre Dame off its pedestal
Found this ESPN read about how Notre Dame's demand for autonomy has now allowed the conference aligned schools to surpass them.
Of interest, it opens up with an anecdote about Bo's reaction to the Big Ten adding Penn State:
It has been 29 years since Notre Dame won a national championship. It has been 28 years since Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany held a conference call for his athletic directors and told them -- he didn't ask them, he told them -- that Penn State had been voted into the league by its school presidents.
The news stunned the ADs into silence. Finally, Michigan's Bo Schembechler sputtered, "You gotta be s----ing me!"
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/20580851/conference-rea…
September 7th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^
They made it to the title game and were utterly exposed.
I recall thinking at the end of the first quarter, "This game is over." And it wasn't just the score, it was utter domination in every phase of the game that Alabama demonstrated over Notre Dame.
September 7th, 2017 at 6:15 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 9:42 PM ^
They were very talented, top 5 type team had injuries galore. coughed up the stanford game in the final seconds making them 10-2 instead of 11-1, went down to the final seconds with Clemson. then faced an amazing OSU team in fiesta bowl. Calling an Oklahoma win in Norman just OK is hysterical. they won the big 12 that year.
September 8th, 2017 at 12:07 AM ^
Well, I guess I have a hard time arguing about 2015.
Still, it seems to me that a key sign of a coach's viability is how a team's rival feels about the idea of a coach staying or going.
I'm firmly in the "hope they keep him" camp, and not because I wish for ND's prosperity.
September 7th, 2017 at 11:31 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 5:11 PM ^
The craziest stat about Brian Kelly is that there isn't an active coach that has won more games (231) than he has. Saban is at 211 and Bill Snyder is at 203. His .723 career winning percentage is 15th best amongst active coaches and its top ten if you stick to Power 5 teams and remove guys like Jeff Brohm that are new to coaching and/or a Power 5 conference.
Despite what everyone thinks, Kelly is a pretty good coach. The only proven coaches that are better are Saban, Urban, Jimbo, Dabo, Richt, Patterson, Shaw, and Harbaugh -- and I really wouldn't fight you if you said Kelly was better than Richt, Shaw, and Patterson.
Since all of those dudes are making a ton of money, to lure one of them away, Notre Dame is going to have to probably double Kelly's $4.75M salary and also double their pay pool for assitant coaches. Considering they are only getting $15M per year from NBC while teams in the Big Ten are pulling $40-50M a year from their TV contracts, I just don't see how that's possible.
Their allegiance to NBC is what made them what they are, but its also what's killed them and made it impossible to compete on a championship level.
September 7th, 2017 at 7:50 PM ^
He was definitely better at the lower levels than at ND. There aren't that many proven great coaches. For sure, some of the up and comers are better than Kelly. So are some of the recently retired. And I'd take Shaw over him every day of the week and don't think it's close.
I think the point is that Notre Dame doesn't seem to ever target top level coaches. Kelly was their highest profile hire since Holtz. Maybe a lack of money would be an issue today, I rather doubt it, but they had superior resources in the past. I think that whoever makes the hiring decisions doesn't want a truly big name coach that might take too much of the limelight. They don't want a Harbaugh.
September 7th, 2017 at 8:21 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 8:43 PM ^
or a promising up and comer? I guess he was the Tom Herman of 2004. There's a difference between offering and making it very hard to turn you down. I don't doubt ND made a serious offer, but they didn't do enough to get a top coach and their plan B was a total gamble. To me, hiring Weis demonstrated their belief that they didn't need a great coach. They expect to win because they are Notre Dame. Don't ask me to explain the extension they gave him.
September 8th, 2017 at 12:27 AM ^
Urban was one stop away from proving he was at the top of his profession. They should have reached out to him then, however, instead of after he had proven himself. They thought they could get him then.....too late. This is the school that hired Gary Faust, thinking he could go toe-to-toe with the giants of the game and come out on top. This is also a testament to college football in general, something that would be replayed some thirty years later. Just like Faust, Weis failed badly. ND erred in both cases, not worried about what their resumes included, yet both were hired by other schools for their head jobs after their failure on the biggest stage. Reasoning there, I guess, was failure at ND somehow portended success at lesser schools.
September 7th, 2017 at 10:00 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 11:02 PM ^
I'm sure they've got the money. I think Weis is finally off the payroll, for starters.
And there are more than five coaches better than Kelly. His game management is awful. Hurricane winds? Time to pass 40 times!
September 8th, 2017 at 10:45 AM ^
They do get additional money from the ACC tv contracts and have one of the more lucrative apparel deals. Donor money is still huge in college football. If Notre Dame wanted to pay a coach the numbers you mention, which aren't unreasonable, I doubt they'd have any problem raising the money.
Is their revenue a factor in who they target? I can see the logic behind that, but it was never a factor in the past. It seems to be a part of their philosophy, much like it used to be here. We were deliberately behind the curve in paying head coaches, then assistants. Was that based on not wanting to be part of a salary arms race or believing that it's not necessary because you're Michigan or Notre Dame or both? In any case, we've left that behind. Another bad season for Kelly and we'll see whether ND will too.
September 7th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
Yes - Penn State joining the B1G seemd like a "lightning bolt out of a clear sky" at the time. And it can be viewed as the first domino in the realignment process that followed (Arkansas & South Carolina to the SEC, Florida State to the ACC, the Big East starting football, the Big XII and SWC merging, et cetera).
But Notre Dame signed their TV contract with NBC 6 months prior to the Penn State invite. I'd argue THAT was the first domino in the process.
The Notre Dame/NBC deal was a huge blow to what was the "College Football Association" TV group at the time (basically all the D-1 schools besides the B1G and the Pac-12). Everyone else in the CFA began to then realize it was "every man for themselves" in terms of TV contracts. The collective bargaining days were done, given that the then-biggest dog (Notre Dame) had decided to bail on the group. That got the ball rolling in terms of the 2 dozen then-independents looking to join conferences.
I'm really kind of surprised the ESPN article didn't mention the Notre Dame/NBC thing. That was a 8.0-type earthquake on the college football scene when it happened in 1989. And it was rather directly responsible for all the other realignment earthquakes that happened in later years.
September 7th, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^
Good post. ND was at the apex of their powers when that deal was signed. They had leverage over every conference but failed to predict the future conference tv deals that followed.
September 7th, 2017 at 6:00 PM ^
That superior leverage remained for a long time, too; they did eventually get passed in revenue by the conferences, but that has only occurred in the past ten years. For two decades Notre Dame had the sweetest deal in football, and they squandered it by rolling out Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham, George Oleary, and Charlie Weis.
A decade is a long time in college football; two decades is an era. While Notre Dame was embracing mediocrity, teams like Nebraska and Miami were forming dynasties with revenue situations that paled in comparison.
It's not that the NBC deal was a blunder; it's that, like the wishbone offense, it was a terrific advantage for a long time that has now been passed by. Notre Dame leaning on NBC today looks like Oklahoma running the wishbone in 1998.
September 7th, 2017 at 7:42 PM ^
the tide didn't completely turn in 2007, but it started to. It wasn't obvious at the time, but the BTN was a game-changer: a large revenue source that for some schools also has an equity component. Also something that an individual school can't really do on their own. One needs business partners (conference mates) for the $$$ to work.
Notre Dame bargained heavily for a full-share of revenue from the future ACC Network, and they're getting it. No blunder on their part. They need that $ simply to keep up anymore.
September 7th, 2017 at 10:12 PM ^
'Boy, if we had done something differently ... .'"- Jack Swarbrick
You mean like Join the B1G when you had the chance.... Too bad. To hell with Notre Dame!
September 8th, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^
More like 1986.
September 7th, 2017 at 5:56 PM ^
But Notre Dame signed their TV contract with NBC 6 months prior to the Penn State invite.
Has it been that long? Holy cow. Time flies.
I have long disliked Notre Dame football. I recall thinking at the time of that exclusive deal that it was yet another example of Notre Dame being considered "special" and "above" the other programs.
Notre Dame's recent descent into football "meh"-ness is sweetness to my senses.
September 8th, 2017 at 12:27 PM ^
I think the other stuff is really overblown. College football is a about one thing and one thing only, the coach. If you have the right coach everything else falls into place. No program is strong enough to overcome a bad coaching hire. Michigan, USC, Texas, and Tennessee among others have learned this the hard way.
Since Lou Holtz, who is a college football legendary coach, they have had a succession of bums. Bob Davie, Tyone Willingham, Charlie Weis, and now they have a peter principle coach in Brian Kelly.
Honestly they screwed up big time by running George O'Leary out of town due to "biographical innacuracies". Look at what he did at UCF and try tell me that if he was at ND, with those resources he wouldn't have been successful.
September 8th, 2017 at 2:13 PM ^
Unicorn coaches like Saban, Meyer, and Harbaugh are really really hard to find.
September 7th, 2017 at 6:00 PM ^
Kind of shocking since it was their home opener and the first game in the renovated stadium.
September 7th, 2017 at 8:40 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 9:24 PM ^
No kidding.
I prefer to wheat or pumpernickel have a sellout, personally.
September 7th, 2017 at 11:33 PM ^
chigago tribune -Greenstein
September 7th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 8:27 PM ^
There are a lot of thoughtful and interesting comments in this thread. A lot of crowd souced collective knowledge and insight here. The sort of stuff in this thread is what makes MGoBlog so valuable.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: To Hell with Notre Dame!
September 7th, 2017 at 8:36 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 8:51 PM ^
September 7th, 2017 at 9:20 PM ^
They've thought their shit hasn't stank for years. They deserve to be left behind.
September 7th, 2017 at 10:12 PM ^
It sets out to show that conference realignment "leveled the field," but it actually shows that it was changes to how TV rights were apportioned that did it. And actually conference realignment was a consequence of that change.
September 7th, 2017 at 11:15 PM ^
September 8th, 2017 at 1:18 AM ^
The author mentions, but underplays, the significance of the 1984 Supreme Court ruling ending the restriction on the number of times a team could appear on national television. The fact that prominent teams quickly began to have nearly all their games televised shows that there were significant unmet demand.
Another prime driver for realignment was the 1987 NCAA rule change allowing 12 team conferences to split into divisions and host lucrative conference championship games. The SEC was the first D-1A conference to do this by adding Arkansas from the Southwest Conference and independent South Carolina for the 1992 season.
It was the push for TV deals which helped doom the Southwest Conference, which by 1991 was composed of only Texas schools, plus Arkansas. With the loss of Arkansas its fate was sealed, as a Texas-only conference had limited national appeal,
I have always wondered if the Delaney's plan to expand the Big 10 with addition of Penn State in 1991 also included adding Notre Dame, giving the Big Ten a championship game, as well.
September 8th, 2017 at 2:00 AM ^
was going to be a "hit." Seems silly in retrospect, but some thought the game would be a failure and an overall dumb idea.
As for Penn State: the person most singularly responsible for PSU getting the B1G invite was then-Illinois President Stan Ikenberry. He was previously at PSU and basically initiated the idea and then gathered support among the various other Presidents. Delany --- relatively new to the job at that point --- was more along for the ride on that one. It wasn't his idea.
PSU barely squeaked by in that vote anyway. Passed 7-3, just clearing the 67% threshold. I don't think there was a grand plan for the B1G to go to 12 back in the 1989-1992 era.
September 8th, 2017 at 2:09 PM ^
was that, at the time, it was not envisioned as an expansion of the Big 10. It was a virtually foregone conclusion back then that Northwestern would be withdrawing from the Big 10 (possibly even joining the Ivy League) and PSU was seen as a replacement for them like MSU replaced Chicago.
September 8th, 2017 at 5:50 PM ^
THE swing vote on the issue. Northwestern was worried their membership was at risk, and was very hesitant to vote "yes." If they voted no, the vote would have failed --- the 3 "no" votes were rather firm. Minnesota & Indiana especially so; Duderstadt and U-M was a "somewhat softer no" but still very unlikely to flip.
I forgot about this --- but did some research and confirmed --- part of the PSU vote also included an amendment to the conference constitution freezing conference membership at 11 for the next 3 years.
September 8th, 2017 at 3:23 PM ^