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Notre Dame’s Playoff run is proof that the Irish can stay independent and thrive
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Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz used to paraphrase a quote from Saint Thomas Aquinas anytime he was asked what it meant to be associated with the Irish.
“For those who understand, no explanation is needed,” he would say. “For those who do not understand, no explanation will suffice.”
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips understands. He spent 4 years as an associate athletic director at Notre Dame and had 2 children attend the university, including one who ran track.
He especially understands the school’s traditions. And how Notre Dame clings to the independent status of its storied football program as if it were a rosary at Mass.
That’s why no matter how many times he publicly expresses his hope that Notre Dame will someday relent and begin playing football as a full-time member of his conference – or how sincere he sounds when he says it – Phillips knows that he’s fighting a losing battle.
The ACC isn’t chasing the ghosts of Rockne, Rudy and The Gipper.
It’s just chasing a ghost.
An apparition that has all but vanished into thin air because of the events of the past few weeks.
It was originally hoped that the new College Football Playoff format, with its 4 opening-round byes available only to league champions, might become the tipping point that finally pushed the Irish toward conference affiliation in football. With the ACC being the most logical landing spot because of its association in all other sports.
Instead, the opposite has happened.
While conference membership would presumably enhance Notre Dame’s Playoff chances by providing an opportunity to win its way into the field, as Clemson did in the ACC and Arizona State in the Big 12, the Irish’s semifinal run has shown school officials that there are many more reasons to hang onto their precious independence than to give it up.
No matter what happens in Thursday’s Sugar Bowl matchup against Penn State.
Let’s start with the finances.
By winning their first 2 games against Indiana at home and Georgia at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Irish have taken in $14 million in bonus money – $4 million for making the Playoff, another $4 million getting out of the first round and $6 million for advancing to the semifinals. They can add another $6 million by beating the Nittany Lions and qualifying for the national championship game on Jan. 20. The Irish are favored by 2.5 points, via DraftKings Sportsbook.
Unlike the other 11 Playoff participants, including fellow semifinalists Penn State, Texas and Ohio State, the Irish don’t have to share the windfall with the rest of their conference.
They get to keep it all. And that’s on top of the $50 million Notre Dame is getting annually from the media rights deal with NBC it recently extended through 2029, along with the revenue generated from a wildly successful opening-round home game.
The electric atmosphere under the lights for that win against the Hoosiers, combined with quarterfinal losses by all 4 of the teams that received byes, showed that there might actually be an advantage to those teams seeded 5 through 8.
At least until the format is tweaked to potentially give the byes to the 4 highest ranked teams rather than the 4 highest-ranked conference winners.
Or byes are done away with altogether when the field is inevitably expanded to 16.
Beyond the dollars and cents, the success coach Marcus Freeman and his team have achieved thus far is validation that even in the era of transfer portal, NIL and super conferences, Notre Dame isn’t relying simply on its name and its history to stay relevant.
As the only semifinalist not affiliated with the Big Ten or SEC, the Irish are proving that they can still compete at the highest level of college football without conforming or compromising their principles.
Winning a national championship, something that hasn’t happened since 1988, would make an even louder statement.
Not that they’re looking for a megaphone to shout “I told you so!”
“We don’t do it because it’s financially advantageous or competitively advantageous,” former athletic director Jack Swarbrick said of Notre Dame’s football independence shortly before his retirement last June. “We do it because of the value to the university.”
The closest the Irish have come to conference affiliation came during the COVID pandemic in 2020. With their season in danger of cancellation, the ACC threw them a lifeline by inviting them to play a full league schedule and compete for a championship.
Even though they advanced to the ACC title game and earned a bid to the then-4 team Playoff, Notre Dame and the ACC quickly went their separate ways again once life began returning to normal.
And it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Because if the opportunity to play for a conference championship wasn’t enough incentive for Notre Dame to break tradition and join then, there’s no reason for it to be motivated to do so now.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
