Friarfan, very good points on Notre Dame and totally agree with your comments.

Notre Dame requiting will most likely be hurt for years to come by the young African American high schools kids who may think twice on attending the school. For that matter any requit may have a hard time picking the school to play football after what happened on the firing of a good coach. Can we say no win situation here and remaining independent in football just adds more issue to the new Notre Dame school. Forget the storied program that ancient history.

I just wished Mike T would deal with the Notre Dame issue. If there are basketball only schools creating a friction on the voting, deal with those schools as well. Mike is more concerned with today and not the future and lets TV dictate the dicisions of the conference. You have to look at long term and not just the TV dollars that can be made in the current year.

The commish of the ACC dealt with North Carolina and Duke when resistence occured and Mike could do that as well or get someone who can handle the heat.

If Notre Dame were forced to join in football , Boston College would most likely have remained and Louisivlle an Cincinnati would have been good replacements for Va Tech and Miami.

The conference could have remained with 14 which is not as unwieldily as 16 members.

For that matter Miami and Va Tech would probably have remained for a 9 team alignment.

There is just not excuse for allowing Notre Dame to remain independent. Do not buy Tigersharks argument that money will flow because its not flowing now. Notre Dame would not be missed in revenue with the current alignment.

If forced, Notre Dame would join the Big East. If the Big 10 were in the plans Notre Dame would already be there and leaving the Big East for a mid major basketball conference is not going to happen either.

I think St Johns has always supported the football schools and Villanova as well.

If any basketball only school would support Notre Dame remaining independent then that school deserves to be ousted as well.

It is time the Big East gets tough with its own members to get this conference on the right track for the future. Any school that does not want to fully support the conference should get walking papers. It just that simple.

Yes ND has and will generate money for themselves and their BE friends.Don't forget the marketplace for tv will increase with a top notch program like Louisville(the new votech) add a few ND games a ninth member and a great bb league and the money will come.

tigersharktwo, for once I am going to be from Missouri and you need to show me.

How and where is Notre Dame helping with cash?

Notre Dame does not share any of its NBC TV contract yet takes it share of the basketball contact money.

Notre Dame only has one future BE football team on its schedule with Pitt. Not any more help than a Pitt series with Penn State or some other Big 10 school would accomplish.

Gator bowl you say helps?
There is such a glut of bowls right now that new bowls are not being created due to eligibility of teams to play.

6 of the new Big East football teams are playing in bowls. Cant see how this would change if Notre Dame were forced out.

And by the way Notre Dame has one of those Big East bowls with a 6 and 5 record. Of course that cash will go to Notre Dame. Please lets not share its not a good thing.

Again, please show me the money. I could go along with your argument if there were some actual facts to back it up.

ND is expected to have little to do with NBE football, having scheduled around those schools. Only if the NBE takes a tough stand regarding "all-or-none" will the lads give in. They are not now in a position of strength.

Except for Pitt & Syracuse, Westwolf. Syracuse is on the schedule twice in the next four years. Pitt is on the scheule 9 times in the next 11 years! :o So, Notre Dame will have something to do with the NBE.

Schedules after 2008 are listed as "tentative & incomplete," so really from then on anything can be done.

Agree that ND is not now in a position of strength. Worse than that, they are in a position of massive denial, delusion, & self-aggrandizement.

Mike T. said ND will soon be announcing BE football games beyond the Pitt series.ND has it in for BC so their games will likely come to BE.ND supports BE in the BCS.This support is critical.ND support is also critical to other BE bowls.TV games with ND once year will help bE tv.No ND has great tv power.While,some fans would leave ND,the AD's of the BE will NOT.

Following is a link to a discussion on the value of ND in the Big East and the pros and cons of ND joining a conference. The second post on this thread, from irishfan13, is a repost of a lengthy ND perspective on these issues from one of the moderators (SillyOlBear). Silly also joins in on the thread discussion. It’s an interesting read…

Time to join a conference?
http://mb6.scout.com/fnotredamefrm1.showMessage?topicID=6238.topic

While it's true that Tranghese siad this, Tigershark, I have a hard time figuting out who it is that ND would schedule beyond Pitt & Syracuse, with whom they have long histories. They actively opposed Cincinnati joining BE & weren't much more enthusiastic about Louisville. South Florida? UConn? They wouldn't seem to have much in common with either of these. They have some history with West Virginia & Rutgers is a game that offers something for their alum in NYC.

So, Pitt, Syracuse, & maybe Rutgers. Throw in an occasional West Virginia game. Beyond that, I don't see it. Overall, the new Big East Football is not a group of schools that ND has a lot in common with. Now when BC & Miami were there with Pitt, Syracuse, . . . That was another story

Thanks for the link, Cybercat. It is a very interesting read. At least they're willing to say it's all about the money

I think they are misinformed about the Big Ten. The newspapers back in 1999 wrote a lot of stories about what were preliminary discussions. An Iowa professor posted here last year, I believe, that in reality Notre Dame never had the votes among the Big Ten consortium. My guess is that it's more delusion among the ND faithful.

I would see ongoing series with both Syracuse and Pitt.The rest of the time I see series with WVU and Rutgers as well as UCONN.Thus on average ND will have 3 games per year with BE schools.The only school or schools that ND wanted were Army and Navy.These 2 schools were vetoed by the BE football schools.

Agree. I could see Syracuse, Pitt, & one other rotational game. In fact a 12 team conference with ND in a division with a nucleus of Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers could some day draw ND's interest. I can't see them in a football conference wuich requires them to play Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, etc.

I think you're wrong about ND wanting Army & Navy. They never said this. In fact, they never showed any interest in joining a Big East Football conference, so why would they want either of the service academies in a conference in which they had no interest? They certainly didn't want them in for basketball; the academies bring nothing to the table in that regard. So, just what part of the conference did they want them to join? ???

Completely disagree. As someone who is involved with a Big ten school, the word around there was that Delaney had the votes from the ADs and Presidents lined up and it wasn't a close one. He definitely did on that campus.

Some research faculty may have had issues, but usually their "votes" are symbolic only in these things.

You keep talking this ND & Army stuff, but it never happened.

Not one article in the entire country has every been written that said ND wants Army (or Navy for that matter) to be a BE member. Not one.

A navy-less BE may get 2 games, but not 3.

EarthX, I stand corrected. :)

Newark Star Ledger wrote about this in the fall 2003.(Army and Navy to share BE membership).The AD at Rutgers spoke of this. many times in public.No one spoke of ND being a full member.They spoke about what is happening now 3 games per year plus an Army and Navy match up ND already has a Navy game.Thus those Army and Navy would have 6 BE games of which 4 would be with BE full football membersNavy) and 5 for ND(3 with BE football members and 2 with Army and Navy.However,the BE football members would support this,at this time.