Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Upon Further Review todd D. burlage were announced, all loyalty and bets were off, setting in motion the perfect opportunity to immediately join the ACC in time for the 2013-14 school year. Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick negotiated a deal with the Big East, similar to that of the other seven outgoing Catholic institutions, March 12 to join the ACC in 2013-14. With the Big East essentially rendered toothless in the realignment jungle, playing hardball with Swarbrick would have been a bad PR move for a conference still trying to reinvent itself with a collection of Conference USA defectors and a few public Big East leftover schools. ACC commissioner John Swofford helped streamline the conference transition, announcing that whenever Notre Dame is ready to come on board, there will be a seat reserved at the ACC table ��� no matter how short a timeframe is needed to sort through any scheduling and logistical details necessary to move the 19 incoming Irish athletic programs into a stable place. A certain amount of nostalgia, reflection and sadness is in order while Notre Dame winds down its 18th and final season as a Big East member. But with the enormous challenges and opportunities waiting for the Irish in their new conference, the time has come to look forward, not back. After all, what would be more enjoyable for Notre Dame athletes and fans next season, playing Duke and North Carolina as a new basketball member of the ACC, or playing East Carolina and Tulane as a leftover member of a conference to be named later? Talk About Bad Timing With the momentum Muffet McGraw has built in her Notre Dame women���s basketball program, this Big East dissolution must be a big-time disappointment to her. A perfect 16-0 regular-season record made McGraw and the Irish only the third program in Big East history (Connecticut and Rutgers) to win outright league titles in consecutive seasons. More importantly, the thrilling triple-overtime win over Connecticut March 4 gave McGraw her sixth win in the last seven tries against legendary UConn head coach Gino Auriemma ��� an unthinkable accomplishment, given his seven national championships, a near 90-percent career win rate, and his 28 victories in the first 32 meetings against McGraw���s Irish from 1996-2011. Notre Dame and Connecticut have built the greatest conference rivalry in women���s basketball, and these two legendary programs will certainly clash plenty in the postseason for years to come. But to cut Big East ties between the two schools when McGraw and Notre Dame have finally grabbed the upper hand is yet another tragic byproduct of a changing NCAA landscape. ��� Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com