Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME that, more than any other team, benefits with a four-team playoff. I mean their schedule is really a tough schedule. … They play tough schedules every year, and they're going to benefit. They're going to be a fourth-place team, and once you get in the playoffs, anything can happen. So they're the one team that really benefits by four teams, and they should benefit, because they do play tough schedules." ESPN's Beano Cook on the new four-team playoff format set to begin in 2014 "I think Notre Dame is the one team THEY SAID IT I talk to our staff about this all the time, is do we have a culture built here that if someone saw something that was wrong would they feel comfortable coming forward and saying something? Every day we try and reinforce that message that if you see something that's amiss here, we want to know about it, in any aspect of our program. I hope we have that culture. I think we do." — Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick in an interview with WNDU's Jeff Jeffers "The lesson for me from the Penn State situation, and cited the way it's playing out. We'll have a chance now to continue that independent status that is important to us because we'll have access to that final four, and hav- ing that access was important to us." — Irish head coach Brian Kelly on the new college football playoff "As it relates to Notre Dame, [I] couldn't be more ex- "I was always in favor of a playoff. Of course, the dis- cussions would come up, then they'd die away when I was coaching. Then they'd come up the next year, and the same thing would happen. Finally, they came up with the Bowl Champi- onship Series, and at least it was a step in the right direction. This, going to four teams now, is an- other step in the right direction." — Former Irish head coach Ara Parseghian (South Bend Tribune) PHOTO COURTESY ESPN IMAGES conference, you regionalize yourself. I think the fact that Notre Dame is a national school in football, they should remain independent as long as they possibly can." — Former Irish coach Lou Holtz (South Bend Tribune) of how hefty this route is for the Irish, consider that Miami — after BYU (a team that may win 10 games this fall) — could prove to be the seventh toughest game on the schedule." — CBSSports.com's Bruce Feldman on Notre Dame's 2012 schedule, which he deemed the toughest in the nation "Wait, where are the cupcakes? Perhaps the best proof being connected to the East is extremely important. … I keep an eye on the league stuff all the time. When I see someone do a bowl alliance deal my mind starts work- ing. What does that mean for some league movement? And I don't think we're done. There are still some things that are moving." — Irish basketball coach Mike Brey on potential conference realignment "I do have some concerns. For our program, I think AUGUST 2012 22 Dame is truly a national school. You can recruit anywhere in the country. You can play anywhere in the country and draw tremen- dous fan support. It's a national school. The minute you join the "My feelings are that Notre