Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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C What Does Change Mean For The Irish? MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY and its NCAA partner usually move as fast as traffic at that Times Square intersection, change appears finally to have arrived. Before the next time we watch an ollege football is at a crossroads. A 46th and Broadway kind of crossroads. And while the sport actual game being played, we will al- most certainly see a new system for choosing a national champion emerge. The flawed Bowl Championship Se- ries limps out of a year marked by ugly corruption, sinking television rat- ings and a championship rematch that left fans with a taste in their mouths as sour as it has ever been. Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick, who is part of the 12-man BCS Commission, will meet with the 11 other members (Football Bowl Sub- division conference commissioners) and a handful of television partners in late April to roll up their sleeves and try to find a fair solution. The confer- ence commissioners and Swarbrick plan to reach a decision by July. Where will Swarbrick and the Irish Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick said of potential changes to the college football postsea- be standing then? Notre Dame brings the shortest stack of chips it has ever carried to this particular table. The school's 20-year- old television deal with NBC no lon- ger separates it from the pack. Tech- nology has allowed other conferences and teams to catch up and build their own national brand. It doesn't help that the BCS meetings are the only championship conversation the Irish have been a part of in quite some time. The power position for Notre Dame has ceded ground at each major shake- up of the bowl system. From the Bowl Coalition to the Bowl Alliance to the BCS, Swarbrick's predecessors have been nudged further from the head of the table. Some believe the next change will be more of a two-handed shove than a nudge. Yes, there's a decent chance that Irish enjoy because of their ability to fill up stadiums grow longer each time the bowl system is revised. Special treatment of any kind is in jeopardy this time around if the BCS commis- sioners decide to nix automatic quali- fiers. The Irish will have to earn their trips to big-money bowls by being one of the top 10 teams in the country. That seems fair, and really not that different from the current requirements. The road to a national champion- ship has always been the same for Notre Dame as any major program. If anything, a playoff makes it easier for the Irish to win a title. A lone loss in the current system likely knocks them out of contention. More teams getting an equal shot in the postseason means anyone can recover from a slip. The biggest threat to Notre Dame's Domers will take a blow to their ego this summer — and to their wallet if they lose the $1.3 million annual ap- pearance fee they receive whether or not they make an appearance. That doesn't spell doomsday for the pro- gram that once defined college foot- ball. Finding money won't be an issue for the Irish program anytime soon. 6 APRIL 2012 When it comes to the two things Notre Dame treasures most — winning na- tional championships and remaining independent — its so-called relevance is irrelevant. The shortcuts to a major bowl the son, "I hope that with whatever future model emerges, strength of schedule is an important factor." PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND setup will never pass. The benefit of having a strong schedule would become even more of a joke than it is now. Any incentive to schedule a halfway decent non-conference game would completely disappear. The ability to create a rigorous schedule is Notre Dame's greatest asset as an independent, and Swarbrick will be fighting hard to raise the relevance of a strong résumé. "I hope that with whatever future model emerges, strength of schedule is an important factor," Swarbrick said in an interview with Sports Il- lustrated. "Putting greater emphasis on that is good for the strength of the game." If automatic qualifiers disappear and strength of schedule becomes an important factor in picking playoff teams, Notre Dame's case to remain independent could grow stronger this summer rather than the school being forced to find itself a conference. The power handed to Notre Dame championship hopes (and hopes of staying independent) is the idea that only conference champions should have access to a playoff. Several com- missioners, including the Pac-12's Larry Scott and the Big Ten's Jim Del- aney, say that's the best way to decide the issue on the field. If the BCS is serious about keeping for its past contributions to college football may wane in the coming months. Its chance to remain a major player in the game isn't going any- where. The Irish will just have to earn it on the field again. It's hard to argue with that. ✦ a regular season where "every game counts," a conference champions only Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED