Cavalier Corner Digital

ble with smiles so wide they stretched the length of the Eastern time zone. At first glance, there is nothing to dislike about Notre Dame's recently announced move to the Atlantic Coast Conference. MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY After two years of regular speculation about the future of both entities, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick and the ACC quietly came to terms this week on a deal that brings all Irish sports except football and hockey to the conference. The benefits go well beyond a stable home for the school's 24 other sports teams. The culture surrounding the conference is exactly what Notre Dame wanted. The only Midwest thing about Notre Dame today is its zip code. It's an East Coast school planted in the cornfields of north- ern Indiana. That may have been different a generation ago, but you need not look further than recent "home" games in New York and Washington, D.C., to see the change. Academically, the ACC is the best fit for Notre Dame as well. The conference includes 10 of the top 58 universities in the country according to the most recent U.S. News & World Report survey. Notre Dame will make No. 11, and believe it or not that actually does still matter to those who keep their offices close to the cam- pus's golden dome. "With a mix of institutions — many of which are also private, similar to Notre Dame in size, and committed to excel- lence in research and undergraduate edu- cation — the ACC is an exceptionally good fit for us academically, as well as IRISH MAKE THE RIGHT MOVE S omewhere in a smoke-filled room last week two men pushed away from a ta- athletically," university president Rev. John Jenkins said Wednesday morning. The only obstacle keeping Notre Dame from making this move a year ago, when Pittsburgh and Syracuse made a similar jump, was the ACC's insistence on the Irish bringing their football team along with them. Notre Dame did bend with the conference on those grounds, agreeing to play five games against ACC opponents each year. That, too, is a positive for Notre Dame. The new ties to the ACC in football solve one of the biggest problems cur- rently facing the program — its lack of bowl affiliations. In the future the Irish will be looped into the conference's non- BCS bowl bids and won't have to fight for scraps from whatever conference doesn't fill its postseason slots. That means po- tential trips to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, the Russell Athletic Bowl (formerly the Champs Sports Bowl) and the Music City Bowl. That doesn't sound glorious, but it's a lot better than the second-tier options the Irish might be left with at the end of the current season. Five football games each year dedicated to the ACC raises eyebrows, but unfurrow your foreheads. Not much has to change to get there. There are four on the schedule in 2012. The Irish can and will keep their annual rivalries with USC, Navy and Stan- ford. That leaves them with four regular- season chances to schedule traditional Big Ten opponents or other notable programs. The pseudo-conference matchups with some of the ACC's softer teams will pro- vide all of the "catch your breath" games that Notre Dame needs to keep its sched- ule from being a complete murderer's row. Meanwhile, they can continue to de- velop series with teams like Boston Col- lege, Miami and Pittsburgh and add some- what regular meetings with Virginia Tech Notre Dame has agreed to play five games against ACC opponents each year — with each conference member rotated in at least once every three years — and will be able to take advantage of all the league's bowl tie-ins. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA and Florida State. Playing in Southern cities such as Miami, Atlanta and Tallahas- see on a regular basis will give the Irish a foothold in one of the most talent-rich areas of the country. A slide to the Southeast while staying rooted in the Midwest provides a big boost for Notre Dame recruiting. Last year, the Irish volunteered to play in front of a measly 31,500 at Wake Forest in the two teams' first meeting. Head coach Brian Kelly said a big factor in that decision was putting his team in front of the growing high school football market in the Caroli- ✦ PAGE 19 nas. They will be making plenty more trips there in the future to visit the five ACC schools based in those two states. So, forget the coup this is for sports like basketball, soccer and baseball. Forget that Notre Dame is successfully pulling away from the sparse Jenga tower that is the Big East before it collapses. Forget the benefit of joining a conference while keeping its own television deal and every- thing else it wanted. Notre Dame's move this week is a win for football alone. ✦ E-mail Dan at dmurphy@blueandgold.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @BGI_DanMurphy.

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