ESPN College Football

ACC commissioner John Swofford talks about the agreement between Notre Dame and the ACC, why the Irish didn't have to commit to the conference in football and more.

ESPN college football writer Brett McMurphy talks about why the ACC was willing to take Notre Dame without a football commitment, what this means for the ACC, if other conferences were going after Notre Dame and more.

ACC commissioner John Swofford and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick addressed the media Wednesday and answered several questions about the Irish joining the league in all sports but football.

• Swofford said the league has no plans to add a 16th member at this time. The big reason is because Notre Dame will not join as a football member. Adding a 16th team would throw off the football divisions; the ACC has no divisions in basketball.
• Notre Dame plans on implementing its ACC foootball scheduling partnership in 2014, with five games against ACC schools per season. The current plan is to have Notre Dame play every ACC school at least once in a three-year period. The Irish already have future scheduling arrangements with Boston College, Pittsburgh, Miami, Wake Forest and Syracuse. Swofford and Swarbrick said they would evaluate to see if maintaining those contracts on the years they are currently scheduled would work best out of the gate. In addition, Swarbrick would not say if the annual series with Boston College would end.
• This new partnership also means Notre Dame joins the ACC bowl lineup. Notre Dame would be an option as an opponent in the Orange Bowl. Beyond that, Notre Dame would be a potential team to play in any of the ACC contracted bowls. Its overall record would have to be better than, equal to or within one win of ACC teams available to be selected. Notre Dame would share in the revenues if selected to any of those bowls, and get an expenses allowance. If Notre Dame is picked for a BCS game, it would keep its revenues from that appearance. This bowl partnership would begin for the 2014 season.
• Swofford said league athletic directors may revisit the decision to play a nine-game league schedule with the Notre Dame scheduling agreement. Teams like Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State would have to play their in-state rival game and Notre Dame at least once in a three-year span during nonconference.
• On the same note, Swofford said adding Notre Dame helps boost strength of schedule, an important factor that will be considered when teams are selected for the future playoff. "When you consider the BCS going forward and how strength of schedule is going to be evaluated and monitored, this arrangement is good for our teams and I think it will be good for Notre Dame because that will be more of a factor in a team’s ability to get into the semifinals," Swofford said.
• Swarbrick would say only that Notre Dame plans to honor its commitment to the Big East. That would require a 27-month waiting period and entry in 2015-16. But recent departing schools have left earlier.
• By the way, the $50 million exit fee goes into effect immediately.

Brian Kelly has landed six commitments from North Carolina since arriving at Notre Dame in 2010. He has a commitment from Virginia in each class from 2012 to 2014. He was 0-for-12 in Maryland and Washington D.C. through three years before landing 2013 commit Devin Butler (Washington, D.C./Gonzaga).

Colleague Jared Shanker says you can expect those numbers to grow with the news of Notre Dame's scheduling agreement with the ACC.

The post is Insider, so you have to be a subscriber to read it. But Shanker makes the case for the Irish's exposure in ACC cities to help their recruiting efforts.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick maintained Wednesday that the decision to jump to the ACC had nothing to do with instability in the Big East.

Addressing questions about why the Irish made the move at this time, Swarbrick essentially said the postseason bowl picture was the overriding reason.

"It’s really related to the BCS," Swarbrick said on a conference call with reporters. "It wasn’t about any changes in the Big East. It wasn’t about media contracts. It was once we had an understanding of how the BCS would work, our focus turned to the other elements of postseason, everything below that. It was just the time to take a look at what our future held."

Notre Dame does not really have yearly bowl tie-ins. It had a bowl arrangement with the Big East that is not nearly as strong as the one it got from the ACC. Under Big East terms, Notre Dame got a spot in a Big East bowl game once every four years if the Irish were at least 7-5 and within two wins of an eligible Big East team. That happened last year, when the Champs Sports Bowl picked Notre Dame.

Now, Notre Dame will be a part of the ACC bowl lineup every year and eligible for selection if its overall record is better than, equal to or within one win of ACC teams available. This will probably give the ACC more options when it comes to renegotiating bowl contracts. The Big East had this bowl arrangement with Notre Dame for that very reason.

"For us, this was not about going from something. It was about going to something, and the opportunities especially on the academic front we think the ACC offers," Swarbrick said. "I’m bullish on the Big East. I think with the leadership of Mike Aresco, with the moves they’ve made to add other institutions. ... I’ve already seen people interpret this move as having strong negative consequences for the Big East. I don’t share that view."

Jack Swarbrick said his goal is to implement the football portion of Notre Dame's ACC scheduling agreement in the 2014 season. What, if anything, will be lost when the Irish begin playing five ACC opponents a year?

The athletic director said the school will follow scheduling contract termination provisions if it needs to cancel a future series. But remember, Notre Dame already played three ACC schools during last year's regular season, in addition to a fourth, Florida State, in the Champs Sports Bowl. And the Irish face three more this season, not including current Big East member Pitt, which is joining the ACC next season.

Here's what Notre Dame has lined up, and how these rivalries could be affected by Wednesday's news.

Navy: Swarbrick's direct words during Wednesday's conference call: "As everyone close to Notre Dame knows, the tradition of playing Navy has very deep and important roots for the university." The longest intersectional rivalry in college football is booked through the 2016 season. Don't expect it to go away after that.

Purdue: This series was extended in 2007 through the 2014 season. But with Swarbrick's insistence on going out West and playing Navy every year, this could be the first domino to fall. One Big Ten school figures to, at least, and the Boilermakers, frankly, don't provide the oomph or the history to the schedule that Michigan State and Michigan do. There is the chance Notre Dame simply alternates its Big Ten rivalries, keeping three off the schedule in a given year.

Michigan State: This series is scheduled through 2031, with two-year breaks in 2014-15, 2020-21 and 2026-27. MSU athletic director Mark Hollis said in a statement, according to the Detroit Free Press: "This series has great history, and we expect the rivalry will continue.”

Michigan: The schools agreed to a 20-year extension of their rivalry in 2007, taking the series through the 2031 season. But it was on a three-year rolling basis, giving either side the chance to opt out with three years' notice. They announced this summer that a two-year break is coming in the 2018 and 2019 campaigns, but that they intend to resume the series in the years following. Whether that changes after Wednesday's announcement remains to be seen.

Stanford: Swarbrick said it is important for Notre Dame to play annually on the West Coast. Translated: This series probably isn't going anywhere. Last year the two announced an extension of their home-and-home series through the 2019 season, and they have even talked about moving next year's regular-season finale to China, though talks have stalled since Cardinal AD Bob Bowlsby took the Big 12 commissioner job.

BYU: The programs are slated to meet in South Bend this year and next, with four games split between the two schools' locations sometime in 2014-20. That will probably be all for these two schools, assuming they can even keep those games alive.

Boston College: The schools are scheduled to take a break in 2013 and 2014 before resuming the Holy War in 2016, 2018 and 2019. But with the new ACC scheduling agreement forcing Notre Dame to play every ACC school at least once during a three-year cycle, this one could lose its annual billing.

USC: See Stanford above. This one isn't going anywhere, either.

Remember this day, ACC fans, because it’s going to be historic.

The ACC has managed to do what no other conference has been able to, and get Notre Dame to embrace change.

Not the Big Ten. Not the Big 12. The ACC.

“The only conference with whom we entered into substantive discussions was the ACC,” said Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick.

The ACC has done the unprecedented and won over Notre Dame -- so much so that if the Irish would ever decide to shed their cloak of independence, there’s no question the ACC would be their new football home.

“I want to reinforce that it’s our intention to remain independent,” Swarbrick said. “It’s central to us and was central to these discussions. If something should change -- I don’t know what that would be, but if something drastic would change -- we’re committed to the ACC. We would expect this to be the home of that if we made a change, but I don’t want to send the wrong message.”

The message “committed to the ACC” is a win in itself.

The ACC’s announcement on Wednesday that Notre Dame will join the conference in all sports but football is a major coup for the ACC and could be a steppingstone for the Irish into full-blown football membership. Both Notre Dame and the ACC had to make concessions to make this work. It's not the ACC's style to allow a member to join without the total package. Committing to five games seems like a prolonged engagement, with it only being a matter of time before these two finally get married. The ACC also jacked up its exit fee from about $20 million to more than $50 million -- an astronomical number that should once and for all put an end to any speculation about teams leaving the ACC.

(Just a reminder, it still only costs $10 million to leave the Big East.)

Don’t let John Swofford’s smile and polite handshake fool you: The mild-mannered businessman knows how to cut a deal -- not to mention recruit.

With this move, the ACC hit two home runs: It solidified its current membership for the future and cornered Notre Dame into a commitment. The biggest downside to this for ACC fans is the bowl arrangement. Under the new agreement, Notre Dame could step over an ACC team and take its place in one of the non-BCS bowls if its record is better than, equal to or within one win of the ACC team or ranked higher in the BCS standings. ACC fans are likely to get a taste of what has angered Big East fans for years. In the big picture, though, it's worth the trade-off.

While five football games might seem like a tease to many ACC fans, it’s important to remember that that’s almost half of Notre Dame’s schedule. Eventually, under this new agreement, every ACC team will face Notre Dame at least once in a three-year period. That’s an especially intriguing scenario, considering the ACC is moving to a nine-game conference schedule next year when Pittsburgh and Syracuse join the league.

Adding Notre Dame to the lineup for Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech, which already have built-in SEC rivals, will make a national championship run even more difficult, but it also will make for a more entertaining nonconference schedule (see you later, Savannah State and Murray State). It also will boost the ACC’s strength of schedule in time for the new playoff system, as Swarbrick said Notre Dame would like to begin the five-game arrangement as early as 2014.

The timetable for the other sports to leave the Big East is still unknown, as the Big East bylaw still requires a 27-month notice period for teams to leave. That has been followed about as well as a 35 mph speed limit sign, though, as Pitt, West Virginia and Syracuse all have set legal precedent to leave before then. Pitt and Syracuse will join the ACC in July 2013.

The possibility of Notre Dame football eventually following now seems more viable than ever.

Notre Dame's independence, born of prejudice nearly a century ago, will die of asphyxiation. With the announcement Wednesday morning that the school will play five football games a year against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents as a condition of its league membership in all other ACC-sponsored sports, the Fighting Irish are still, barely, independent.

But the vital signs of Notre Dame's ability to forge its own path have weakened over the two-decade life of the BCS and its antecedents. That independence has been central to the Catholic university's identity since it was forced upon them nearly a century ago. Michigan athletic director Fielding (Hurry Up) Yost led a movement to blackball Notre Dame from what is now the Big Ten Conference.

Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick and ACC commissioner John Swofford discuss Notre Dame joining the ACC in all sports except football.

The ACC had its weekly coaches' conference call shortly after the Notre Dame news broke. Here is a sampling of what some of the league coaches had to say about the addition of Notre Dame, which will play five games annually against ACC teams.

Frank Spaziani, Boston College: “We have a mutual respect for each other, an appreciation for each other. We understand what a great institution it is. So I think it’s tremendous for our league and certainly for Boston College. We play them; now to be playing them in other sports, it’s valuable. It’s very valuable. … It’s a marquee brand. I think any time you add a marquee brand to your established tradition and the wonderful stuff that you have, it enhances it.”

Then a joke: "From our perspective, we play them every year. I thought they were in the ACC, to be honest with you."

Dabo Swinney, Clemson: "I’m sure they could have their pick of conferences, and for them to choose the ACC is, I think, a great thing. They’re making a commitment to play five conference football games. Even though they’re not going to be a football member right now, for them to make that commitment, I think that’s very strong, so it’s exciting. It further secures this conference’s strength of schedule and moving forward as we get into the playoff scenarios. I think it’s a real positive for the ACC."

Randy Edsall, Maryland: "Personally, yes I wish they were all in for football, but again, until I get all the information in terms of how those five games are going to be structured and is it going to be a home-and-home situation, or who are the five teams they are going to play. There’s still so much information, but for the overall good of the league, it is a quality institution and a quality program."

Jim Grobe, Wake Forest: "It brings a lot of respect to our conference to have Notre Dame affiliated. Our game last year with them was probably the most exciting environment and fun night that we’ve had playing football. The problem is they’re good and we had a chance late to tie it and go into overtime. We didn’t get the job done; that was tough in the locker room after the game. But the excitement and the experience having Notre Dame come to town was fantastic."

Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech: "I think it's great for the ACC and great for Notre Dame. Both of us benefit ... helps us with the bowls in every way."

Al Golden, Miami, on the hope that Notre Dame becomes a full-time football member: "I think I share the sentiment of everybody: We’d love to have them. They represent all the things we represent in the Atlantic Coast Conference. I would hope it would be that at some point. I just think it’s great, and I can’t say enough about the leadership in our conference for what we’ve gotten done in the last year."

The carrot was always there dangling in front of Big East football: so tantalizingly close, but always just out of its grasp.

Notre Dame never had any intention of joining the Big East for football, but its presence as a member in all other sports loomed large because, well, Notre Dame is Notre Dame. Unfortunately, its disjointed membership also served as a daily reminder of what the league could never really get accomplished.

Football relevance.

Say what you will about Notre Dame and its lack of success on a national level over the past 20 years, but its football program remains more relevant than any program in the Big East. So relevant that the Big East has had a bowl partnership with Notre Dame that allowed the school to take one of its more coveted bowl spots once in a four-year rotation.

So relevant that when news broke Wednesday, pundits declared the impending death of the Big East -- even though Notre Dame has never played a football down as a member of the conference. There is no question that this loss is a big blow once again to the national perception of the Big East, which will limp along without prominent members Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia and now Notre Dame.

It is also a big blow to its other sports as well. The Irish have been dominant since joining the Big East in 1995, winning 116 conference titles -- more than any school in the league. Both the Big East and Notre Dame benefitted from their relationship in this way.

Though there were constant frustrations about why the Big East would ever allow Notre Dame in without the football component, the Irish increased the conference's national exposure and gave it something to truly brag on.

But in the end, it was simply a marriage of convenience between the two and one that was never really sustainable without football in the mix. Though Big East football would never be an option for Notre Dame, the conference allowed the Irish to continue on as members and gave them special access to bowls. Notre Dame also had a say in Big East football expansion, a clear and troubling conflict of interest.

When the Big East was at its low point last year after losing Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia, TCU backed out of its commitment, and there were rumblings that UConn, Rutgers and every other remaining member had sent out S.O.S. calls to other conferences, Notre Dame could have easily saved the conference if he had decided to join for football. But that was never going to happen.

Now the Irish have bailed, too.

The Big East, then, soldiers on with its reconfigured football look as television negotiations have gotten under way. In a statement, new Big East commissioner Mike Aresco said, “Notre Dame’s departure does not change our plans. We have prestigious institutions that are excited to be a part of the Big East. We remain committed to making the Big East stronger than it has ever been.”

Aresco hit all the talking points, as he should. Losing Notre Dame also means shedding that dangling football carrot. There will be no more sharing bowl spots, no more uncertainty and no one left to wonder about football pipe dreams.

But this league will feel its loss, even though Notre Dame never played football under its umbrella. Its perception is in tatters. Its relevancy has been downgraded. Perhaps this creates further instability and unhappiness among member schools that just saw yet another coveted member turn its nose and walk away.

As has been the case with the Big East since the first ACC raid in 2003, the league will find a way to pick itself up. But you have to wonder how many more gut punches the Big East can take, and whether it is truly stable enough to convince all of its doubters that it can be as great as it once was.

Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach discuss Notre Dame joining the ACC and the state of the SEC heading into the weekend.

Big East commissioner Mike Aresco just released a statement on Notre Dame's departure from the league.

“The University of the Notre Dame has informed us that it is joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports other than football. Notre Dame has been a valued member of the Big East Conference and we wish them success in the future. However, Notre Dame’s departure does not change our plans. We have prestigious institutions that are excited to be a part of the Big East. We remain committed to making the Big East stronger than it has ever been.”

Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com also reports that Notre Dame must pay a $5 million exit fee and wait 27 months to leave the conference. Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia all negotiated departures from the Big East that allowed them to leave without having to wait the full 27 months.

West Virginia paid $20 million to join the Big 12 for this season. Pitt and Syracuse will each pay $7.5 million to leave for the ACC in 2013.

Notre Dame will join the ACC as a full member with the exception of football, but will play five football games annually against ACC teams, the league announced Wednesday morning.

The Irish are currently Big East members in all sports but football. But instability in that league has left the Big East radically different than when Notre Dame first joined.

"We are committed to keeping the Atlantic Coast Conference a vibrant and competitive league dedicated to ensuring the appropriate balance of academics, athletics and integrity," the ACC Council of Presidents said in a joint statement. "The addition of Notre Dame further strengthens the rich tradition and culture of the ACC as well as allowing for future academic collaboration and we enthusiastically welcome them into the league."

ACC commissioner John Swofford said, "The ACC was founded on the cornerstones of balancing academics, athletics and integrity. Our partnership with Notre Dame only strengthens this long-standing commitment. Notre Dame enhances the league’s unique blend of public and private institutions that are international in scope. The collective alumni and fan bases cover the entire country with exceptionally strong roots up and down the Atlantic Coast. This is a terrific milestone in the evolution of the ACC and showcases tremendous solidarity and vision by our Council of Presidents."

It had been speculated that Notre Dame would look for another home for its Olympic sports after Pitt, West Virginia and Syracuse left the Big East last year. Pitt and Syracuse will join the ACC in 2013, following in the footsteps of former Big East members Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College.

The Big East, meanwhile, has added eight new members and will have 12 schools competing in the league in 2013.

"We have monitored the changing conference landscape for many months and have concluded that moving to the ACC is the best course of action for us," Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement. "We are able to maintain our historic independence in football, join in the ACC's non-BCS bowl package, and provide a new and extremely competitive home for our other sports."

The Council of Presidents also voted to increase the conference exit fee to three times the league's annual operating budget. Currently this would equate to an exit fee of more than $50 million.