Notre Dame football was once the greatest program in all of college sports. It was even better than UCLA basketball because it had this long tradition that goes very far back to the olden days of football in American colleges. Notre Dame football has been rejuvenated many times over, and the program has even been good in the past 30 years. Lou Holtz came there to revitalize the program, and he got Tony Rice and Tim Brown to come there. He made it into a power because they had the cache to be broadcast as an independent, but that would not have worked in the modern day.
The new Notre Dame
The new Notre Dame is an independent that is simply riding outside the money and structure of the big Conferences. Those conferences make millions because of their TV deals, and they are able to use the resources to improve their programs. They have infused cash into their programs many times over, and they are ensuring that their programs have as much popularity as possible so that they can recruit. The recruits see these teams on TV because they play on ESPN and CBS. They play on ABC where they are obvious, and Notre Dame has been playing on NBC so long that we still forget that they are on that network. They may make money, but they are losing a recruiting war because they do not seem as important as they once did.
It does not ring in the ear
Notre Dame does not ring in the ears of players like it does for people who are my age. Anyone who is in their 30s and 40s remembers when the Notre Dame program was so good that you have to revere their name, and they remember that that program was among the best in the history of the sport. In much the same way that Michigan looks a little bit less than stellar than its record would suggest, Notre Dame does not carry the same weight in its name that it did in the past.
Notre Dame needs a conference
I would honestly like to see Notre Dame in the Big Ten, but that will be a choice for them as they move forward as a football independent. They play Big East basketball, but they would be an amazing Big Ten team in football. No one knows how that would work if they wanted to shift their allegiances, and the people who run college football would have to sign off on what the college wanted to do.
The school has the power and control to go just about anywhere they want, but they should use that power to go to a place that would be better for them as a whole university. They should go somewhere where they fit in, and that is likely the Big Ten.
