Notre Dame reaction

In early July, we came across a very reliable piece of information indicating that some ACC presidents, including Clemson's James Barker, were meeting with Notre Dame in Winston-Salem.

It was a Sunday in the dead of summer. So it seemed like a big deal.

Some folks said it was all about the ACC's pursuit of an Orange Bowl partnership with Notre Dame. We were skeptical.

Some said our reporting was bogus. We were amused.

The feeling -- and we underscore the term "feeling," because we didn't know for sure -- was that this was about the ACC's dogged courtship of the Irish.

You can criticize John Swofford and the ACC for a lot of things, but one of the clear strengths is the ability to keep information in very tight circles. We were never able to get a read on what exactly was discussed that day. One of my guesses was that it was a last-ditch, unsuccessful effort for the ACC to land Notre Dame.

Over the last couple of months, a few plugged-in people I talked to painted the picture that the Notre Dame ship might've sailed. But you still wondered what was going on behind the scenes. You still wondered whether Barker, Swofford and Co. were still hammering away at trying to pull Notre Dame into the fold.

Fascinating stuff.

Today's links provide a sampling of the reaction to yesterday's big news.

-- In USA Today, this deal was a long time in the making.

Hatch and Clemson president James Barker, along with commissioner John Swofford, were the lead negotiators with Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick and president John Jenkins. Hatch and Barker are part of the ACC's special 4-4-4 committee that has been looking at expansion. The name comes from its makeup: four university presidents, four athletics directors and four faculty members.

Discussions with Notre Dame have gone back and forth for more than a year and reached critical mass this summer after the BCS playoff format was announced.

"I do think from Notre Dame's perspective-- and they said it publicly -- they wanted the BCS matters to become stable and then at that point they would look at the issue of affiliation," said Hatch. "In terms of timing â?¦ it was the season when this could be discussed."

It helped that Swarbrick and Swofford were part of the BCS inner circle and spent so much time together the last few years that Swarbrick joked "we're going to have to pick out china soon, I think."

In June the BCS announced it would have a two-game playoff starting after the 2014 season, with participating teams chosen by a selection committee. Notre Dame has been a member of the BCS since its beginning in the late 1990s despite not having a conference affiliation. The Irish will maintain their football independence in the new configuration.

Hatch said the ACC's negotiations with Notre Dame "came to a head in the last few days." The 4-4-4 committee met Tuesday and made a recommendation to conference presidents Tuesday night and the decision was made.

-- Columnist Christine Brennan says this is yet another indication that old-school regionalism is dying a slow death.

Notre Dame has always maintained a vivid and strong national TV presence in football, but by committing to play five football games a season with ACC schools, its coast-to-coast reach could even grow stronger, if that's possible. To fit those five games into its schedule, it likely will have to rotate or phase out entirely games with Midwestern neighbors and Big Ten schools such as Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue when those contracts come up. The Fighting Irish love to play USC and Stanford on the West Coast and Navy on the East. There's the occasional Oklahoma and BYU thrown in, as well. Something's got to give for Notre Dame, and who can blame them? So many others are setting up their sports schedules on a virtual map, so why shouldn't Notre Dame?

-- In the Chicago Sun-Times, some good color from yesterday's press conferences.

As his umpteenth and final news conference of the day began to wind down, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick looked out at a crowded field of reporters and cameras, thought back to all the emails he had received throughout the day and reflected on how his program was on the front page of every major sports website and on the tongues of every sports talk radio host.

“It’s an awful lot of attention for a school that’s not relevant anymore,” Swarbrick said with a sly smile.

Notre Dame showed it still has plenty of muscle in the world of college athletics on Wednesday, flexing its way into what both sides deemed a “win-win” deal with the Atlantic Coast Conference.

And this is what Irish basketball coach Mike Brey had to say:

“We didn’t want to be the last one on the deck if things start, you know ..."

-- At Warchant, some insight from AD Randy Spetman:

Said it still has to be decided when Notre Dame will show up on ACC team's schedules. He thinks it will be a three-year rotation when FSU would play ND. So if they play in South Bend it would be three more seasons before the Irish would come to Tallahassee.

When ND is on the schedule it will affect ability for FSU to have seven home games, but Spetman said he thinks the loss of a home game will be offset by the fact that when Notre Dame comes in Tallahassee there won't be a fee on FSU's end so the revenue will offset itself.

Spetman also said as of now the addition of ND looks like it will net each school between $1-1.5 million dollars per year. He expects it to increase down the line.

Said he did not know what the vote of the presidents was on the increased buyout. The new fee does increase stability, "It cements the conference together for the long term."

Said he wasn't there when asked what FSU's vote was.

"We've said all along that the media has rumored that we were going to go to the SEC or the Big 12, but the University has been pretty secure that we're staying (in the ACC)."

-- Dennis Dodd gives his take.

This has to be a disappointment on some level for the Big Ten. The best academic/geographic fit was there. The conference office is in the same city that is almost a Notre Dame country unto itself, Chicago. Those traditional games against Purdue, Michigan and Michigan State are, well, traditional. The two parties have flirted for decades but were never ready, for various reasons, to consumate the relationship.

It's unlikely, in this case, the Big Ten would have gone along with a scheduling agreement.

Yes, the Big 12 could have had the Irish too. In fact, Texas AD DeLoss Dodds was openly recruiting N.D. But the league wasn't geographically or academically desirable. Joining the ACC in everything but football allows the school to expand its brand in the Northeast and Eastern seaboard.

"They need the Northeast," one college football source said last month. "Their normal students come from there and, secondly, it's their recruits who come from those areas.

"Now [if] they're playing [in the ACC] in Florida, Miami, Tallahassee, South Carolina, North Carolina, D.C., New York and Pennsylvania. Is that better than playing at Iowa State, Manhattan, Kan., Lawrence, Kan., Austin, Texas? They don't have any students from those areas."

-- And according to Andy Staples, Swofford went straight-up gangsta yet again.

The realignment of college athletics has taught us a variety of lessons. Chief among them: Never play poker with ACC commissioner John Swofford. He'll lull you into a false sense of security with that folksy, aw-shucks aura, and then BAM! Next thing you know, you have no money, no watch and you're standing outside the saloon wearing a rain barrel.

Every time the ACC has appeared weak or vulnerable, Swofford has moved to make it stronger. Wednesday's play to add Notre Dame in every sport except football and hockey -- but with five football games annually against ACC members -- makes the ACC nearly impenetrable. (So does the new $50 million exit fee.) That faction at Florida State that wants to go to the Big 12? They might want to rethink that plan. Any stragglers at Clemson still wishing for another conference home? Forget it. You're in a good place now. For all the things it can do for the conference, the Notre Dame move was essentially a defensive one. The other option for the Fighting Irish was the Big 12, which might have expanded further and moved on Florida State and Clemson had the ACC not snatched Notre Dame.

LW