I'd be disappointed if he couldn't find levers to pull.

by KGB, Belly o. the Beast, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 10:02 (35 days ago) @ Jay
edited by KGB, Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 08:48

The ACC and Big XII are desperate for relevance and should be incentivized not to get big-brothered. A 2025 Miami team that doesn't play and beat ND gets laughed out of the CFP debate. Zero good wins there.

The B1G and SEC are motivated to keep ND from joining the other conference. To compel their members to blackball ND is likely to drive us into the arms of the rival conference.

There should be opportunity for Bevacqua to leverage the more limited number of swimmers still wading in the deep end of the FBS pool to ND's advantage. I suppose they could collude to force our hand, but the next time one of these CCs or ADs turns down the sort of easy payday that playing ball with ND typically offers would be the first time in a long time they showed any degree of strategic discipline.

EDIT - Also, networks are not pleased with the recent Indianaing of the OOC schedules, by B1G teams in particular. They didn't all pay 17 thrupillion dollars to spend most of September broadcasting conference-sanctioned mercy killings. There will always be a buy-game element to schedule construction in college, but my expectation is that you'll see the pendulum swing back toward competitive with the corporate overlords holding the purse strings. Particularly once the CFP (likely) expands again.