You’ve all probably heard the news by now, Notre Dame is taking all of it’s non-football sports to the ACC. Their football team will now be intertwined with the ACC as well. The days of an 8 win Notre Dame team being picked over a 9 win partial league champion for a better bowl game are over for the Big East. The ACC has agreed to let Notre Dame take a higher bowl spot than other league teams if the Irish are a game under them in the standings. That’s because they are Notre Dame and no one cares about Virginia, or Georgia Tech or Clemson or NC State as much as people think other people care about Notre Dame.
Notre Dame has been called a perfect geographic fit for the ACC. This deserves it’s own paragraph because any time you think of the beautiful Atlantic coast of this great country and think of the ACC in general, you immediately think of Indiana.
There are some people saying that this move is a killer for the Big East. I am in the camp that disagrees with that statement. The killer for the Big East already happened. They watched Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College leave. The conference has never been the same. Cincinnati, Louisville, and USF, along with some other basketball schools like Marquette, have had success they wouldn’t have normally had without the league. But the perception of the league of being lesser hasn’t gone away since those 3 left. No Big East teams have contended for a national title. The best of the bunch was 09 Cincinnati, who didn’t help the reputation of the league one bit by getting eaten alive by Florida. Since then, the Big East has been left in limbo. The basketball is/was/will continue to be great to watch. But basketball doesn’t pay the bills. Syracuse, West Virginia and Pittsburgh leaving gave the league a further black eye. The drop won’t be as huge on the field as it will be perception wise. There is a reason that perception is reality. You won’t eat at a restaurant that someone you know didn’t like. You won’t see a movie that got a bad review. You won’t listen to a band that had a song you hated. The Big East is that restaurant. The Big East is that movie and the Big East is that band. It doesn’t matter that they don’t have awful food. It doesn’t matter that the reviewer hates that genre. It doesn’t matter that you heard the worst song on the album. What matters is that people think the league is a rag tag group of middle of the road teams. Notre Dame taking their basketball program out of the league doesn’t hurt as much as it is like someone stealing your wallet after they kicked your ass. It’s just another insult to the injury you already had. Not only do people think you are a chump, but you are a chump without a wallet. I guess in this case, it would be that you are having your wallet stolen then getting 50 bucks thrown on your chest to buy a new shirt.
The Big East isn’t dead. Conferences aren’t expanding any more. Even if they were, Cincinnati probably is going to stuck in the quagmire. All today’s move symbolized was another kick of sand in the face to a league already covered in sand. For the ACC, it’s another big name basketball program joining the stable. It’s another big name football program by association. The rich getting richer.
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