Brian Kelly is whining about how tough Notre Dame's schedule is and that if they want to get in the playoff, they need to soften it up a bit. http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21920124/notre-dame-examine-future-scheduling-strategy
The real answer to Kelly's playoff angst is not to weaken the schedule, but for Notre Dame to join the Pac-12 and have the Pac-12 go to a round-robin schedule with no OOC games.
Wild idea? Yes! But it has tons of merit if the playoff is expanded to include all Power 5 conference champions. I don't think I need to tell you how incredibly awesome it would be for Cal's schedule to be say:
at Notre Dame
Oregon State
Washington State
at Washington
at UCLA
ASU
at Arizona
USC
Colorado
at Utah
at Oregon
Stanford
Great for Pac-12
The Pac-12 Network would get an instant infusion of value and get on DirecTV in a nano.
Every Pac-12 game would be compelling and be a must-win, driving incredible fan interest.
The conference would have a built-in schedule that keeps all revenue with conference teams.
Benefit from being only conference with 13 members and a round robin of 12 games.
Great for Notre Dame
Get in a conference that gives them a better path to playoff berth.
Be with academic peers.
Good for all other Irish sports.
I see no downside for the Pac-12, and the only limited downside for ND. The nearest road games would be Colorado and Utah, and they do like to play all over the country to maintain their national identity and would lose that ability. Still, ND is a big market team, and the Pac-12 has L.A., S.F., Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Portland and Salt Lake City - all pretty good tourist destinations as the road games. And it's not like you need to play anywhere in particular to be a national brand anymore anyway, with media making everything ubiquitous. It would be pretty cool for the Pac-12 to get into the Chicago market right in the Big Ten's back yard, too, and I'm pretty sure ND wouldn't be playing too many 10:30 ET games, which would help mitigate that factor as well.
As we have discussed, the Pac-12 is behind the other conferences and needs to differentiate itself to catch up and compete with others. This bold move would absolutely catch the Pac-12 up to the other conferences and seems doable. All that needs to happen is Larry Scott needs to work with Jim Delaney and Bob Bowlsby to push for a playoff format with all conference champions in. Of course, the first order of business is to get Notre Dame in the Pac-12. Though the Big 12 could add them, I think Notre Dame brass sees their peers much more as Stanford, USC, Cal, UCLA, and Washington, than say Oklahoma, Texas, Okie State, Kansas TCU.
OK, who's in?
The real answer to Kelly's playoff angst is not to weaken the schedule, but for Notre Dame to join the Pac-12 and have the Pac-12 go to a round-robin schedule with no OOC games.
Wild idea? Yes! But it has tons of merit if the playoff is expanded to include all Power 5 conference champions. I don't think I need to tell you how incredibly awesome it would be for Cal's schedule to be say:
at Notre Dame
Oregon State
Washington State
at Washington
at UCLA
ASU
at Arizona
USC
Colorado
at Utah
at Oregon
Stanford
Great for Pac-12
The Pac-12 Network would get an instant infusion of value and get on DirecTV in a nano.
Every Pac-12 game would be compelling and be a must-win, driving incredible fan interest.
The conference would have a built-in schedule that keeps all revenue with conference teams.
Benefit from being only conference with 13 members and a round robin of 12 games.
Great for Notre Dame
Get in a conference that gives them a better path to playoff berth.
Be with academic peers.
Good for all other Irish sports.
I see no downside for the Pac-12, and the only limited downside for ND. The nearest road games would be Colorado and Utah, and they do like to play all over the country to maintain their national identity and would lose that ability. Still, ND is a big market team, and the Pac-12 has L.A., S.F., Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Portland and Salt Lake City - all pretty good tourist destinations as the road games. And it's not like you need to play anywhere in particular to be a national brand anymore anyway, with media making everything ubiquitous. It would be pretty cool for the Pac-12 to get into the Chicago market right in the Big Ten's back yard, too, and I'm pretty sure ND wouldn't be playing too many 10:30 ET games, which would help mitigate that factor as well.
As we have discussed, the Pac-12 is behind the other conferences and needs to differentiate itself to catch up and compete with others. This bold move would absolutely catch the Pac-12 up to the other conferences and seems doable. All that needs to happen is Larry Scott needs to work with Jim Delaney and Bob Bowlsby to push for a playoff format with all conference champions in. Of course, the first order of business is to get Notre Dame in the Pac-12. Though the Big 12 could add them, I think Notre Dame brass sees their peers much more as Stanford, USC, Cal, UCLA, and Washington, than say Oklahoma, Texas, Okie State, Kansas TCU.
OK, who's in?
