Notre Dame AD Says College Football Is 'Complete Disaster' amid Conference Changes
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick isn't pleased with the current state of college football amid an offseason of drastic conference realignment.
He said the sport is currently "a complete disaster" during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show:
"Everybody in the industry has to take responsibility here," Swarbrick, who is retiring in 2024, said. "I'm not excluding myself from that. I think the decision making lost its way in terms of the focus on the student-athlete and what's primarily best for them."
He also explained he wants to find a home for Stanford and Cal and that Notre Dame is lobbying for them to be included in the ACC. While the Fighting Irish are independent in football, they are in the ACC for most other sports and play men's hockey in the Big Ten.
The biggest storyline of the college football offseason has been the near elimination of the Pac-12.
USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are headed to the Big Ten, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are going to the Big 12. That leaves just Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State, and the long-term futures for all those schools remains unknown.
Elsewhere, Texas and Oklahoma are going to the SEC after the 2023 season, while Florida State hasn't exactly made it a secret that it is interested in leaving the ACC.
The topic of Notre Dame joining a conference in football is not a new one, especially since it plays in the middle of Big Ten country. Patrick asked Swarbrick what it would take for the Fighting Irish to join a conference, and the athletic director explained the program would have to be missing a media partner and left without a clear path to the College Football Playoff:
Notre Dame has a media rights deal with NBC and has been to the CFP two times since it was instituted in 2014.
Being independent allows the Fighting Irish to largely make their own schedule even though they face some ACC teams every year, and it is typically a difficult one. In 2023, they face Ohio State, USC, Clemson and North Carolina State.
It seems like Notre Dame will not be joining a conference anytime soon, although nothing seems set in stone in the ever-changing world of college football.
