Notre Dame has spent years getting told to join a conference. Now the sport is starting to sound a lot more like the Irish were right.
The College Football Playoff Committee’s announcement earlier this week set that in motion. Beginning next year, the playoff will expand from 12 teams to 24, and one of the biggest ripple effects is that the Autonomy 4 conferences will drop their conference championship games. Instead of title games, those leagues will crown champions through a tiebreaker format that still hasn’t been determined.
That change has opened the door to a question some coaches are now saying out loud: if the conferences aren’t even producing championship games anymore, what exactly is the point of them?
Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert was first this week to say the quiet part out loud.
“To not say we’re going to have conference champions, why do we have conferences?” Dickert asked.
“I know there’s a lot of things that go into all that. It just feels odd.”
He didn’t stop there.
“I don’t like it, personally, right now… but at the end of the day, you can see why,” Dickert added. “It can be an elimination game… it can benefit a team like us. It can hurt a team like us… you can play all sides of the coin.”
Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz followed with a broader critique of where college football has landed after years of change.
"I think that's where this conversation is going to end up leading to. I hate to be like that but I think the conference championship games are a natural byproduct of expanding to 24 being eliminated, but if you look back at the decisions that we've made in college football for the last six years and we've made them to where we're at now - and I think you look back and now we've devalued some of the things that made college football so special."
For Notre Dame, this is familiar territory. The Irish have long argued they didn’t need a conference for football, and now that argument is getting fresh support from coaches inside the system. Dickert and Drinkwitz almost certainly won’t be the last to say it.
There’s even a bigger shift potentially looming. Schools like Miami may not want to stay tied to a lesser conference and could eventually decide there’s no reason to remain in the ACC at all, with independence becoming a real possibility.
A lot of the consequences of this new setup still haven’t fully shown up yet. But on this one, Notre Dame looks like it got ahead of the curve.
In Other News...
Notre Dame Gets Big Wins, A Fresh Freeman Hint And Heartbreak
A busy stretch around Notre Dame delivered plenty to talk about, starting with hockey, where Sammy Nelson scored twice and buried the overtime winner in a 3-2 upset of No. 4 Michigan State. The Irish have now won three straight, and freshman goalie Patrick Quinlan kept the surge going with 33 saves for his third consecutive victory, a strong sign that the team is finding real traction at both ends of the ice.
The momentum carried into mens basketball, where Ethan Roberts poured in a career-high 36 points and matched the program mark for made 3-pointers in a game during a 99-59 rout of South Carolina State. On the football side, Marcus Freeman offered an encouraging update on young cornerbacks Khary Adams and Ayden Pouncey while also leaving the door open on Brauntae Johnsons recovery, even as the program was also dealing with the sudden passing of broadcaster Dan Hicks. [Read more 🡒]
Former Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman Is Headed For A Very Different Spotlight
Sam Hartmans football path has taken another unexpected turn, this time far from the practice field. The former Notre Dame quarterback, now on the Washington Commanders practice squad, has been announced as the new star of ABCs "The Bachelor" for its 30th season, adding a very different kind of attention to a player who was already familiar to Irish fans from his stops at Wake Forest and Notre Dame.
For Notre Dame followers, it is one more reminder that Hartmans post-college life is unfolding in unusual fashion. He is still attached to Washington as a practice squad quarterback, but his next major public role will come on television when the new season of "The Bachelor" premieres in March, putting him in a spotlight that has little to do with football and everything to do with prime-time exposure. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Defense Has A Chance To Take Over This Rivalry Game
Notre Dames defense walks into this matchup with some real momentum after a strong showing against Miami, and Chris Ashs group has a clear path to controlling the game if it can keep the pressure on Boston College. The Eagles have had trouble protecting the football and even more trouble keeping their quarterback upright, which gives the Irish a chance to turn a rivalry game into a field-position battle.
The matchups in the trenches should tell a lot of the story, starting with Boubacar Traore on Boston College right tackle Kristian Phillips and Tionne Gray inside against center DJ Williams. Notre Dame has been among the nations better teams at creating turnovers, and if that trend carries over, the Irish defense could spend the afternoon forcing Boston College to play from behind the chains and never really find a rhythm. [Read more 🡒]