Notre Dame has a way of getting under people’s skin, and Danny Kanell made sure to prove it again on Saturday.
The former Florida State quarterback jumped into the back-and-forth sparked by Curt Cignetti’s comments about the Irish, reposting the story and siding with the Indiana coach. Cignetti had said, “I’d like to play Notre Dame. They ought to come to our place twice, and we’ll go there once, since they’re not in a conference,” and Kanell was quick to pile on.
“We need more people to call out Notre Dame and their sweetheart deal as an independent,” Kanell wrote on Twitter.
That “sweetheart deal” is the arrangement the school and the College Football Playoff Committee have that gets Notre Dame into the playoff if it finishes among the Top 12 teams. So, in practice, a team like Miami can’t jump Marcus Freeman’s group on the final weekend if it has been behind them all season.
Kanell may also have been pointing to the Irish getting into the CFP without a brutal schedule. Or, given his history of talking first and sorting out the details later, he might think Notre Dame has some sort of agreement with the NCAA to stay independent.
Notre Dame’s independence is nothing new. The school remains on its own because it is valuable enough to land a broadcast deal that most programs would love to have. That kind of setup is rare, and for other schools, impossible to duplicate.
The old “Notre Dame should join a conference” line has always come from programs and coaches who envy what the Irish can do without one. When it comes from people like Cignetti and Kanell, it reads less like a serious critique and more like frustration.
There’s also a little irony here. Indiana was the one that backed away from the scheduled home-and-home with Notre Dame that was supposed to begin in 2030. Pete Bevacqua later found a way to revive the rivalry series with USC, but the Hoosiers were the team that ran from the original deal.
That pullout is what led Cignetti to speak up in the first place. Instead of explaining why Indiana, which has one of the weakest non-conference schedules in the country, decided not to play Notre Dame, he went with the tough-guy routine. Kanell, as expected, rushed in to amplify it and take another swipe at the Irish.
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Among the newcomers, DJ McKinney stands out for his talent and experience, but Ash said he still has to get comfortable with Notre Dames system before he can fully settle in. The same sense of upward mobility is showing at linebacker, where Jaylen Sneed has taken steps forward as a pass rusher and looks ready to fight for playing time as the Irish sort out how their rotation will come together. [Read more 🡒]