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Message: [QUOTE="omniorange, post: 1224219, member: 636"] 1. "It is about tradition and identity." It was when truly independent, but now isn't it more lie than truth? 2. "ND football has never been in a conference for 127 years." They are 5/8ths in one now. Time to recognize it, imho 3. "It sees itself as the national, Catholic university." Isn't this true regardless of being in a conference for football or not. Did ND stop being such when their basketball joined a conference fully? Do you see that stop being the case because ND adds three more conference games (whatever conference they did join)? 4. "It is about self determination. It is about standing against a "one size fits all", "Borg-like" model of assimilation." Truly admirable and poetic if it were still true. But the truth is ND has already been assimilated for all their other sports and of course being 5/8th assimilated now for football. Why hold onto the lie? 5. "It is about not surrendering to those forces who want to push ND to a place it does not want to go." Again admirable. But it went anyway for basketball when the NCAAs pushed it. They get a gold star for holding out as long as they did in football, but they got pushed where they didn't want to go back in 2006(?) when the BCS contract said, sorry ND, you will no longer receive a full conference share if you make a BCS Bowl, you only get an at-large take, just like any other extra conference team. And in 2012 they allowed themselves to be pushed into 5/8ths conference affiliation. Again, they didn't go full-in, but if there hasn't been full surrender on these athletic issues over time, can you at least acknowledge that ND is near dead in the water at this point? As I mentioned in the other post, they are basically down to 3 games and keeping the NY6 Bowl payout when they actually are in one. 6. "It never really was about NBC or the most money. That was just a means to an end." I believe this to be true on your part. But prior to the massive explosion of sports tv channels, and then later the introduction of conference networks, the majority of Irish fans did laud (and if you are being honest lorded over the rest) the NBC contract as a trump card. It seems to have lessened in significance only since it's impact has diminished in the new landscape of sports. Cheers, Neil PS - Let me add to the above, that what ND does or does not do in regard to joining a conference fully for football is not what I am addressing. I am only addressing the lie of calling the current reality "independence" [/QUOTE]

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