Independent streak helped build Notre Dame into football’s historic and now modern behemoth

DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It was some combination of religion, a grudge involving Knute Rockne and maybe the simple notion that some people just don’t like Notre Dame.

Back in the 1920s, the Fighting Irish made what might have been their biggest push to join what would become the Big Ten but the athletic director at Michigan blocked it. Ever since, Notre Dame has been an independent — an increasingly rare iconoclast as college athletics becomes more controlled by mega-conferences almost by the day.

How’s that working out for the Irish?

Well, instead of splitting the $14 million they’ve earned by reaching the semifinals of the College Football Playoff — the way Thursday’s opponent Penn State of the Big Ten must — they’ve pocketed every penny.

Notre Dame might not have the voice of the Southeastern Conference or Big Ten when it comes to the big-time decisions guiding this sport, but it has a seat at the table, along with another $12 million starting in 2026 — also unsplit with a league — simply for being part of this arrangement.

“For people at Notre Dame, it’s a point of differentiation,” said John Heisler, the longtime sports information guru who has written 10 books on the Irish. “And it’s just not something that anybody in South Bend really wants to give up on.”

Notre Dame and the Big Ten

It wasn’t always that way. As far back as 1899, Notre Dame was looking to be admitted into what was about to become the Big Nine. That time, it essentially got passed over in favor of Iowa and Indiana.

A generation later, in 1926, Rockne, then coaching the Fighting Irish, tried again to bring Notre Dame into the Big Ten.

Michigan’s athletic director, Fielding Yost, led the move to block the Irish — a move that, depending on what you read, came because he was anti-Catholic or involved in a feud with the Notre Dame legend that dated back more than a decade.

Either way, Notre Dame was left out and the Fighting Irish and Michigan, just a three-hour drive apart, didn’t play from 1910-1941.

Independence opened up chance to be a national program

Michigan and other schools’ refusal to play the team in South Bend, Indiana, opened opportunities Notre Dame still takes advantage of to this day.

The Fighting Irish have played USC every year since 1926. They have annual meetings with Army and Navy, and have played Stanford most years since 1988. More recently, they signed a deal that fills out their schedule with five games against Atlantic Coast Conference teams each season.

In today’s world, where cable, streaming and social media allow for every team to market themselves as a national product, that might not sound revolutionary. Decades ago, it was.

“I think the feeling was, if Notre Dame would have just wanted to be a Midwest institution, they would’ve joined the Big Ten a long time ago,” Heisler said. “But that’s not just the aspiration in terms of where their students in general come from, or where they recruit. They’ve always been very comfortable recruiting from all over the place.”

TV deals shaped college football’s future, especially Notre Dame’s

For decades, Notre Dame lived in a world where the big-name independent was not an anomaly. Miami, Pitt, Florida State and Syracuse were among them, as was this week’s opponent, Penn State.

In that atmosphere, the Fighting Irish went along with others in the 1970s and joined the College Football Association, which was established to maximize value for TV rights.

By 1990, with the CFA’s effectiveness as a TV market-maker in decline and Notre Dame football reaching a new golden era under Lou Holtz, the Fighting Irish in 1991 cut their own deal with NBC that, in many ways, was the first domino to fall on the multibillion-dollar road this sport is on today.

The SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992 and added what was then a revolutionary title game to cap off its season. Over the next three-plus decades, virtually every program got caught up in the mix of mega-conferences that, in turn, have helped shape the 12-team college playoff that debuted this season.

Holding steady throughout, in part thanks to the NBC deal that runs through the 2029 season, has been Notre Dame. Even though the Irish haven’t won the national title since 1988, their brand stayed strong enough to demand a spot in that playoff mix.

One drawback is that, without a conference championship available to win, the Fighting Irish could not find an easier path to the title by earning a bye that goes to those league’s champions.

Another is that because the big conferences have generated such massive media rights, Notre Dame needs every penny it can get to stay competitive. Its football program has one of the nation’s biggest budgets, at about $72 million a year, according to Sportico.

“We view being independent as a positive thing,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “We sell it to our recruits as a positive thing. We know we can’t play in a championship game and we can’t have a first-round bye. But we continue to use not playing in Week 13 as our bye. In terms of the finances and the TV deals, I’d say that’s another positive.”

Fighting Irish keep fighting the trend of mega-conferences

More change is destined for college football, its playoff system and the conferences themselves.

At the joint pregame news conference Wednesday, Penn State coach James Franklin opined about the need for more uniformity across all of college football — for one, to give the playoff selection committee a more “apples to apples” comparison when sorting through teams to fill the bracket.

“This is no knock at coach or Notre Dame, but I think everyone should be in a conference,” Franklin said, before almost apologetically looking at Freeman on the other end of the table.

Freeman said he doesn’t have opinions as strong as Franklin’s on the state of college football, and doesn’t see the need for Notre Dame to someday be like everybody else.

“We pride ourselves and our independence,” the Fighting Irish coach said. “If they come out with a decision where they tell us we can’t be independent, we’ll make it work.”

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