Four days along now and everyone's still on Notre Dame's case, partly because some folks live to jump on Notre Dame's case and partly because ... well, let's face it. Notre Dame sometimes brings on the case-jumping itself.
In a sense it did that Sunday, when, after being told no soup for you by the College Football Playoff, the Irish immediately voted to turn down a berth in what was expected to be a Pop-Tarts Bowl showdown with BYU, the other first-out CFP snub. The optics of this, which apparently didn't occur to anyone at ND, could not have been worse -- to the delight of all the internet trolls who immediately leaped to their trolling ramparts.
The Cryin' Irish, the trolls called 'em. Cowards. Buncha ungrateful, snot-nosed whiners who got all honked off at the ACC because the ACC was favoring Miami to make the CFP field and wouldn't admit it.
On the last count, Notre Dame had a right to be honked off, at last partially. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips did fib like a boss by saying, gosh, no, we weren't promoting Miami over Notre Dame. The ACC Network repeatedly re-airing ND's 24-21 loss to the Hurricanes back in August was just, you know, an unfortunate coincidence.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua came off as high-handed as ND's critics are always saying, pointing out how lucky the ACC was that the Irish favored it with their presence and all but threatening to pull out of the conference. In so doing, of course, he failed to mention the exclusive, mutually beneficial deal the ACC allows ND football -- which maintains its independence while plumping up the ACC's bottom line (and filling out the Irish schedule) by playing five or six conference opponents every year.
Denials aside, why wouldn't Phillips and the ACC honchos favor a full-fledged, revenue-sharing member (Miami) over a quasi-member that's a quasi-member expressly to keep all its dough? Even if Notre Dame is, by miles and miles, the ACC's top draw?
Just sayin'.
Just sayin', too, that it's only the optics that make Notre Dame look like a bunch of snifflin' pansies for refusing to play a bowl game. The rest is simple economics. Because by saying "Nah, we're good", ND was only acknowledging what everyone already knows: The bowl system is an over-saturated market rendered all but valueless by the CFP and the changed landscape of college football.
There are now 41 bowl games on the yearly docket, a ridiculous supply that far outstrips the demand. Most of them exist only to fill out network TV schedules, and which are sustained by what the networks pay out to do so. It's how we've gone from nine-or-ten-win teams squaring off, in say, the Gator Bowl, to 6-6 Whatsamatta U. vs. 6-6 Moon Pie Tech in the Uncle Cletus' Pickled Pig Feet Bowl.
Notre Dame turning down the Pop-Tarts Bowl, therefore, was a money decision, a matter of cost-vs.-benefit. And, increasingly, there is no benefit -- especially when these bowl games' payouts don't come close to offsetting the participants' cost, and when even the richest athletic programs already run an annual deficit.
It's why half-a-dozen or so other schools are following ND's lead and opting out of bowl games, and why for some time high-end players have chosen to sit out the Uncle Cletus bowls. There is, frankly, no upside to playing in what have become meaningless made-for-TV exhibitions, for either NIL-bankrolled players or major programs like Notre Dame.
The bottom line is the bottom line, in other words. Shocker.
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