Notre Dame & Big East Football: Resolve The Paradox

Current Big East Commissioner John Marinatto will parrot former Commissioner Tranghese's statement on Notre Dame: We asked them to join the conference for football numerous times and it isn't going to happen. But if Notre Dame, a full-fledged Big East member for every sport but football, has been given a pass by Big East officials, why are the Irish making "gentleman's agreements" about scheduling Big East schools and why are they included at all in bowl agreements? The gengleman's agreement is hardly even that. The Irish have skewed financial considerations so far in the their favor fellow conference member Rutgers has told them to take a hike. After attempting the same one-sided arrangement with UConn and after the Huskies' approval faced a back-lash from its fans and state legislators leading UConn to back away, the Irish and the league look inept in the ongoing press reports this snafu continues to generate.  Certainly Pitt is wondering what will happen when the eight game home-and-home series with the Irish expires in 2015. Pitt-ND is happening because Tranghese intervened a few years ago after the Irish wanted to cancel their agreement with Pitt. Will Marinatto have the skill or courage to speak up for the eight football playing members? If his work in the new bowl agreement with the Champs Sports Bowl is an indication, the Big East football schools are in trouble. Why is Notre Dame part of a plan that makes the Irish eligible once every four years? Obviously, the Sun Bowl did not find the Irish's very loose association attractive enough to extend its Big East contract. Marinatto's actions lack logic. He is boasting about what essentially is a trade off or trade down from the Gator/Sun Bowls to the Champs Sports Bowl. Instead of giving Big East teams the possibility of playing games against Big Ten, Pac 10, SEC, and Big 12 competition, he is adding more match-ups against the ACC and he has lost the Gator Bowl, played on New Year's Day, and the Sun Bowl, one of the oldest games in existence. Let's go back to Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights' fuksamatawit'choo to the Irish coupled with the Big East's status as the league receiving the fewest dollars of the six BCS conferences would make a Rutgers invite to join the Big Ten, if it should come, irresitible. The Big East can't even persuade Notre Dame to treat a fellow conference member fairly and its bowl agreement including the Irish will hurt one of its football teams chances to play in its premier #2 bowl when it is the Irish's turn.  Even the most avid Big East supporter would have to conclude that a move out and up makes the most sense.  After all, what is Marinatto and the league doing exactly to upgrade the status of Big East football? Yet, Notre Dame enjoys all the benefits of Big East basketball and is one of the catholic private schools in the league  preventing the football conference from expanding. Where would the Irish be without the conference? A basketball independent? No way. A member of the Atlantic 10 Conference? Doesn't seem to fit the Irish's style. An associate member of the Big Ten for basketball? Sheer delusion.  In short, the Irish's mediocre hoops team needs the Big East for basketball much more than the Big East needs it. If the Big East wants a fair and balanced approach to all its sports and if it plans to survive as a football conference, it must gather the courage to tell the Irish to schedule three or four Big East football opponents every year and make the arrangements home-and-home, neutral sites only when mutually agreed upon.  If the Irish decline, tell them to hit the road.  As in 1999 when the 'Canes felt the conference's priority was basketball first, in 2009 the same situation exits. Only now with fellow BCS conferences upping the ante with huge television contracts and league-sponsored networks, the urgency for Marinatto and the conference to improve scheduling and financial arrangements for its eight football playing members is dire.