Independence isn't free -- just ask Notre Dame

When the Big Ten came calling in 1999, Notre Dame put its arrogant ideal of independence ahead of all else. Let's see how that worked out:

The reasoning of AD Jack Swarbrick is flawed. (US Presswire)

Since 1999, Notre Dame football has fallen off the cliff. The school with 11 national championships and seven Heisman winners has added zilch to those totals. Notre Dame has finished in the top 10 just once, way up there at No. 9 in 2005, and although it strong-armed a private door for itself into the BCS, it has used that door just three times -- and gone 0-3 in those bowl games.

Since 1999 Notre Dame has fired three or four coaches, depending on whether you count George O'Leary, and has failed to land the coach (Urban Meyer) of its dreams (Bob Stoops). It has lost eight consecutive years to Southern California, which is understandable, and twice in a row at home to Navy, which is not.

Financially, its BCS payout has been reduced nearly 75 percent since the BCS was created in 1998, from $17 million then to $4.5 million now. That's the same as Boise State gets, with one big difference: Boise State football is better. And the Fighting Irish's exclusive network television deal? Notre Dame makes barely half as much from NBC as each Big Ten school -- even Northwestern -- makes from the Big Ten's deals with ESPN, ABC and the Big Ten Network.

Read that sentence again.

Independence isn't the primary reason for the erosion of Notre Dame football -- Lou Holtz is the primary reason -- but it has been a contributing factor. Without a conference title to play for, Notre Dame stops being relevant every year in which it falls out of the national title picture, which since 1999 has usually been mid-October. NBC still shows its games, but on the other six days a week Notre Dame is in the news only when its coach is about to be fired. That kind of irrelevance cripples recruiting, and you only have to watch the Notre Dame defense get out-athleted by Navy to know what crippled recruiting can do to a program.

Back to my Holtz position: He started great at Notre Dame, but he started great everywhere he coached, then checked out. Look at his career for yourself. His year-by-year results at North Carolina State, Arkansas, Notre Dame and South Carolina share the same bell curve. Holtz was brilliant, then indifferent at Notre Dame -- national title in 1988, 65 victories in six years; then 23-11-1 with zero bowl wins in his final three years -- and then, for a parting gift, his tenure put Notre Dame in NCAA purgatory for successor Bob Davie. Notre Dame, as we knew it, was finished.

But Notre Dame didn't know it. So when the Big Ten extended an invitation in 1999, Notre Dame predictably declined. The Rev. Edward A. Malloy, the school president, noted haughtily in 1999, "Notre Dame has a core identity, and at that core are these characteristics -- Catholic, private, independent."

Add a fourth core characteristic: Hypocrites. Remember, Notre Dame is a member of the Big East in all sports but football.

And let's add a fifth core characteristic: Mediocre. Since turning down the Big Ten in 1999, Notre Dame football has gone 75-59.

Joining the Big Ten for football wouldn't automatically change that, but it would give Notre Dame the chance to turn itself around, including games against three or four Big Ten bottom-feeders every year and the benefit of playing for a spot in its league title game, which would keep even mediocre Irish teams relevant deep into most seasons. And as an added bonus, history shows that it's three times as easy to get into a BCS bowl as the second team from the Big Ten -- nine Big Ten runners-up have done it since 1998 -- than it is to get into a BCS bowl as Notre Dame (three times since '98).

The money is demonstrably better and the football would probably be better as well, but Notre Dame refuses to join a conference. Why? For the same reason a stubborn child refuses to wear a jacket in the cold -- because.

So there.

If that's not good enough, I'll give you the reasoning of Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, but I have to warn you: It's not good enough, either.

"All of this has a lot more to do with our priorities than it does with business issues," Swarbrick told the Chicago Tribune. "Our independence is tied up in a lot of the rivalries we have. We play Navy every year and have the tradition of USC weekends. Frankly, it works pretty well to play USC in October at home and in November at their place."

Let me get this straight. Notre Dame is staying independent so it can play USC in October instead of September? Is that what he just said?

I'll be damned, that is what he said. No shock, really. The people in charge come and go, but Notre Dame remains Notre Dame. If Notre Dame were a historical figure, it would be snobby airhead Marie Antoinette -- wasting away on a diet of sponge cake.

The Big Ten is offering a fresh supply of fruit and vegetables, but Notre Dame being Notre Dame, it'll go Biblical and treat the conference like the forbidden tree. Notre Dame is big on fairy tales -- like the one about the greatness of Fighting Irish football.