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BAMAHOKIE OP
Dec 15, 2025 at 08:51 PM ET
Could Conferences and CFP committee force ND to join conference
Or at least play an equivalent game like conference championship game?

11 Replies

mrcaniac mrcaniac
7mo
No, violation of anti-trust laws
Forced membership in an organization is illegal
reestuart reestuart
7mo
I guess they could, but there's no real reason to. I think the conference
championship games need to go away at this point. When you have 16-18 team conferences, you aren't playing half the teams. The schedules are imbalanced, and you end up with weird matchups. ND is fine being an indy, and not having that last data point anyway.
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Baltimore_Hokie
7mo
They definitely COULD, but they won't.
My line of thinking on why is they don't think they could withstand the heat if they decided to rock that boat. Can you imagine the 24/7 non-stop whine fest in the media? Bill Donahue would absolutely lose his mind. Beano Cook would rise from the grave, angry and ready to riot. It would be 1000x worse than when they decided to destroy the PAC-12.
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Tailgate Guru
7mo
It would require multiple backbones and those are in short supply
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daveinop
7mo
join a conference, no; play an extra game, absolutely
RTFC RTFC
7mo
Technically no...
just rank them 13th or higher every year until they do...
T
TerryD
7mo
Un-American
Forcing a school to join a supposedly voluntary group of schools against its will? Sounds Stalinist.
Maroon Baboon Maroon Baboon
7mo
Two points on this
1) There are some forces who DON'T want ND to join a conference. One is the SEC. The other is the would-be loser if ND wouldn't pick them as a conference destination if it came down to ACC vs. B1G. It is Nixonian triangulation at its best for ND. 2) There is a simple solution to this problem that you bring up that doesn't single out ND. There were five other teams who sat at home conference championship weekend who made the CFP-12. So it isn't just an ND issue. Here is the plan: Have any team in consideration by the committee that is NOT in a CCG play a play-in game on conference championship weekend. The winners of the play-in games get automatic bids. Then the committee can take x amount of champions, and x amount of CCG losers to fill out the bracket. This will be a particularly great model if they go to 16 teams and don't give byes. It will mean that everyone will play the same amount of games that make the field. And that everyone will have to win 4 CFP games in the field to lift the trophy. So let's say you had 5 play-in games conference championship weekend. It might have looked something like this (based on the Week 15 poll): USC at Oregon Utah at Ole Miss Vanderbilt at Texas A&M Texas at Oklahoma Miami at Notre Dame I would even go as far as to shuffle the deck to avoid rematches as long as the Top 5 ranked teams get a home game. Vanderbilt at Oregon Utah at Ole Miss USC at Texas A&M Miami at Oklahoma Texas at Notre Dame This would result in more football, and less meddling by the committee. A win-win.
goldendomer goldendomer
7mo
No
S
Stech
7mo
No, more likely that the P1 Schools follow them to Independence and create
a TV Alliance that will make the SEC and B1G deals look like peanuts. When Nick Saban talks, he is not kidding and uninformed. He works for ESPN now, so please keep that in mind. ** Edited by Stech at 12/15/2025, 9:04:07 PM
RTFC RTFC
7mo
delete
** Edited by RTFC at 12/16/2025, 12:07:07 AM