USA Today on ND Future Scheduling

[TyBull]

Irish look ahead by looking into past

By Malcolm Moran, USA TODAY

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Notre Dame officials are planning to reinforce a long-term commitment to the school's independent football status with a dramatic strategic link to the Rockne era.

Anticipating an NCAA decision in April that would make a 12th regular-season game permanent, Notre Dame intends to schedule a game each season in different parts of the country at sites the Irish hope will be anything but neutral.

The plan, the result of a two-year study, is expected to take effect in 2009. The Fighting Irish will increase the number of games at Notre Dame Stadium from the current six to seven, and four games will take place on the road.

For a 12th game each year, athletics director Kevin White said, the school is considering cities such as Chicago, Orlando, Jacksonville, New Orleans and Dallas. The Irish would negotiate terms that would include games, perhaps in prime time, in its agreement with NBC.

"It will be like a mini bowl game," White told USA TODAY. "We're going to take our football program around the country in ways that we haven't done."

The idea has roots in the 1920s, when coach Knute Rockne took his team, known as the Ramblers, from coast to coast.

John Heisler, a senior associate athletics director whose responsibilities include scheduling, said the school has not contacted potential opponents or representatives of sites. White said the initiative has been viewed favorably within the school administration because of its boost to recruiting and the way it could provide alumni and fans greater access to tickets.

White said an agreement to play at least three Big East teams a season would let the Irish play annually at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. They have played there 11 times, including a 27-9 win against Navy in 2004.

A 10-year extension of an agreement with fellow independent Navy, an annual Irish opponent since 1927, will include a game in Dublin, Ireland, where the programs met in 1996.

After considering a football involvement with several conferences the last six years, White said Notre Dame would celebrate its football independence rather than feeling resigned to it.

"If you think of yourself as an independent and you allow yourself to become regionalized," White said, "that doesn't make sense. We need to be a little entrepreneurial."

[bulls96go]

three games with the BE

they will probably want pitt every year and the other could rotate.

i hope they rotate it so we get them every three years or so

that would be great

now if we can get army, airforce and navry to give us 5 games then you do not need a 9th team.

this would make the BE more attractive to t.v.

[BullDoug]

three games with the BE

they will probably want pitt every year and the other could rotate.

i hope they rotate it so we get them every three years or so

that would be great

now if we can get army, airforce and navry to give us 5 games then you do not need a 9th team.

this would make the BE more attractive to t.v.

Yes, but more than likely ND/NBC would control the TV part of any broadcast game which would not be of any true benefit to the NBE...right?

[brandon]

NBC would have the rights to home games but not road games and probably not neutral site games.

[Apis Bull]

Notre Dame wants the neutral site games to be their "home games" so that NBC could have the rights and Notre Dame would in turn make more money.  Am I the only one who sees this as only helping Notre Dame?

[Omniscientbull]

SC - Notre Dame will never do anything that won't help themselves and the BE will continue to feed the animal.

[goodknightfl]

BE needs the animal more then the animal needs it... so it will serve its master..

[Mhscard95]

BE needs the animal more then the animal needs it... so it will serve its master..

ND is my second favorite team and I still think that comment is ignorant to the extreme.

[NAM37]

Screw ND!

Why shouldn't they play by the rules like everyone else?