Thursday: Notre Dame’s MOU Secret Spilled

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Notre Dame is continuing to gripe about the fact
that it did not get into the CFP, and I
think they have a legitimate gripe, but it's time to
shut up and take your handkerchief and go elsewhere. And
I don't think you did yourselves any favors by skipping
out on the bowl season because and maybe you know,
Love and the rest of your players decide to opt

(00:21):
out because they don't want to get hurt for the NFL,
which I think is nonsense anyway. But anyway, I think
that I think you need to be quiet from now
on because now that the world knows about this memorandum
of understanding where you get to be in a bowl game,
if you're in the top twelve at the end of
the season next year, you get an automatic spot, and

(00:42):
the CFP can always rank you thirteenth if you're on
the bubble, just to do so, just like they ranked
you thirteenth this year, or at least eleventh with the
two non power for schools getting in. But apparently a
big chunk of the schedule next year that that Notre
Dame plays are Big ten and ACC opponents and they're

(01:04):
not necessarily the who's who of the big ten in
the ACC. They're pretty much the Patsis of that league,
the old Indiana's if you will, you know, Indiana is
now good and you have an opportunity to be good
if you want to spend a bunch of money. But
apparently there isn't any in West Loafayette, Louisiana because Perdue,
one of the worst twenty teams in the country is

(01:25):
on Notre Dames football schedule for next year. They also
have Wisconsin and they're going to play that game at
Lambeau Field on September sixth. You know, Wisconsin could be good,
but they're not, and Rice is not very good. That's
the second game and they actually start with the game
at Lambeau and then two home games. They got Michigan State,

(01:46):
not terrible but not very good perdue the disaster that
is North Carolina. They play Navy, which they should beat,
but who knows what team Navy will field and how
many of the team guys they have this year are
coming back. They do play Miami, which is legit, and
SMU which is legit, but they also play Boston College
and Syracuse and Stanford which are awful, and they finish

(02:07):
up the season late in the year against USC. So
those are the games on their schedule. So if you
look at it, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Perdue are all members
of the Big Ten, and North Carolina, Miami and Boston
College and Syracuse are in Stanford are all members of

(02:28):
the ACC. Now, there's nothing that these schools can do
right now. They can't cancel the games, but they could
cancel future games. It's I mean, I guess they technically could.
But when you fast forward to twenty twenty seven, Notre
Dame only has eight game schedule. They need four more.
They've got Purdue again, they got Michigan State again. They
do play Auburn. They do play Georgia Tech, but they

(02:51):
play but they played Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Virginia and
Clemson all members of the ACC, which are not very
happy with them right now because of this memorandum of understanding.
I am wondering if this may be a situation where
Notre Dame is forced to join a conference or they're

(03:11):
not going to be able to field a schedule unless
it's against They could look, I guess they could play
you know, one made for TV game that the TV
networks set up and then they can play ten home
games with all teams from minor conferences. I don't know
how this is going to all work itself out, but
that memorandum of understanding thing is not something that a
lot of people knew about, and if they did, they

(03:33):
didn't know what it meant, because they're not very happy
that their their schools are going to get an automatic
are not going to get an automatic bid for finishing
in the top twelve. But Notre Dame is.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, And my biggest question, or you know, the thing
that I can't wrap my head around, why why was
it offered in the first Like, what was what's the
benefit to the College Football Playoff Committee? Besides keeping one
of your biggest heritage brands happy.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Well, Notre Dame does bring TV ratings. Sure, the Notre
Dame is on TV. People are gonna watch and even
and there's gonna be people that watch that love Notre Dame,
and there's gonna be people that they hate Notre Dame.
And let's just face facts, there's a lot of people
that don't like Notre Dame because it's it's it's affiliate
with the Catholic Church, and there's a lot of people
that don't like BYU because it's affiliate with the Mormon Church.

(04:25):
Maybe that's old school, and maybe we're we have less
prejudice against that now than we used to. And maybe
football fans don't even know that they have that church affiliation.
I really don't care. I mean I I put up
with that nonsense when I was a kid that people
were against Notre Dame because they weren't Catholic. I don't care.
I'm want here to watch football game. I don't care
how you pray on Sunday or any other day of

(04:46):
the week. You know, go go be you.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, if Troy Aikman was a Muslim, he would still
be a Dallas cowboy first and stretch. Yeah, whatever the religion,
you're like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Whatever.
I don't care. I could care.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I mean, I think I think Ethan Hunt's the greatest superhero
of all time. I really don't care that he's a
scientologist or not.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, that one's still okay. All the other ones I scientology,
come on.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Now, come on, I mean, I know, whatever, But dot
matter what you think of Tom Cruise, the Ethan Hunt
character is is he's the badass of all bad asses,
right there isn't he I would.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Completely agree, and you know tie into uh, you know,
the generational badass ory like it going, you know, back
from the original show, like not just Tom Cruise ethan, Yeah,
the character right exactly. And I understand, I understand why
that benefits the college football why this mo OU benefits

(05:48):
the playoff committee? Yes, but but also now you just
are you were transparently telling us it's not about picking
the twelve best teams. It's not about rewarding competitive advantage
based on head to head matchup or any of that.
It's all about money because you just secured one of

(06:09):
your most profitable brands a guaranteed spot for just being
in the top twelve. You know, it's transparently about money.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Here's a couple of things to look at in that realm.
Number One, if Notre Dame goes eleven and one or
ten and two, they're probably going to be in the
top twelve to begin with. Sure, But I can also
you know, throw out, let me pull this schedule back
up so I make sure I have it here. But
I can also look at the fact that they have
a terrible schedule in terms of strength of schedule. I

(06:40):
mean Wisconsin, Okay, average, Michigan State average, Rice, Purdue, North Carolina, Syracuse,
and Stanford. Those are five teams right now that I
think half they couldn't finish in the top half of
the American or the Sun Belt. That's how bad they
are now. They're power conferences, and so people are going

(07:02):
to throw a fit about James Madison and Tulane getting
in the playoff. But so their strength of schedule and
their actual teams at least this year are better than
almost half of the teams that Notre Dame is going
to play next year. And granted, Stanford could get a
donation tomorrow for a one hundred million dollars and stack
their roster with a bunch of blue chippers out of
the portal. It's not likely to happen, but it's possible.

(07:25):
But I tell you right now this would be if
you are a mid major, this would have been a
great year to play Rice, North Carolina, Boston College, Syracuse
or Stanford. You could win those games. And so Notre
Dame is scheduling five or six easy games, three or
four games that they're always going to have more talent with.
And if you look at their schedule. The only game

(07:47):
that they might lose is Miami and SMU, and they
get them both at home.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
It's almost like their schedule is just intended to land
them somewhere between eight and twelve every year. Yes, I
mean it feels like. Yeah, and when you don't have
a conference telling you how you have to do things,
or when you're gonna play a team at what week
of every season, you're allowed to curate your schedule with

(08:13):
the goal of basically just just being the back half
of the top twelve every year.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Well, you could make a case that going into next year,
Miami and SMU are going to be two of the
top teams in the conference. But you're not playing Clemson,
who could be good or bad. You're not playing Florida State,
who could be good or bad. You're not playing Louisville
that could be good or bad. And you're playing North Carolina,
which is a train wreck. And you're playing Syracuse, who
was ranked one hundred and twenty fifth in the nation
this year and got beat seventy three to nothing by

(08:39):
their last opponent.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah. Well, and I watched that Notre Dame Syracuse game
this year. They scored twenty eight points in the first quarter,
and they should have had thirty five. They were stopped
on the goal line the last play of the first quarter.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and they got it on the second the first
play of the second quarter. That's correct, Yes, So they
just ran out a time where it would have been
thirty five anyway. Yeah, Like I said, Notre Dame's got
two losable games on this schedule next year if they're
anywhere near what they are, and that's Miami and SMU,
and both of those games are in the USC. I
guess is a third because that game will be out

(09:14):
in California.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Quickly, you mentioned the potential of other teams trying to
ice out Notre Dame in the future that have already
got matchup scheduled with them over the next ten years.
One of those teams is Texas, and there is rumblings
that they are not very happy themselves with the MoU
because they were Texas exactly, and we were just we

(09:36):
feel like we're a better team than Notre Dame and
you ranked them ahead of us. So next year, if
this same thing happens again, Notre Dame would be automatically in,
but we'd still be on the outside exactly. All right.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Could baseball be in for another strike slash lockout before
the season ends next year. We'll talk about that next
five thirty on the Ticket