Found this on another board, and found it interesting with regard to scheduling specifically and the switch to Under Armour, since that has many here riled up (I bolded the UA part).
Jack Swarbrick on independence, scheduling and paying players
Jack Swarbrick met with some big ND boosters at an alumni event known as Universal Notre Dame Night.
His comments:
"Independence is not about football at all. Rather, it is important as a means of promoting Notre Dame.
Bound up in that is our scheduling.
Playing in California every year is an imperative, and if we want to keep USC on the schedule every year, then Pac-12 scheduling makes us play two Pac-12 teams every year (“or it won’t work”), so to ensure that we have a game in Cal every year, we are sticking with Stanford as the other perennial Pac-12 opponent.
Then, when you add in Navy and the five ACC games, that leaves four. Among those four is a “buy” game (he called it that, “everybody does it” and “we need to do it to have 7 home games”) and the Shamrock Series game.
That leaves two premiere home-and-home games to schedule every year.
Those two games are viewed as “marker” games for the selection committee to consider.
Independence would be jeopardized if we lost a broadcast partner or if we ended up being penalized by the playoff selection committee."
He got some laughs when he was asked whether it was hard to end the Michigan series. “No.”
ND chose Under Armour, among other reasons, because the ND demographic skews old, and he wanted to bend the curve on that, which Under Armour is best suited to do.
He reiterated that ND will not join in with paying players, which he has publicly said before. He added, however, that there are enough like-minded schools that, if that came to pass, "our schedule wouldn't look much different."
Jack Swarbrick on independence, scheduling and paying players
Jack Swarbrick met with some big ND boosters at an alumni event known as Universal Notre Dame Night.
His comments:
"Independence is not about football at all. Rather, it is important as a means of promoting Notre Dame.
Bound up in that is our scheduling.
Playing in California every year is an imperative, and if we want to keep USC on the schedule every year, then Pac-12 scheduling makes us play two Pac-12 teams every year (“or it won’t work”), so to ensure that we have a game in Cal every year, we are sticking with Stanford as the other perennial Pac-12 opponent.
Then, when you add in Navy and the five ACC games, that leaves four. Among those four is a “buy” game (he called it that, “everybody does it” and “we need to do it to have 7 home games”) and the Shamrock Series game.
That leaves two premiere home-and-home games to schedule every year.
Those two games are viewed as “marker” games for the selection committee to consider.
Independence would be jeopardized if we lost a broadcast partner or if we ended up being penalized by the playoff selection committee."
He got some laughs when he was asked whether it was hard to end the Michigan series. “No.”
ND chose Under Armour, among other reasons, because the ND demographic skews old, and he wanted to bend the curve on that, which Under Armour is best suited to do.
He reiterated that ND will not join in with paying players, which he has publicly said before. He added, however, that there are enough like-minded schools that, if that came to pass, "our schedule wouldn't look much different."
