Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com SEPT. 11, 2017 7 UNDER THE DOME GOING PRO (STADIUMS) AND CONFERENCE BALANCE Feedback from the student-athletes is paramount to Swarbrick, and the idea of playing in NFL stadiums has received high marks from them. So much so that in that 2020 sea- son, Notre Dame will play four of its road contests in NFL stadiums: New York/New Jersey (versus Navy), Charlotte (Wake Forest), Pittsburgh (Pitt) and Green Bay (Wisconsin). After not playing a Big Ten team during the 2015 regular season, at least one Big Ten opponent is on the schedule every year from now through at least 2028: Michigan (2018-19), Wisconsin (2020-21), Ohio State (2022-23) and Michigan State (2026-27), plus the aforementioned series with Purdue from 2021-28, and at Northwestern in 2018. The goal is to have at least four of the five Power Five conferences rep- resented on the schedule as a marker for the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee. The Pac-12 will always be represented with USC and Stan- ford, as will the ACC with about five games per year for the Irish. Landing SEC games has been a priority for Swarbrick, and that has so far included Georgia in 2017 and 2019, Vanderbilt in 2018, Arkansas in 2020 and 2025, and Texas A&M in 2024-25. The Big 12 might be the most chal- lenging to schedule, but the Irish did have back-to-back series with the two linchpins of the league in Okla- homa (2012-13) and Texas (2015-16). "It's hard to get them all in," Swarbrick said. "It starts with two Pac-12, five ACC — and then the in- ventory is especially limited for the return game." There are also still plans to fulfill its agreement for a game at BYU after the Cougars took back-to-back visits to Notre Dame in 2012-13. "We [want to] give our team the platform to get to the CFP, and we want to have the best teams on it," Swarbrick said. "Intent is part of what the selection committee looks at. A program might be down by the time you get to it, but when you schedule that game — who were they, what does it say about your intent?" ✦ NOTRE DAME 'OVERSCHEDULED' IN 2019 There is a price that sometimes comes with be- ing an independent in football. Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick has acknowledged that the 2019 schedule that features road games at Louisville (Sept. 2, Labor Day), Georgia (Sept. 21), Michigan (Oct. 26) and Stanford (Nov. 30) is a case of overscheduling. "That's one more tough road game than I'd like," he admitted. "It's not ideal, but when you're trying to put this together, it's not like you get to choose every game or where it goes. You're working through situations where the number of transactions with the ACC is really complicated. I understand the reaction to '19 … but it's how it fell, and it's up to us to try to navigate it." Regardless, Swarbrick said that as an inde- pendent it's Notre Dame's duty to build the résumé with a 12-game schedule that matches or eclipses any 13-game slate a conference team might have with a league playoff. "We have to be good enough to navigate it," Swarbrick said. "If you're going to be indepen- dent, you have to be independent. Indepen- dence means playing the best schedule you can. If you're not going to do that, don't be an independent. We choose to be independent. We've chosen to be independent." — Lou Somogyi Get the whole incredible story on DVD a t: – BlueGo ldOn lin e .c o m – No tre Da me B o o k sto re – Amazon.com More info at GreatestTeam.com