Notre Dame sports: Corrigan sees few snags to early ND jump to ACC

SOUTH BEND -- Technically on the outside looking in, Gene Corrigan sees little drama left in Notre Dame's exodus from the Big East Conference, including a relatively seamless splashdown in the Atlantic Coast Conference this summer.

The 84-year-old former ND athletic director and ACC commissioner knows that the momentum for the move won't happen until the Catholic 7 schools make their departure. That's a development that appears to be imminent and includes dragging the Big East name away from a collection of schools that is decidedly less Big and less East than in recent years.

The Catholic 7's own announcement could come as early as Thursday. The buzz around Notre Dame is that the school could start making plans by Sunday to integrate into the ACC in men's and women's basketball and most Olympic Sports for the 2013-14 school year.

"I think we're in a very crucial 48 hours right now," Notre Dame men's basketball coach Mike Brey said Thursday. "My boss (ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick) is staying closely tuned to it. He said, 'Don't even talk about it in depth, because we don't know how it's going to swing.' "

Corrigan, for one, doesn't envision any 11th-hour snags for ND.

"I think the ACC would be glad to have them." Corrigan said in a telephone interview from his home in Charlottesville, Va. "I think 10 years ago, they couldn't make it work (for 2013-14) with this short of notice.

"But the way things are right now, I don't see it as any problem at all. They'll all make the deals that they have to make to make it work. The only thing that's really out there distance-wise is football scheduling. Everything else is terrifically adjustable."

Football is what keeps future ACC member Louisville from carboning ND's exit strategy from the shrinking, shifting Big East. The 2013 ACC schedule is already in place and unveiled. Notre Dame's marriage with the ACC does have a football component that kicks in for 2014. The Irish will play five ACC schools a year on a rotating basis beginning with that season.

That Irish football was never a part of the Big East also should make ND's negotiation for an early exit easier and less expensive, according to Corrigan. Not having to haggle over taking the Big East branding with it, as the Catholic 7 schools are, also helps logistically.

"I can't imagine it being a significant financial thing," Corrigan said.

Initially, when ND announced in mid-September its intention to leave the Big East for the ACC, it was obligated to wait 27 months to actually leave. That would have pushed the school's launch date in the ACC to the 2015-16 school year.

Provided ND actually waited that long, the school would not be subject to the $10 million exit fee imposed on defecting members with football programs. The Big East's Mutual Commitment Agreement also allowed that the Catholic 7 could withdraw without an exit fee if those schools waited the full 27 months.

Notre Dame, though, made it clear from the beginning that it was in the best interests of both ND and the Big East to expedite the departure. It got to the point, though, that there were so many moving parts and it seemed like such a long shot, Swarbrick told his coaches in early February to start scheduling as if they were going to be in the Big East next season. But he never completely closed the door on 2013-14.

The decision by the Catholic 7 -- Marquette, DePaul, St. John's, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Providence and Villanova -- to speed up their process for leaving opened the door a little wider for the Irish.

The notion of joining the Catholic 7 for a year in some form or fashion was tossed around this week, but the only condition in which that made sense would have been if Notre Dame did negotiate its early exit from the Big East but that the ACC couldn't adjust quickly enough to add the Irish by July.

That now doesn't appear to be a hurdle.

"We've said consistently in Notre Dame's case that we would be ready for them to join us whenever they negotiated an appropriate exit from the Big East," ACC commissioner John Swofford told David Morrison of the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record earlier this week.

"A lot of the discussions within our league and decisions that needed to be made in regard to Notre Dame joining us and us becoming a 15-member league have already been made. We're ready to accept them whenever they can make that transition, whether it's sooner or later."

And the idea of co-existing with the Catholic 7 for a season?

"I don't think that would be good for anyone at this point," Corrigan said.

Brey, for one, admitted all of the speculation of where and when the Irish might land in the conference realignment shuffle has exhausted and, at times exasperated him.

"I've gone in and out of cycles with this conference stuff with us," he said, "like getting myself out on a ledge, all concerned - Big 12, one foot ready to jump, thinking about going back to DeMatha as the JV coach if it was the Big 12. I can't do it anymore. I can't. I don't want to talk about it."

Scheduling is all about "what ifs" for the moment. So, to a certain extent, is recruiting.

"(Current) players have not asked (about conference)," Brey said. "Recruits have. I wish we could get this settled. I don't like having to discuss or explain that. Some finality would be great."

Staff writer Tom Noie contributed to this story.

Source: http://www.southbendtribune.com/sports/notredame/sbt-notre-dame-sports-corrigan-sees-few-snags-to-early-nd-jump-to-acc-20130306,0,6645114.story?track=rss

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