Until November, Notre Dame was scheduled to begin play full-time in the ACC (in all sports but football) by 2015.  But then Rutgers announced it was leaving the Big East.  That led to a breakaway by the “Catholic 7″ and even the loss of the Big East name altogether.  As of today, Notre Dame has no home for the 2013-14 academic year.

It should come as no surprise, however, that sources tell ESPN the ACC would allow the Fighting Irish to join its ranks this summer, ahead of schedule if the school desires.

After losing Maryland to the Big Ten, John Swofford’s league is currently attempting to fend off further potential raids from the Big Ten (and maybe the SEC and the Big XII).  Getting Notre Dame into the fold as soon as possible might not prevent future departures, but it can’t hurt.

Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly when it comes to schools switching conferences.

What’s left of the Big East — or whatever it will be called — apparently intends to make the Irish pay an exit fee before it can flee the shrinking league.  “Nobody’s going to let Notre Dame just leave; it needs to be negotiated,” a Big East source told ESPN.

Anybody else sick of all this realignment/expansion/lawsuit/negotiations nonsense?

Andy Staples of SI.com has today ranked the 10 most powerful people in college athletics for his readers.  Above NCAA president Mark Emmert there are two names.  You can guess both of them.  And though they’re friendly when in the same room, everyone knows there’s a bit of a rivalry between the two.

So here’s guessing Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany won’t like the fact that a national publication has ranked him below SEC commissioner Mike Slive.  Given Delany’s past comments regarding Big Ten superiority, he must feel a bit like Delta House has beaten his more prestigious Omega Theta Pi.

After explaining Slive’s power — and Delany’s — Staples explains exactly why he chose to put Slive atop his list:

“So why, when they seem relatively equal, does Slive get the nod over Delany?  Seven consecutive national championships in football, and Slive got everything he wanted in the negotiations for the format of the four-team playoff.  Remember, Slive proposed this very idea in 2008.  Delany opposed it until he saw no other option.  Had we made this list two years ago, Slive would not have finished so high.  A TV deal that looked like a Whopper in the post-crash world of 2009 looked like a junior cheeseburger in 2011.  So Slive changed the game.  The most important move so far in this round of realignment has been Texas A&M’s switch from the Big 12 to the SEC.  No matter what Slive actually said about fit and culture when the Aggies joined, the move was always a land grab to enlarge the SEC’s footprint.  Adding the nation’s second-largest state made a cable channel feasible and will allow the SEC to significantly increase its revenues.  No other move in realignment has had such a profound impact on one league.”

Staples goes on to suggest that Delany could jump Slive on his list if he decides to expand south and east.  His take on the Big Ten expansion situation mirrors what we’ve written on this site… the Big Ten is waiting to see what Maryland has to pay to leave the ACC and if it does decide to expand, schools like Virginia and North Carolina would likely prefer the the Big Ten to the SEC:

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By Kurt Wirth

It strikes me, being the stats nerd I am, how under-developed college baseball coverage is. I mean, it’s really, really poor. PerfectGame and BaseballAmerica are both Rivals-esque sites, relying more heavily upon writing and features than statistics and data. WarrenNolan does some fancy numbers work, but only weighted crunching to produce RPIs. The only reliable source for those of you unfortunate enough to share my addiction to numbers is d1baseball.com, though the depth just can’t match what’s available for college football and basketball.

Okay, enough with the complaining.

I bring the previous point up because I wanted to compare the major conferences and their performances thus far, and it took a great deal more effort than I expected. I was able to pull some data together, and it’s not a pretty picture for several of them.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The SEC is dominating the college baseball scene so far. Owning the best overall record in the country, the league also has played more games versus major-conference teams than any other. Here’s how the performances compare:

• SEC 40-13 (.755)
• ACC 29-10 (.744)
• Pac 12 24-13 (.649)
• Big 12 23-13 (.639)
• C-USA 17-16 (.515)
• Big 10 11-22 (.333)
• Big East  9-21 (.300)

For the record, I counted Conference USA due to its relevance on the college baseball landscape and the Big East because its considered a major conference in other sports.

It seems obvious that there are three levels of play on the college baseball diamond this year. There’s the SEC and the ACC, a gap followed by the Pac 12 and the Big 12, another gap and then everyone else. Admittedly, it’s early, but this follows a trend. Here’s the conference RPI rankings by WarrenNolan last season:

1. SEC .5728
2. ACC .5720
3. Pac 12 .5640
4. Big 12 .5435
6. C-USA .5329
11. Big 10 .5170
13. Big East .5104

Unlike football, there isn’t a media outcry about scheduling for the Southeastern Conference baseball teams. The league has played the most games against the other “majors” and holds the second-best record in those games. This on top of the disastrous Mizzou weekend sweep by Southern Miss of C-USA. Here’s the conferences’ records against each other:

• SEC 9-4 (.692)
• ACC 6-5 (.545)
• Pac 12 7-3 (.700)
• Big 12 0-4 (.000)
• C-USA 5-3 (.625)
• Big 10 4-6 (.400)
• Big East 1-7 (.125)

In short, the SEC is – once again – the haven for college baseball talent. Not a bad place to be for fans, either. Due in large part to the sunny weather (minus a few snow storms this past weekend) and mild temperatures this time of year, the SEC also held the top five spots nationally for average attendance. Led by LSU, with an average more than double that of sixth place (!), the conference held the top five attendance spots for the weekend and 10 of the top 25.

I say this, though, with some caution. No matter how much SEC fans may scream, call and comment, there very clearly is a gap in both talent and practice time between the SEC and northern schools. There is little coincidence that a conference as wealthy and powerful as the Big 10 is located primarily in the Midwestern states and holds an 11-22 record after a weekend.

I’d also like to point out that the SEC’s performance in football is far and away more impressive than its domination on the diamond. College football is infinitely more competitive, receiving more funding and television exposure across the board. Schools must compete in football. Financially, baseball is a novelty.

This is relevant because winning seven-straight national titles in college football, after the sport has matured to where it is today, is darn-near unthinkable. This comparison can be paralleled to Nick Saban, and his growing dynasty, and Bear Bryant. Saban’s current beastly program, again, is far more impressive today than Bryant’s was. It’s simply easier to excel when you’ve got less competition.

Regardless, 2013 is looking like a pretty fantastic year for Southeastern Conference fans, particularly in its exceedingly sizeable baseball stadiums.

Kurt Wirth is graduating in the spring with a Master’s in Communication and Media Technology. A lifelong follower of SEC athletics, you can follow him on Twitter @SEC_Nerd.

When Ohio State president Gordon Gee admitted last month that there seems to be “movement towards three or four super-conferences that are made up of 16-20 teams,” he was stating what many already suspected.  While some may envision a sporting landscape that includes four conferences of 16 schools each, there’s absolutely no reason to believe leagues will stop growing when they hit that imaginary ceiling.  If a conference believes there’s more money to be made with 17, 18, 19, 20 or more schools, you can be sure that conference will expand accordingly.

Over the past three years, we’ve seen as much movement, as much shuffling as the college sports world has ever known.  A chart of this evolution would show a slow rise from ape to man from the early 1900s to the 2000s… and then a huge leap forward to a man with both gills and wings in the 2010s.  For the geeks out there, consider these the X-conferences.  And the mutants are taking over.

Here’s a look at what’s transpired since 2010:

* The ACC has lined up Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville, but it’s lost Maryland.

* The Big Ten has added Nebraska and it’s scheduled to add Maryland and Rutgers.

* The Big XII has added TCU and West Virginia, but it’s lost Colorado, Nebraska, Texas A&M and Missouri.

* The Pac-12 has added Colorado and Utah.

* The SEC has added Texas A&M and Missouri

* The Big East, well, that list is too long to mention.  Ditto those poor, poor leagues smaller than the Big East.

With the exception of the Big XII and the revolving door that is the Big East, the biggest conferences have been getting even bigger.  Money is the obvious motivation.  Conferences are adding schools so they can make more television dollars off an increased amount of content (games).  Schools are switching conferences in order to find a better pay day.

But if history is a guide, don’t expect any super-conferences currently on the horizon to stick together for too long.  Contracts, grant-of-rights agreements, and exit fees be damned… those leagues expanding to 18, 20, or more schools will eventually splinter right back apart.

Here’s why:

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The ACC scored an expected win yesterday when a North Carolina judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the league against the University of Maryland.  The school had argued that that a court in the Tarheel State — which happens to be the home state of the ACC’s league office — held no jurisdiction over a school in the state of Maryland, meaning the league’s $52 million lawsuit/exit fee should be tossed.

Yesterday’s ruling simply sets the stage for another court case.  Planning an escape to the Big Ten, the University of Maryland has no intention of paying the $52 million exit fee the ACC agreed upon last year.  A spokesman for Terrapins’ lawyer Douglas Gansler said last night that “the state is going to be considering its options in light of this ruling.”

Gansler had stated when filing his motion to dismiss that the ACC’s enormous exit fee was “an antitrust violation and an illegal penalty.”  He had also said that his motion “in North Carolina will insure that a Maryland court will rule on the case.”

D’oh.

Multiple sources have told MrSEC.com that Virginia and Georgia Tech have had conversations with the Big Ten, but all parties involved are waiting to see the outcome of the ACC/Maryland battle before deciding to wed.  There have been other reports that the Big Ten has had contact with North Carolina and Duke as well.

Jim Delany’s league and any ACC schools on its wish list could announce plans to wed before Maryland’s case is settled, but at this point that seems unlikely.  So this not-so-unexpected delay in the courts might slow down — for a bit — the inevitable expansion/realignment shuffle to come.

To date, conference exit fees have been negotiated down as schools have found legal loopholes.  But keep in mind, they’ve been negotiated down.  They’ve not been thrown out altogether.  Schools have found enough reason for leagues to believe they could lose a court battle… so rather than risk a court defeat, force schools that want out to stick around, and slow their own re-growth plans, conferences have been willing to negotiate lower settlements.  But the ACC’s exit clause might be more ironclad than other leagues’ contracts.  Again, the exit clause was re-worked last year after the ACC saw school after school talk their own settlements’ down with other conferences.  It’s possible the ACC learned something by watching those other leagues buckle.

Also, seeing as most believe Maryland’s departure could be the first domino to fall in a potential ACC collapse, John Swofford’s league might be more willing to fight this thing in court than other conferences would be.

The irony is that representatives from ACC schools are talking to other conferences about exiting at the exact same time those schools are trying to prevent Maryland from exiting.

(CORRECTION — The original headlines said the “NCAA” won’t dismiss the ACC’s lawsuit.  Total bungle on my part.  Had just been reading up on the NCAA/Miami case and my brain did its typical early morning flub thing.  Apologies.)

Texas AD DeLoss Dodds is apparently still upset that Missouri dared to leave the Big XII.  (Nevermind the fact that Texas has had talks with the Pac-12, the Big Ten, and even the ACC over the years.)  Asked by Kirk Bohls of The Austin American-Statesman when the Longhorns will get back to the business of winning big in athletics, Dodds had this to say:

“We’re going to have good years again.  Our bad years are not that bad.  Take a school like Missouri.  Our bad years are better than their good years.  But we’ve created a standard.”

A standard of driving away schools from your conference?  A standard of mocking Texas A&M’s move to the SEC only to watch in horror as the Aggies thrive and eclipse you in terms national coverage?  A standard of saying bratty things that would best be left to, ya know, folks like us on the internet?

Ah, well.  It’s like we always say: You can’t spell CLASS without ASS.

The Big Ten will move to at least nine conference football games per season and possibly 10 according to league commissioner Jim Delany.  The move has been rumored for several weeks, but Delany confirmed the decision yesterday:

“There’s real recognition that we now live in two regions of the country, and we want to make sure those are bound together as best we can, so more games (makes sense).  Eight games is not on the table.  It’s nine or 10.”

Ohio State AD Gene Smith also said: “There’s television considerations there when you have intriguing conference matchups that are better than some of our non-conference matchups, that’s an important piece.”

That could also be an important piece for the SEC moving forward.  Under current plans, the Big Ten, Pac-12, and Big XII will all be playing at least nine conference games per year.  The SEC currently plays eight league games.  The SEC’s format results in one more cupcake game per year for each school and fewer visits to and from conference rivals.

Eventually — as we’ve stated for more than a year — the Southeastern Conference will move to a nine-game schedule.  It will have to (barring a scheduling alliance with another conference).  Its television partners and the league’s own SEC Network will require such a move for content purposes.  And with a selection committee deciding each year’s four playoff participants, the SEC won’t be able to allow other leagues to claim their teams are playing tougher schedules.  There is already a move to “spread the wealth” of football championships or else there would be no new playoff in the first place.  If members of the selection committee can point to something as simple as “SEC teams play more creampuff non-conference games,” you better believe they’ll do so in order to get teams from as many leagues as possible into the playoffs each year.

But look again at Delany’s statement.  “We now live in two regions of the country,” meaning the Midwest and the East.  There are hardly as many Big Ten schools in the East as there are in the Midwest.  But more are probably on the way.

In recent weeks we’ve reported that our sources have said Virginia and Georgia Tech have both had contact with the Big Ten.  We’ve been told those schools are waiting to see the final bill Maryland will have to pay to get out of the ACC before they decide whether or not to follow the Terrapins’ lead.  Everyone and their brother is now reporting the same thing (or at least reporting on the reports that are already out there).

There have also been rumors that the Big Ten is wooing North Carolina, Duke, Boston College, and Florida State.  At MrSEC.com, we don’t see BC or FSU as being realistic partners with the Big Ten as they lack AAU status, but we’ll mention the rumors just the same.

By adding Maryland and Rutgers late last year, Delany’s league made it clear that it is a) looking to add large numbers of cable households for its Big Ten Network and b) trying to expand southward.  As Delany himself has mentioned time and again, part of the decision to look south is driven by population shifts and demographics.  Several Big Ten states have the slowest growth rates in the country.  Some of the fastest growing states are in the South.  So if you want more television revenue and you need robust populations to create new students and donors, clearly you try to grab a number of top schools farther south.

So what’s this have to do with adding conference games?

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The Big Ten is currently working on a new divisional set-up and a new scheduling format for 2014 and beyond.  By that time, Maryland and Rutgers will have joined the party and Jim Delany’s league will be 14 schools strong.  But will it hold at 14?  Most don’t believe so.  And even a few Big Ten ADs admit that the plans they’re making today could be moot if/when their league grows again:

“Based on the last three years I’ve been in this business, you’d be crazy not to think about it.  But it’s hard to model anything because you don’t know what to model.  The minute you get yourself convinced that you’re going to go from 14 to 16, for all you know you’re going to 18, and a lot of people think the ultimate landing place is 20.  Who knows?” — Michigan AD Dave Brandon

“You make your decision based on today.  And today, we have that many teams.  We can’t worry about something that’s not established yet.  I don’t know if and when there will be more teams.  Right now, we’re going to make decisions based on the additions of Rutgers and Maryland, and we’re going to make them with the information we have, consistent with our principles.”– Iowa AD Gary Barta

“What I’ve liked about our league is, when we added Nebraska, we felt like we needed to settle and watch the landscape.  We thought the East Coast was important, and we got two good pickups relative to that principal.  So I think we deal with what we have now, sit, monitor the landscape, and if something emerges down the road, we’re positioned to be able to absorb.” — Ohio State AD Gene Smith

The Big Ten isn’t alone in this boat.  The SEC kicked out a 2013 football schedule last year, but the league did not release a new scheduling format for future seasons.  The SEC’s twin television deals and it’s upcoming SEC Network are partly responsible for the delay, but so is the possibility of further expansion.

Sidenote – In our view, conference expansion/realignment has become heroin to the American sports junkie.  Yesterday, we attempted to point out that — as we suspected — the Big XII and SEC are indeed willing to talk about a scheduling alliance and that such an alliance could spell the demise of the ACC (because that league desperately needs an alliance with one of those leagues to stabilize itself).

We tried to make it clear that we were simply throwing out potential school moves as examples of what could play out if the SEC and Big XII decided to work together to bring down the ACC.  (Whether they want the ACC to survive or die remains to be seen.)  But the majority of emails and comments we’ve received about that piece have focused on who would go where, rather than on the ACC’s vulnerability.  Many folks focused on the example and missed the point.  Heck, we even called the examples “far-fetched,” “kookery,” “pure fiction,” and “a flight of fancy.”  Didn’t matter.

Conference expansion/realignment is a Hot Stove League for fans of college sports.  More so than recruiting.  More so than coaching searches.  Everyone seems to have an opinion and no matter what angle of realignment is being discussed initially, eventually everyone will begin to debate whether School A will wind up in Conference B or Conference C.

It’s truly fascinating.  There’s no other topic in college sports that leads so many people to the same landing spot… regardless of the starting point.

Excuse us while we bury the lead, so to speak…

Readers of this site know that we’re in favor of a nine-game conference football schedule for SEC teams.  (Short of that, we’re for eliminating divisional play altogether).  There are basically four reasons why we believe the SEC should consider adding a conference contest for each football program each season:

1.  We’re tired of having to waste time writing about the Presbyterians, Jacksonville States and Furmans of the world.  Those games are meaningless — unless the SEC team loses — and fewer and fewer fans are turning out for them.  Apparently many of you are tired of wasting time (and money) and those cupcake games, too.

2.  The SEC takes a lot of hits nationally for what’s seen as a sub-par non-conference slate.  That might not matter under the current BCS system, but when a selection committee takes over and starts handing out playoff invitations it could.  If there are any biased members on that committee who want to see the national championship get spread around a bit more often, those people could use schedule slights as a way to keep multiple SEC teams out of the four-team playoff.

3.  We understand the business side of conference expansion, but tradition should still count for something.  In growing to 14 schools and keeping an eight-game schedule, the SEC has chosen to put in place a system that will prevent cross-divisional foes from seeing other very often.  How many SEC fans in the East Division will miss out on a chance to see a star like Johnny Manziel play against their favorite teams?  How many times will fans from Auburn get to visit a traditional rival like Florida?  Eight is not enough if you believe every conference team should see all its rivals over the course of a decade.

4.  Finally, there’s more money to be made from playing more conference games.  Hey, we said we understood the business involved.  That’s why we’ve consistently said that a nine-game league schedule will someday be adopted.  Whether it’s ESPN paying for better games or the conference making sure it has more content for its new SEC Network, it makes dollars and sense to expand the in-conference football schedule.

Now pleasee don’t give us the “It’ll make it too tough to win a national title” argument.  Nick Saban’s winning titles left and right and he’s the most outspoken proponent for a nine-game schedule.  When the league added an eighth game and a conference title game in 1992, coaches and fans pulled their hair out with fear.  Alabama immediately went undefeated, grabbed the national title, and the SEC has been on a roll ever since.

Why bring this back up today?  Back to the headline — CBSSports.com is reporting that the Big Ten is discussing schedule growth.  Nine games remains the more likely stopping point, but a 10-game plan is in the mix.  There had been talk of the ACC considering a 10-game schedule as well before it decided to stop at nine.

But the Big Ten has more motivation than the ACC to add league games.  That motivation is green and it comes by way of the Big Ten Network.  When a Big Ten team plays a football game in the home stadium of another conference’s team, that game’s television rights are owned the by home team and its conference.  But add another Big Ten versus Big Ten game to the schedule for 14 teams and you have seven more football games for Jim Delany to sell or put on his own network (to drive up subscriptions and subscriber fees)… regardless of where those seven games are played.

Prepping to launch its own league-owned network in 2014, you can be sure Mike Slive and the SEC’s presidents are paying attention.

Since the Big Ten uncorked the bottle holding the conference realignment genie back in November, rumors of more massive changes to come have been spreading across the country.  Fans enjoy the “fantasy league” nature of the discussion.  People in industries connected to college sports (television, athletic equipment suppliers, agencies holding media rights) simply accept that their world is in for more change.  While several of the folks we’ve spoken to in various SEC athletic departments seem to dread the next round of shuffling.

Count us among those who’d like to see the biggest conferences pause, reflect, and observe how the last batch of changes turn out… before changing things once more.  Unfortunately it looks as though further changes are unavoidable.

Schools want to make more money and conference swaps can help them do that.  Conferences want to either stabilize themselves, guarantee themselves more money, or both.  And television networks want more and more content — that means games — with which to fill their program schedules.  Add it all up and it certainly appears that the era of the super-conferences is almost here.

Last month, we began a series of breakdowns on realignment and expansion.  In Part One we looked at which schools might be looking to switch conferences in order to bolster their bank accounts.  In Part Two we examined those 25 “up for grabs” schools to see which ones would probably be on power conferences’ wish lists.  In Part Three we looked at the five remaining power conferences and their various options moving forward.

In this, the final part of our series, we try to tie everything together for you.  It’s not been easy because many different people are saying many different things these days.  That’s the nature of these things, of course.  Everyone from an old buddy who works for a major television network to a contact/source who works inside an SEC athletic department wants us to believe he’s got his finger on the pulse of this stuff.  We’ve tried to cut through the clutter and deliver what we believe to be some pretty accurate recon of the shifting conference landscape, but it’s far from definitive.  This a chess game amongst world class players with billions of dollars at stake.  It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that sources — especially those at schools — might be willing to float misinformation to cause panic elsewhere.

So what you’re about to see should be taken as our view on this early-January day of where the conferences might move in the coming days, weeks, months and years.  It should not be taken as  gospel.  With the television dollars, threats of litigation, and pure politics involved in these realignment decisions, what’s true at breakfast could be false by dinner.

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