re: AD forces Brian Kelly to fire defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder

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I don't really have an opinion or care either way on Notre Dame joining a football conference, but in the context of relevance and "connection" to the rest of CFB, I really think joining a conference would do Notre Dame a lot of good. I do not know the dollars and cents bottom line to it, but I do believe it would help to bring Notre Dame "back into the fold" at least in terms of brand power. I think the Independent thing has run its course.... Back in the day, you either loved Notre Dame or hated NotreDame. I think the "hate" has slowly eroded (which is ironically a bad thing for ND) and the average CFB fan is pretty apathetic towards Notre Dame because there's no connection to Notre Dame anymore.

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That's an entirely separate discussion that probably deserves its own thread, but I think you'd find most intelligent ND fans would thoroughly disagree.

What significant brand cache we still have is very much due to our independence. We can play a truly national schedule in all corners of the country, aren't limited by conference television contracts (like CBS and the SEC), and can market where and when we want.

Joining a conference really did not do Penn State and Miami (to name two formerly major independents) any favors. One became just another blah Midwestern Big Ten program, and the other became just another soft, elitist private ACC program. Pitt is another, if you want a third example.

I would actually argue that the current financial paradigm for conferences is not sustainable, and football independence will look like an increasingly attractive option to more programs as the sport evolves. It makes no economic or strategic sense for Texas to be tethered to Iowa State, for example. Or for Bama and Florida and LSU to be tethered to Vandy or Mississippi State. The difference between the value of the programs and the actual income (because of the contracts) is immense. The conference network television structure will almost certainly fail in a lot of the country as cord-cutting and a la carte progress. That's without even diving into why schools like Rutgers would share one single cultural and strategic goal with a school like Nebraska (or Missouri/Florida or Boston College/Florida State, etc, etc).