Their football affiliation with the ACC hasn't done them any favors. Clemson has dominated that league for the past 20 years or so, and some of the schools that used to be national powerhouses before joining the ACC (like Syracuse, Pitt and MiamiF) aren't as relevant anymore. And watching the ND games on NBC is a little like watching baseball on CBS when they owned the Yankees back in the late '60s or OOC games on B10 Net -- the announcers' bias is overwhelming.

Notre Dame has a fundraising arm with almost unlimited resources that we can't fully comprehend because they don't have to publicly disclose that information. They really don't "need" the Big Ten or ACC as much as some of these other schools financially. NBC is paying them a paltry amount compared to what ESPN and Fox are dishing out, and they couldn't care less. The only reason to join a conference would be to balance or guarantee a schedule that suits their needs.

I could easily see Stanford going the Independent route too. Because if the Big Ten is going to continue raiding the PAC 12, it's not going to be for Stanford. It's probably going to be for Oregon and Washington, the only two schools left in the conference with anything to offer in terms of football eyeballs. So that leaves Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, Utah, Cal, Oregon St. and Washington St. The former 4 are rumored to be at least in talks with the Big 12. Cal has massive budgetary concerns and the Berkeley community could probably take it or leave it as far as competing in major college football.

Ain't no way Stanford is sticking in some hodge podge league of Oregon State, Wazzuu and Mountain West schools. They'll stick their nose up at the likes of Fresno and fill their own schedule. And really, haven't they always felt like an outlier anyway?