Irishize
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Philly, how would you rate your desire to keep those rivalries on a scale of 1 to 10?
For me, USC is a 10. Navy is a 3. Stanford is a negative eleventy billion... I actively want to drop them.
If we could set up our ACC agreement to be in the new “ACC North” where we play BC every year I’d consider that a positive trade off for dropping Stanford. I think you could play Navy as one of your OOC games if the ACC schedule was 8 games. The scheduling crunch comes in if the ACC schedule was made 9 games for some reason.
I echo your sentiment. Stanford can’t be considered a top ND rival just b/c they had a nice run in the Harbaugh/Shaw era. Yes, they sprung an upset or two in the early 90s but as someone stated ND didn’t start playing them consistently until 1988 & I suspect it was to give them a break from the gauntlet they continuously faced in the rest of the slate.
Joining a conference also gives ND an out from the ever present burden of playing Navy. I’d say ND has repaid the debt & can continue to sprinkle them into their schedule intermittently but it’s not a true rivalry when it’s so one-sided & there’s no upside for ND as they’ve more than “done the right thing” for the last generation.