I've heard Dornoch is great though.

Seminole is one of those courses where the first time you play it, you may be underwhelmed. But the more you go around it the more you appreciate the genius of the design. You can see why Hogan used to prepare for the Masters there. It's pretty forgiving off the tee and incredibly demanding into and around the greens. If you don't hit it flush the ball is probably ending up somewhere you don't want to be.

"To my extreme discredit, I was like fuck this and just partied."

That was my response to engineering classes getting difficult. Didn't play any golf.

Seminole, I'd be happy to fill in. ;) I would love that course - looks like my style. Though I suck now.

My favorite I have ever played is Dornoch.

I had a great time at PV and Marion.

And Whisper rock.

But yes, I was with Members at all of those places.

it should probably happen soon. Because if ND has another big season this fall and, god forbid, even wins the whole shebang, it's going to look not so great even to those without skin in the game to suddenly back out of long-scheduled games against a team that just won a championship.

Will try to use the USC playbook to save face. But this will be a different situation - these games have been on the schedule for years, and ND certainly isn't looking to move/cancel them. He should have no qualms about saying, loudly, that if the games don't happen its due to the desires of the other side. And if he wants to throw digs in there about teams being afraid to play ND or whatever, more power to him.

Didn’t know about that transition period to Thomas.

screw job, or at least would have tried to build in safeguards. But I am not sure many anticipated it, other than pessimistic Irish fans. Certainly, the betting markets weren't expecting it.

I hope it taught Pete a valuable lesson.

I don't disagree with you about the competence angle. That question has largely been unanswered. However, the desire part isn't an inconsequential piece of the equation. If Kevin White were still ND's AD, we'd be in the B1G a long time ago.

I’ve been there dozens of times in the last 10yrs and every experience (as a guest and as a competitor in tournaments) has been great. Staff is awesome, membership probably has the highest Golf IQ of any club in the country, great caddie program, elite pace of play policy.

My guess is your friends were unaccompanied guests where the policy is kind of show up, play, leave. I suppose you can gripe about the red carpet not being laid out, but the flip side to that is that you’re getting to play at Top 15 course without a member…be grateful, get in, get out. I was able to play Cypress in 2014 unaccompanied. I didn’t complain about not being able to hang in the clubhouse.

I think the Big Ten knows with their conference so big they have a ton of weeks with real crappy match ups. If they added 1-2 home games a year against ND that they can package to NBC, that certainly helps their package. I could see ND adding a 32-3 game scheduling arrangement helps their TV package enough (PEtiti is a TV guy) that is attractive enough to overcome the football coaches not wanting it.

/s, if that was not obvious.

The back door dealings are a necessary part of the job. I have seen little evidence to date that Pete is competent in this regard. And the clock is ticking.

Pete believes in the right things. That’s not enough.

I acknowledge that we also have not seen evidence of *in*competence yet either. Though one could argue that he should have seen the 2025 playoff screw job coming and done something about it.

To all the PR gymnastics that will go into announcing the cancellation of those games. And I hope that Pete and others call out their compatriots loudly for ducking ND. There's no reason to play nice with these guys - they're out for our blood and we should embrace being the bad guy, starting this fall.

and 2-3 pretty good kids and you are in top 25. Only need 1-2-3 signees per year. Stars align and you get 3-4 really good kids and maybe make a run. That should be doable and I think they are now proving it is.

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Texas seems all but done. So yeah, he's going to have to do some maneuvering. I hope he's as adept as Swarbrick was in that role.

My issue is that there is a faction that is seemingly presupposing that somehow Pete doesn't share our belief in what we want to see out of the schedule. Based on his public comments especially USC, I don't think that's a fair depiction of Bevacqua's stance. It's almost like we are pouring gasoline in advance of anticipating the fire. I don't see the basis to do so no matter how bad Micah Shrewsberry has sucked.

hired Coach Thomas. Noel was a nice enough guy and he loved ND, but Jesus he had no idea about golf. At least Thomas knew golf. That and they started scheduling real tournaments. I think they went to Akron the year after I left and Scotland not too long after.

We had a couple of meetings with Boulac and Conboy (who I think is retiring BTW) about how bad it was. They agreed but just said they could not change all the programs at once.

I had a few decent offers, VA offered me a 1/2 schollie (they had just built Birdwood), UNC offered me walk on status with a chance to earn a schollie (this is when they were pretty damn good Davis and Mark Love were on the team), West Point was talking to me, Yale, and a few ACC/SEC teams expressed light interest (especially GATech and UGA).

I went to ND, won the ND Open (IIRC) beat the fuck out of the guy next in line. But the guy next in line (who became a wonderful friend) was chosen to play over me because the other guy was a junior.

Complete BS. Then they fucked up my eligibility for a red shirt by making play in the last match of Frosh year - which I ended up playing okay in.

To my extreme discredit, I was like fuck this and just partied. I should have either transferred or busted my ass. One kid who is still a friend did transfer. He played in a couple of USOpens during his career.

My point is, I could have gone many places but I loved ND. Kinda the Kubinski story but I was not as good as that kid.

Also, on the tournaments, I knew the guys in Statesboro who ran the Schenkel. In its day a huge tournament and still pretty big. I asked if they would let us in and they said of course Doug its ND. "But we suck." We don't care you are in if you want. The ND name carried weight.

Noel would not play - he liked saying we won the MAC and had a great record. Christ!

Just a little effort and all of our teams are decent by default. Maybe not anymore but back in the day it would have been easy.

He and Rory play a tournament every year at Seminole.

Seminole is evidently one of the worst big time places to play as a "regular guest." I have never been but my buddies who have say the staff is awful to non-Members.

I love coach Thomas.

But there is a hell of a lot of smoke out there (mainly coming from Austin sources) that the non-ACC games are on life support, if not all but dead already.

We have Texas, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Miami, Michigan, and Indiana (yes, Indiana) on future schedules. Some Pete had a role, most not. So long as he isn't the one backing out on these match ups, I don't see the evidence he doesn't at least want to make sure we play a viable schedule. Whether he's as good as Swarbrick with the backdoor handling is a different matter but I think the interest in keeping the schedule competitive is there.

He brokered a deal that basically stopped the financial bleeding of the PGA Tour against an opponent with unlimited funds. He was skewered for it largely because of the tact that Monahan originally took to put the Tour on the moral high ground. Jimmy had nothing to do with that.

Having people question Jimmy and basically accusing him of making nice with the planners of 9/11 was despicable. He gave a fiery interview in the aftermath where he said "show me that who I'm dealing with was involved in 9/11 and I'll kill them myself."

He has been quoted saying the three most important things in his life are his family, Notre Dame, and golf. He had nothing to personally gain in the PGA/LIV deal; he was doing what was best for a sport he loves. And after brokering the initial peace it became clear the parties weren't interested in a viable path forward, so he quit his role (his quote in his resignation letter was that his role had become "utterly superflous").

And just for the sake of accuracy, Jimmy was at Sandler O'Neill not Cantor (which was similarly gutted by 9/11). He's a great guy and anyone who takes the time to watch this will be incredibly proud to call him a fellow alum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6NoOiIdcAs

In regards to Kubinski, I had firsthand experience with him. I have nothing positive to say.

Well, not break up but the aftermath when LIV came back into the fold/purview of the PGA. A merger seemed imminent. Didn't happen and Jimmy was summarily dismissed as the broker of the negotiation.

There's a big survivor's guilt angle on Jimmy's story. He didn't go to work at Cantor Fitzgerald on 9/11 because I believe he was playing in a US Open qualifier golf event. One great footnote on this, Jimmy made sure every kid of a Cantor Fitzgerald victim had their college education funded. I am sure there are countless articles and Youtube videos you could find of his story.

As another aside on the golf program, I'd heard Kubinski was just an awful recruiter. A friend is a youth golf instructor at a popular and prominent suburban Chicago country club. Said it was a night and day difference of the calls and communication he received once Handrigan became the coach. It was non-existent. But you talk about the lowest hanging fruit self-selector sport at ND. I guess you could argue the weather, but of the northern schools ND should be near the top.

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Makes Brian Kelly look like Sonny By God Vaccaro.

Even this business about cancelations. Those schools would have to pay a decent chunk of change to ND to extricate themselves from games which stand to make them and the surrounding communities a lot of money. In the midst of Sankey altering the standard for conference members in a way that games against ND would fulfill.

I am not connected in any way, but the fears around some of this has felt like boogeyman stuff to me. SC was clearly something different, and any good Irish fan following along knows exactly what the fuck that was about.

Than I do have been EXTREMELY critical of the way he handled things at NBC when he was in charge of golf. He gives off an air of competency, and his resume looks great, but I have a feeling it might be a whole lot of facade with not much under the hood.

We're sure gonna find out...

Talk about great story...

Thumbnail sketch - he lost a number of friends and colleagues in 9/11, but went on to build/run an extremely profitable investment banking firm. He's a huge power broker in the world of amateur and professional golf, has memberships at places such as Augusta, Seminole, and others, and counts Rory McIlroy and many other professional golfers as friends and confidantes.

Also a member of the ND BoT and just about the biggest swinging dick amongst the ND alumni set currently.

ND has the money and the alumni backing to throw down.

If Bevacqua is not on board, then the issue may be Notre Dame’s willpower.

There have been quiet but persistent rumors that more is going on there than appears, with a nuke being sent the ACC’s way, a partial B1G deal via NBC, and a Big East home for non-Olympic. But how credible are those? Who knows. Fornelli mentioned it the other day on Cover3 and he’s not an idiot, so… maybe?

The problem is, if we have a competent AD, we won’t know until a deal is announced.

And if we have an incompetent AD, we won’t know.

So it’s hard to tell the difference.

I like to think that someone who got to Chairman in a major sports division would have sharp enough elbows to be competent. But I fear that we have a worse version of Swarbrick in the AD seat. That is not intended as praise, though I know many of you disagree with me on that front.

That’s a great story.

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And if we come to learn that Sheahan isn't the guy, I hope that Pete can divorce himself from simply continuing the Jackson pipeline.

I personally don't have much time these days to follow anything outside of CFB and the NFL. I'd prefer the other programs are good, but I'm just not deeply aware of them.

I'm pretty sure Pete wants to get out of the ACC, to the point where explorations are beyond theoretical. Pretty sure the jump he's finding is a lot harder than he'd hoped.

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Freeman's got so much riz they need to call him Aura Parseghian

JJ really allowed the program to stagnate toward the end. I'm not 100% that Sheahan is the answer, but it may need to be a "one step back, two steps forward" sort of deal. College hockey is a funky sport, though I agree that ND should expect to compete nationally over a certain period of time given our natural draw, facilities, etc.

Did you play for Jasinski or Thomas?

The turnaround for that program has been spurred by alumni involvement (Jimmy Dunne being a central figure). Been pretty remarkable how it's ascended after shedding Kubinski, but not completely surprising. The story behind that is pretty funny. Apparently one of the top recruits in the country was a diehard ND fan, came from an ND family, etc. All he wanted to do was go to ND despite all the reasons not to as a golfer (in addition to the weather situation, ND was pretty much a bottom feeder in the ACC at the time).

Jimmy was introduced and set the table for Kubinski, basically said "he's in the bag for ND, call him and pick up where I left off." Signing day came and the kid signed with Stanford (I believe). Jimmy called Kubinski and asked what happened. He replied that he never contacted him, wasn't worth the time since someone like that was never going to come to ND over one of the big golf powers. Jimmy called Swarbrick and said "time for him to go" and off he went.

He got much more involved with the program and that was when the ascent began.

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I asked chatGPT to list out the top 20 baseball programs over the last 10 years, and it's interesting that there's just 1 midwest school (Louisville) in the lot (and nobody from the B10).

in the ranked order:

Florida
Vandy
LSU
Arkansas
Oregon State
Virginia
Miss State
North Carolina
Florida State
Texas A&M
Texas
Ole Miss
South Carolina
UCLA
Stanford
TCU
Louisville
Tennessee
Auburn
Clemson

Hockey, for one, should absolutely be a top-end B1G program. The facilities are great, the recruiting profile (ie, wealthy, predominantly white) fits ND to a tee (see - lacrosse).

I would think volleyball should also be much better than it is. The level of play in the Catholic schools in places like Chicago and Louisville should make for easy recruiting pickings for ND.

Its tough to expect great things from golf, baseball, swimming, track and some of the other sports dominated by warm-weather schools.

https://gcaa.coach/coaches-poll/division-i

Which is pretty damn good considering very few northern teams in there.

That program has come so far since I was there.

https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/238366/scoring/player

They play very competitive schedule and have some of the best facilities in America. I used to beg coach to let us play the Schenkel. It is like 60 miles from my home and I played a lot up there. Thankfully we are now in it and played well.

It has always bothered me that all of our sports aren't at least top 30 year in and out with occasional top 10s.

Like Stanford or UCLA.

But if we end up with no other choice, you could make up a very competitive and intriguing conference with the mix of the best of the ACC and Big XII. And not only would it result in some compelling football matchups, it would be a dynamite hoops conference too.

I think I'd rather be in there than be sucked up by the current iterations of the B1G and the SEC.

But, the SEC is very likely worried about ND joining the B1G, which might incentivize them to encourage members to schedule the Irish. The SEC is also a more flexible scheduling partner, as they aren't as strict with OOC games only occurring in September.

I do think that the conferences are going to regret playing more conference games. Those are zero-sum games, and college football fans are very accustomed to good records padded by easy wins. 10-7 (.588) in the NFL is a pretty good year and would keep a coach around for a while. The college football equivalent of that is 7-5 (.583). String together a handful of those and see how long a coach lasts.

The problem is that once the cat is out of the bag, it is hard for them to go back to fewer conference games, and the calendar isn't long enough for the regular season to expand to 13 games. That likely means cutting back on quality OOC games, which is, of course, bad for the Irish.

With Southern Cal gone, ND probably needs to root for Clemson and BYU and hope to hang on to existing SEC and B1G matchups until the next shakeup happens.

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The ACC and Big XII are desperate for relevance and should be incentivized not to get big-brothered. A 2025 Miami team that doesn't play and beat ND gets laughed out of the CFP debate. Zero good wins there.

The B1G and SEC are motivated to keep ND from joining the other conference. To compel their members to blackball ND is likely to drive us into the arms of the rival conference.

There should be opportunity for Bevacqua to leverage the more limited number of swimmers still wading in the deep end of the FBS pool to ND's advantage. I suppose they could collude to force our hand, but the next time one of these CCs or ADs turns down the sort of easy payday that playing ball with ND typically offers would be the first time in a long time they showed any degree of strategic discipline.

EDIT - Also, networks are not pleased with the recent Indianaing of the OOC schedules, by B1G teams in particular. They didn't all pay 17 thrupillion dollars to spend most of September broadcasting conference-sanctioned mercy killings. There will always be a buy-game element to schedule construction in college, but my expectation is that you'll see the pendulum swing back toward competitive with the corporate overlords holding the purse strings. Particularly once the CFP (likely) expands again.

I just don't know what levers are available in a world where huge conferences are coalescing around conference-heavy schedules. I don't think playoff access will be a problem, but filling up a regular season with good/interesting games will be challenging. Perhaps he can strike some sort of partial deal with the B10, but what's in it for them?

They should have had at least 4 goals if it wasn't for the goalie playing out of her mind.

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#Team128

Relative to their talent and the home field advantage - including last season's absolute head scratching loss to OSU at home. But I like the roster they've put together and believe they have a very good chance of winning it all next year. I wouldn't change much based on what I've seen the last few years, just need to break through in the tournament.

There are already rumblings out there that our future marquee matchups against the likes of Alabama, Texas, etc. are going to be cancelled because the SEC and B1G are, in essence, lining up against us.

If we can't put together a decent/attractive schedule, what are the next moves? Pete appears to be great at glad-handing and has good relationships with people in high places, but is he going to get bullied into a corner here?

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Fencing just won the NC, the men's lax and women's soccer programs are doing great. I'd like to see hockey and both basketball programs improve, but I don't get the sense that Pete is performing worse than Jack.

This feels more like the normal ebb and flow of success in sports than anything structural. And, honestly, I'd take a lot more ebbs in exchange for a football NC.

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We are into year 2 of Pete and I am wondering what his vision for the AD as a whole is.

Is the goal for ND to be successful in all sports across the board or to create a juggernaut in football and hope the rest follow suit. I know NIL plays a big role in things these days but we seem to have fallen off a cliff.

MBB not great
Softball not great
Baseball not great
W Lacrosse middling

The other Olympic sports I am not so sure about because I have to wait until NCAA brackets but it appears we aren't ranked at all aside from fencing.

Do other people care as much as I do?