Rockne's Roundtable

I believe one reason would be that ND wouldn't be able to play around the country like they do now. I'm sure they would use non-conference games to go West, but it wouldn't be the same. I do agree with most of what you said though.

More dinosaur thinking by Notre Dame. If ND has joined the Big east, for example, in Football many years ago, they could have established their terms, kept their TV contracts, had multiple more BCS appearances, chances are they would have won at least one, helped shape the Big east even further, and the Big East would not likely be crumbling today. May have even made more money.

Typical ND.

By ND not focusing its efforts on winning and creating ridiculous schedules at the mercy of Big 10 whims and USC fear of cold weather, and silly boondoggles in Ireland they are just spending money from a bank account opened by Knute Rockne.

But Oh no! We can't join a conference! We're Notre Dame! What garbage.

The main value of being an Independent is having a separate vote at the BCS table. Giving that away would be tough. The Conferences are enablers by keeping ND at the table. Obviously it is in their best interest having ND as an independent if the alternative is them joining a conference not their own. Meanwhile, ND's value keeps shrinking because the team stinks. The conferences can live with that.