The Texas Connection

Tuesday’s Texas-led Big XII revival affirmed ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick’s foresight last week: “It increasingly feels like there'll be a lot of change, or very little,” he told Pat Forde June 7 for an article published two days later.

His on-point prediction—and admission of the latter option when chaos seemed inevitable—suggests Swarbrick at least sustained discussions with the involved parties (which is his job as an AD) or perhaps even direct influence (which would make him good at his job). Keith Arnold considered the possibility of a behind-the-scenes agreement in his fascinating NBC piece.

In any case, UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds and Longhorn decision makers just did ND’s independence a Texas-sized favor. Brian Kelly openly prefers football independence, and on Tuesday he told Bruce Feldman that the Texas decision was “huge piece” for this goal.

As Swarbrick prudently mentioned to the Chicago Tribune during the height of realignment chaos, the Nebraska and Colorado decisions impacted the Irish only indirectly.

A UT move would’ve been quite different, and Swarbrick recognized this priority by May at the latest, when he talked to USA Today for a feature on Notre Dame and Texas. Swarbrick said he and Dodds share “a similar perspective.” His Texas counterpart’s reluctance to create a 16-team conference meshes with Swarbrick’s cited concern of having “a different division of college football all of a sudden.”

The extent to which Swarbrick interacted with Dodds during the process is an interesting but ultimately less important question. Results matter, and as the dust temporarily settles, ND indeed benefited from the Texas decision. Despite the Dodds assist, the win for Notre Dame shows that the half of Swarbrick’s time devoted to realignment was truly well spent.