The independent streak helped build Notre Dame into a historic and modern football powerhouse

DANIA BEACH, Fla. — It was some combination of religion, anger involving Knute Rockne and perhaps the simple idea that some people just don’t like Notre Dame.

Back in the 1920s, the Fighting Irish made what might have been their biggest push to join what would become the Big Ten, but Michigan’s athletic director blocked it. Since then, Notre Dame has been an independent — an increasingly rare iconoclast as college athletics become more controlled by mega-conferences almost by the day.

How are the Irish doing?

Well, instead of splitting the $14 million they earned by reaching the College Football Playoff semifinals — the way Thursday’s Big Ten opponent Penn State must — they pocketed every penny.

Notre Dame may not have the voice of the Southeastern Conference or the Big Ten when it comes to major decisions that guide the sport, but it does have a seat at the table, along with another $12 million starting in 2026 — also unshared with the league — simply because they’re part of the arrangement .

“For the people at Notre Dame, that’s a point of differentiation,” said John Heisler, a longtime sports information guru who has written 10 books about the Irish. “And that’s just not something anyone in South Bend really wants to give up.”

Notre Dame and the Big Ten

It wasn’t always like that. Back in 1899, Notre Dame sought admission to what would soon become the Big Nine. Then it basically went in favor of Iowa and Indiana.

A generation later, in 1926, Rockne, then coaching the Fighting Irish, tried again to bring Notre Dame into the Big Ten.

Michigan athletic director Fielding Yost led the move to ban the Irish — a move that, depending on what you read, came about because he was anti-Catholic or involved in a feud with the Notre Dame legend that dates back more than a decade.

In any case, Notre Dame was left out, and the Fighting Irish and Michigan, just a three-hour drive away, did not play from 1910-1941.

Independence opened the chance to be a national program

The refusal of Michigan and other schools to play the team in South Bend, Indiana, opened up opportunities that Notre Dame continues to use today.

The Fighting Irish have played USC every year since 1926. They have annual meetings with Army and Navy and have played at Stanford most years since 1988. They recently signed a contract that fills their schedule with five games against Atlantic Coast Conference teams each season.

In today’s world, where cable, streaming and social media allow every team to market itself as a national product, that may not sound revolutionary. A few decades ago, it was.

“I think the feeling was, if Notre Dame just wanted to be a Midwest institution, they would have joined the Big Ten a long time ago,” Heisler said. “But it’s not just aspirational in terms of where their students generally come from, or where they recruit. They were always comfortable recruiting from all over.”

TV deals shaped the future of college football, especially Notre Dame

For decades, Notre Dame lived in a world where independent big names were not an anomaly. Miami, Pitt, Florida State and Syracuse were among them, as was this week’s opponent Penn State.

In that atmosphere, the Fighting Irish joined others in the 1970s to join the College Football Association, which was formed to increase the value of TV rights.

By 1990, with the CFA’s effectiveness as a TV market-maker waning and Notre Dame football entering a new golden era under Lou Holtz, the Fighting Irish inked their own deal with NBC in 1991 that was, in many ways, a first a falling domino on the multi-billion dollar path the sport is on today.

The SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992 and added what was then a groundbreaking end-of-season title game. Over the next three-plus decades, virtually every program was caught in the mix of mega-conferences that, in turn, helped shape the 12-team college playoff that debuted this season.

Notre Dame has remained stable, thanks in part to an NBC deal that runs through the 2029 season. Although the Irish haven’t won a national title since 1988, their brand has remained strong enough to claim a spot in that playoff.

One downside is that, without a conference championship up for grabs, the Fighting Irish can’t find an easier path to the title by earning the bye that goes to that league’s champions.

The second is that major conferences have generated so much media rights, Notre Dame needs every penny it can get to stay competitive. Its soccer program has one of the largest budgets in the country, at about $72 million a year, according to Sportico.

“We see independence as a positive thing,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “We sell it to our recruits as a positive thing. We know that we cannot play the championship game and that we cannot say goodbye to the first round. But we continue to use not playing in Week 13 as a bye. In terms of the finances and the TV deal, I’d say that’s another positive side.”

The Fighting Irish continue to buck the mega-conference trend

More changes are destined for college football, its playoff system and the conferences themselves.

In Wednesday’s pregame joint news conference, Penn State coach James Franklin opined about the need for more uniformity throughout college football — for example, to give the playoff selection committee more “apples-to-apples” comparisons when sorting teams how would fill in the brackets.

“This is not a knock on the coach or Notre Dame, but I think everyone should be in the conference,” Franklin said, before giving Freeman an almost apologetic look across the table.

Freeman said he doesn’t have as strong an opinion as Franklin on the state of college football, and he doesn’t see the need for Notre Dame to one day be like everyone else.

“We pride ourselves and our independence,” the Fighting Irish coach said. “If they make a decision where they tell us we can’t be independent, we will do that.”