Report: Notre Dame in talks with Big Ten

This morning, in response to some reporting by the New York Times — money quote: “Does Notre Dame become the 12th team in the Big Ten or does it risk being forced to later join the conference as the 16th team?” — and SportsByBrooks (which summarized things thusly, in a tweet: “Notre Dame AD: No current talks w/ Big 10. Scene appears set for Big 12 demise, Pac-16.”), I wrote:

Notre Dame’s preferences, in order, are: 1) Status quo. 2) Join a 12-team Big Ten. 3) Join a 16-team Big Ten. 4) Be “left behind” in superconference era. It’s hard to believe they’d be so short-sighted as to reject #2 in hopes of preserving #1 when that makes #3 or #4 overwhelmingly likely.

Now, an article by AOL Fanhouse suggests that, indeed, ND is not that short-sighted:

According to sources, the Big Ten officials and Notre Dame officials have entered into talks that could drastically alter the realignment talk which has dominated headlines in recent days. One insider told FanHouse on Tuesday that the two sides are talking about the nation’s biggest independent joining one of the most influential conferences to give the Big Ten its desired 12 members.

The source said the talks “could not necessarily” be described as negotiations but said if Notre Dame can be convinced to give up its long standing independence that things could move rather quickly. Another source familiar with the back-and-forth between Notre Dame and the Big Ten over the years believes all of the Big Ten expansion talk which began with commissioner Jim Delany’s announcement last December has always been aimed at getting the Irish to join the conference.

The realization that the Big Ten’s threat to add five members could trigger a reaction that would create four super 16-team conferences, and effectively put the squeeze on Notre Dame scheduling, has convinced Irish officials to again sit down at the table with the Big Ten.

This would appear to contradict the seemingly fairly strong denial by Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick in the Times article:

Swarbrick…said he had not been engaged in any discussions with the Big Ten.

“First of all, there haven’t been any sort of deliberations,” he said. “Internally, we talk about this stuff all the time. We have not entered into discussions with anyone.”

I could parse that statement for Clintonisms, but that might miss the point, because I’m not sure there’s much reason to believe that anyone is being remotely honest in public statements about this. (In other words, we may be in Saban territory, rather than Clinton territory — why distort the language with non-denial denials, when you can just flat-out lie?) This whole thing is all one gigantic high-stakes poker game, with athletic directors and conference commissioners trying to figure out who’s bluffing and who’s not. Notre Dame, above all, has every incentive to bluff, creating the impression that it’s totally uninterested in joining the Big Ten, right up until the moment when it becomes utterly convinced that Big Ten isn’t bluffing about triggering superconference armageddon. And we’ll only know Notre Dame has reached that realization… if and when Notre Dame joins the Big Ten.