Illinois coach Bret Bielema grabs attention with pointed shot at Notre Dame
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Illinois Football is not the most prestigious program in college football. Bret Bielema has turned the program around from the day of Lovie Smith, finishing in the Top 25 each of the last two years. On the other end of the spectrum is Notre Dame, which has consistently been a dominant program.
This past week, Congress spoke with many major figures in college football about NIL and the Protect College Sports Act. One of those to speak to Congress was Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua.
“My second concern is if you want to truly maximize the media value around the largest sport in terms of eyeballs, which is college football, I do think the best way to do that is a super league. And I certainly don’t want a super league. And I’m not sure anybody necessarily wants a super league. Flooding the market, aggregating the market, bringing it to an aggregate form to major media companies, I’m not sure that’s going to drive the value some say it will,” Bevacqua, who is also the former chairman of NBCSports, said.
“If you wanted to maximize media value around college football, I think you would take 24 to 30 teams, create unbelievably competitive scheduling where a team like Notre Dame would play Alabama, Georgia, Penn State, Ohio, State, Michigan and start to get a number that more closely resembles an NFL number.”
The argument is simple: big matchups every weekend between big schools. Bret Bielema also posted a solution on X, formerly Twitter.
“Some guys really like to talk about something that could happen and who they might play…. Actually it’s pretty easy just join a conference,” Bielema posted.
Illinois has a schedule loaded with major matchups, facing Duke, Ohio State, Michigan State, Oregon, Nebraska, and Iowa, among others. Most of those come from a conference schedule. While Notre Dame has Miami, Wisconsin, and Michigan State, they also face Rice and Boston College. A conference schedule would nto guarantee major match-ups every weekend for Notre Dame, but it would be a step in the right direction.
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