UND off of Schedule after '14

GBI's Alan Karpick reported last night that Purdue and Notre Dame won't play each other for at least 5 or 6 seasons following 2014...So what now?

I'll tell you what happens now from my perspective: UND will continue to get special treatment from its quasi-conference affiliate (the ACC), the sun will rise and set, and I'll still hate Notre Dame. Not much has changed. One real positive about this change is I can watch UND's theatrics and bullcrap without any thought of how it affects Purdue.

Purdue has played UND each season since 1946 in football...that's a noteworthy rivalry game, but in typical UND fashion, they've decided to halt the tradition all while continually packaging their program as one that favors tradition over new-fangled football. Notre Dame is the Oprah Winfrey of football- just like Oprah, her faithful believe the story more than the reality of what's in front of us. They believe their program is different than everyone else's and they believe they are better than every other team that's on TV. Those that are a step or two removed from the Irish know that, like Oprah, Notre Dame does what's best for Notre Dame. Period. And, in their defense, why the hell not?

Until a super-conference structure forms, they'll continue to get silly, undeserved bowl tie-ins and a separate set of rules regarding their TV and commercial exposure. Who wouldn't want that?

This announcement makes the game in Lucas Oil versus UND have a bit more spice to it, that's for sure...it'd be pretty great if one of Hazell's first signs of the program turning around was beating UND one last time.

One very good byproduct of the steps away from the B1G that they've taken is we don't have to watch Delany continue to genuflect at their altar as he tries over and over again to get them to join the conference. Hopefully, just as Painter had to be forced to quit chasing the Zeller family, Delany now gets the message that it's really not them, it's him (and his employer), that's the problem.

Afterall, special treatment from a conference always works- ask Texas and the Big 12...So as UND continues to pretend to be something it's not, we can all still root against them vociferously; nothing about that really changes.