Independent streak helped build Notre Dame into football's historic and now modern behemoth

DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It was some combination of religion, a grudge involving Knute Rockne and maybe the simple notion 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 the athletic director at Michigan blocked it. Ever since, Notre Dame has been an independent — an increasingly rare iconoclast as college athletics becomes more controlled by mega-conferences almost by the day.

How's that working out for the Irish?

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

Notre Dame might not have the voice of the Southeastern Conference or Big Ten when it comes to the big-time decisions guiding this sport, but it has a seat at the table, along with another $12 million starting in 2026 — also unsplit with a league — simply for being part of this arrangement.

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

It wasn't always that way. As far back as 1899, Notre Dame was looking to be admitted into what was about to become the Big Nine. That time, it essentially got passed over 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's athletic director, Fielding Yost, led the move to block the Irish — a move that, depending on what you read, came because he was anti-Catholic or involved in a feud with the Notre Dame legend that dated back more than a decade.

Either way, Notre Dame was left out and the Fighting Irish and Michigan, just a three-hour drive apart, didn't play from 1910-1941.

Michigan and other schools' refusal to play the team in South Bend, Indiana, opened opportunities Notre Dame still takes advantage of to this day.

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

In today's world, where cable, streaming and social media allow for every team to market themselves as a national product, that might not sound revolutionary. Decades ago, it was.

“I think the feeling was, if Notre Dame would have just wanted to be a Midwest institution, they would've joined the Big Ten a long time ago,” Heisler said. “But that's not just the aspiration in terms of where their students in general come from, or where they recruit. They've always been very comfortable recruiting from all over the place.”

For decades, Notre Dame lived in a world where the big-name independent was 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 went along with others in the 1970s and joined the College Football Association, which was established to maximize value for TV rights.

By 1990, with the CFA's effectiveness as a TV market-maker in decline and Notre Dame football reaching a new golden era under Lou Holtz, the Fighting Irish in 1991 cut their own deal with NBC that, in many ways, was the first domino to fall on the multibillion-dollar road this sport is on today.

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

Holding steady throughout, in part thanks to the NBC deal that runs through the 2029 season, has been Notre Dame. Even though the Irish haven't won the national title since 1988, their brand stayed strong enough to demand a spot in that playoff mix.

One drawback is that, without a conference championship available to win, the Fighting Irish could not find an easier path to the title by earning a bye that goes to those league's champions.

Another is that because the big conferences have generated such massive media rights, Notre Dame needs every penny it can get to stay competitive. Its football program has one of the nation's biggest budgets, at about $72 million a year, according to Sportico.

“We view being independent as a positive thing," coach Marcus Freeman said. "We sell it to our recruits as a positive thing. We know we can't play in a championship game and we can't have a first-round bye. But we continue to use not playing in Week 13 as our bye. In terms of the finances and the TV deals, I'd say that's another positive.”

More change is destined for college football, its playoff system and the conferences themselves.

At the joint pregame news conference Wednesday, Penn State coach James Franklin opined about the need for more uniformity across all of college football — for one, to give the playoff selection committee a more “apples to apples” comparison when sorting through teams to fill the bracket.

“This is no knock at coach or Notre Dame, but I think everyone should be in a conference," Franklin said, before almost apologetically looking at Freeman on the other end of the table.

Freeman said he doesn't have opinions as strong as Franklin's on the state of college football, and doesn't see the need for Notre Dame to someday be like everybody else.

“We pride ourselves and our independence,” the Fighting Irish coach said. “If they come out with a decision where they tell us we can't be independent, we'll make it work.”

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FILE - Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts (0) celebrates with teammate Armel Mukam (88) during the second half against Georgia in the quarterfinals of a College Football Playoff, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE- Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard (13) celebrates after a quarterfinal game against Georgia in the College Football Playoff, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, left, and team captain Clem Crowe watch the team practice in 1925. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard (13) scrambles up field during the first half against Georgia in the quarterfinals of a College Football Playoff, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)

FILE - In this 1924, file photo, Notre Dame's infamous backfield, "The Four Horsemen," from left, Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreherare pose on the practice field in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011, file photo, the hallway between the locker room and the field at Notre Dame stadium shows the sign "Play like a Champion Today" in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond, File)

FILE - Notre Dame's Joe Montana tries to brush off Reggie Wilkes of Georgia Tech during his six-yard gain in first quarter of an NCAA college football game, Nov. 7, 1977 game at South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame's head coach Lou Holtz and the Fighting Irish walk onto the field of the Los Angeles Coliseum to warm up for an NCAA college football game against Southern California Saturday, Nov. 30, 1996 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — It is a topic that shadowed tennis in 2024 and is still a talking point as the 2025 Grand Slam season opens at the Australian Open on Sunday (Saturday EST): doping and the cases involving Jannik Sinner — which is still not resolved — and Iga Swiatek.

Both spent much of last year at No. 1, and Sinner still will hold that spot in the ATP rankings when he steps on court at Melbourne Park to begin the defense of his championship, one of two major trophies he won last year.

Swiatek, a five-time Slam champ and the woman leading the WTA rankings most of the past three seasons, is No. 2 behind Aryna Sabalenka, who will be chasing her third consecutive title in Australia.

“Obviously, there are going to be some negative comments," Swiatek said. "You're not going to avoid that.”

Most players prefer to remain silent when asked about the cases. But there are those who have been happy to weigh in, including 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic, raising questions about whether Sinner and Swiatek were treated the same as other players facing similar circumstances and why their situations were kept under wraps for months.

“I sit and wonder, ‘Why such a big difference in treatment and judgment?’” was two-time major champion Simona Halep's reaction to Swiatek's punishment. “I can’t find, and I don’t think there can be, a logical answer."

Halep initially was banned for four years after testing positive for the banned drug Roxadustat at the 2022 U.S. Open, then had that penalty reduced to nine months on appeal — although she already had been off the tour longer than that. She was supposed to compete at Melbourne Park for the first time in three years but withdrew from qualifying because of knee and shoulder pain.

No one has been louder about the subject lately than Nick Kyrgios, the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up who missed nearly all of the past two seasons because of injuries. He has been commenting regularly, in real life and online, even taking a jab (that he said was in jest) at Cruz Hewitt after the 16-year-old son of Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton posted a photo with Sinner from a practice session.

“It’s been handled horrifically in our sport. Two world No. 1s, both getting done for doping, is disgusting for our sport," Kyrgios said at the Brisbane International, the first event of his comeback. “It’s a horrible look.”

Sinner was the dominant player in men's tennis last year, and there's little reason to think that won't continue. In 2024, he went 73-6 with eight titles, including at the U.S. Open, and led Italy to the Davis Cup. He heads into the Australian Open on a 14-match winning streak.

Hanging over it all is this: Two positive tests for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid in March were made public in August; the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) determined he shouldn't be suspended because the exposure to Clostebol was considered accidental — the result of a massage from a trainer who used the substance after cutting his own finger.

The World Anti-Doping Agency was not entirely convinced about the exoneration and thinks a ban of one to two years would be appropriate. Its appeal, lodged in September, is still pending, and a final determination is expected after the Australian Open ends.

“It’s in (my) head a little bit," Sinner said, adding that he is confident everything will go his way.

Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension in late November after testing positive for a banned heart medication known as TMZ. She failed an out-of-competition test in August, and the ITIA accepted her explanation that it was caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for jet lag and sleeping issues.

She missed three tournaments — although the real reason wasn't revealed at the time — and finished serving her punishment after the season was done.

“This whole process was pretty abstract sometimes and hard to understand,” Swiatek said, surely speaking for many observers.

Which is why, perhaps, Netherlands captain Paul Haarhuis said what he did after his team lost to Sinner's Italy in the Davis Cup finals.

“Jannik, in my personal opinion, is an unbelievably nice guy (and) great player,” Haarhuis said, “but we (might) never know what happened.”

While Sinner and Swiatek will compete in Melbourne, another player involved in a recent ITIA case won't: Max Purcell, who won men's doubles titles at the U.S. Open in September and Wimbledon in 2022 and was a two-time runner-up at the Australian Open.

Purcell didn't test positive, though. Instead, he accepted a provisional suspension for, as he described it, having “unknowingly received an IV infusion of vitamins above the allowable limit."

“I have no good words for it,” said Jordan Thompson, Purcell's doubles partner in New York last year. "It is a joke."

FILE - Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus holds the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup after defeating Zheng Qinwen of China in the women's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Poland's Iga Swiatek holds the trophy after winning the women's final of the French Open tennis tournament against Italy's Jasmine Paolini at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, France, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

FILE - Jannik Sinner, left, of Italy gestures as he holds the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup after defeating Daniil Medvedev, right, of Russia in the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

FILE - Poland's Iga Swiatek returns the ball against Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic during the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, Nov. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

FILE - Jannik Sinner of Italy poses with ball kids and the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup after defeating Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)