any other programs that that is true of.

swimming teams, and men's golf are finding it tougher to win in the ACC than they did in the Big East. The hope, of course, is that they will eventually rise to the competition.

...women's tennis is suffering from a general decline in the program not a move to the ACC. 10 years ago they were a perennial Sweet 16 team and at their peak a Final Four team. They could compete with the class of the ACC back then. Jay Louderback did an amazing job building that program, but it's time for some new blood.

That also seems a bizarre way to characterize women's soccer given that it was a national powerhouse.

at home to SIU-Edwardsville. The previous year the team was shutout in the second round by former Big East foe, Connecticut. National powerhouses don't lose that early in the post-season and recruiting seems to be less effective than it was before joining the ACC. Adding Nate Norman to the coaching staff should help all aspects of the program.

...not "we're as good as we've always been it's just that we're in a new conference where it's harder to win."

Particularly because of the numbers and depth needed to compete over the grind of the season...more so a baseball because of numbers of pitchers required for the course of the season

are right where we were before. Make the NCAA and don't make the super regionals. 22 years in a row now.

Think about how hard it is to do one without the other over 2 decades. You were NEVER the better/best team just one time? Never? Yet, you were good enough to get there. It's baffling how that could occur again and again and again and again. Even more baffling is how the NCAA committee never shut you out after all that failure. You'd think the track record of failure was clear.

dominated by California, Texas, and the SE where you can play outdoors year round and where you won't hurt your arm pitching too much in the cold. It takes incredible effort to recruit to a Northern school when a kid could go to a warm weather school especially when talking about state schools who can give free rides to in state students w/o putting them on scholarships using state lottery monies like South Carolina and Georgia have and using scholarship money to give larger percentage scholarships to out of state students. Whereas at a private school they must divide the 11 scholarship among 25+ players and the remaining costs are still high unless they qualify for a lot of financial aid due to need.

you keep making excuses, ignoring the success that Pat Murphy and Paul Manieri had at Notre Dame, and we'll keep getting the sorry performances we've been getting recently.

Maybe climate change had something to do with the fact that Murphy and Manieri could produce sustained excellence in Northern Indiana while Aoki can't possibly do any better than the crap we've seen.

Notre Dame -- athletically and otherwise -- has achieved greatness in spite of great obstacles.

holds water anymore across the board. These sports certainly have a majority of teams competing at high levels from the west and south; however, we are beginning to see big ten teams make a dent. I don't believe the excuse holds in regards to the weather. The Minnesota softball team won 55 games I believe and took Alabama to the wire in two NCAA tournament games.

All time, 9/70 CWS and 1/35 CWWS winners are from "cold weather" schools. It is a major disadvantage.

...wise. But nor is it South Beach.

And why ND did fine in big east and not so fine in ACC...at least that's a big part of it

I don't really follow softball so I guess I shouldn't speculate;
They tend to only use a couple pitchers though

regarded pitchers. und.com just posted an article about them today.

The current staff has not proven they can develop elite pitching. This lack of competence also extends to the softball off season conditioning. It takes strong legs and endurance to be an elite pitcher, something not found in Notre Dame pitchers.