DeFilippo = doofus | by Jay

Heisler responded yesterday to the Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo's charge that the reason the Irish dropped BC from the schedule was because we still had a bug up our ass about the vandalism to our locker room three years ago. Sure, Gene.

As we speculated, the actual reason is much more mundane.

A Notre Dame official last night denied a Herald story that stated the Fighting Irish had pulled out of the final three years of their football agreement with Boston College because of field and locker room incidents in South Bend three years ago.

John Heisler, associate athletic director at Notre Dame, said the Irish pulled out of the final three years of the agreement with BC because the school has decided, starting in 2011, to play three Big East schools a season. While still an independent in football, Notre Dame is a Big East member in most other sports.

“It’s part of a complete reworking of our scheduling,” Heisler said. “We aren’t able to start that until 2011 because we had too many commitments. It was born out of a conversation we had with (Big East commissioner) Mike Tranghese. . . . Mike basically came to us and asked if we’d be willing to make a more specific commitment (in football). The commitment we made to the Big East was just part of being a good partner.”

With ND’s long-running relationships with the Pac-10, Big Ten and Navy, that forced the school to make some changes, said Heisler.