Examining (again) whether Notre Dame Football should join a conference

One of the most perpetual of discussions in the college football world is if and when Notre Dame football will join a conference.

The Notre Dame football program has long frustrated a faction of fans who think it’s time that the Irish should take their talents to one of the nation’s power five conferences. I’ve long been over how Notre Dame absolutely does not have to join a conference. They just don’t. Them joining a conference proves nothing. A “13th data point” proves nothing for a program that regularly plays one of the most difficult and diverse schedules in college football.

Before Notre Dame reached an agreement with the ACC, they essentially were in a conference without actually being in a conference: Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Stanford, USC, and Navy were the teams in Notre Dame’s “conference.”

Notre Dame played most of those teams pretty much every year, with obvious occasional replacements and substitutions when schedules just didn’t work out. Schools like Tennessee would make brief appearances on Notre Dame’s schedule in such cases.

It was pretty plain and simple that if Notre Dame were to run the table (or finish with one loss, perhaps) with the aforementioned schedule, the Irish would be National Championship bound. The Bowl Championship Series system made that pretty easy.

And then there are the other perks of being independent: Being able to travel to cool places, being able to boast a national television audience for every home game, and much more.

With the emergence of the College Football Playoff, however, things have been a little more complicated for the Irish, especially since the selection committee has said that there teams who win a conference championship game are given precedence in instances where a “tie” between schools needs to be broken. Thus far, Notre Dame hasn’t been spurned by that thought process (much to the chagrin of Georgia fans), but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

So here’s the question: Would it be so awful, given Notre Dame’s current arrangement with the conference, if the Irish joined the Coastal Division of the ACC?

If they did, the Irish would play a schedule with the likes of Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami, Pittsburgh, Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia every year, one crossover game into the other side of the conference, and then four more out-of-conference games where they could schedule USC, Stanford, Navy, and a team like Ball State.

That schedule sounds pretty difficult, but is it more difficult that what Notre Dame always plays? Personally, I’m not a huge fan, but there have been crazier ideas in the world.

If nothing else, it would give the Irish the opportunity to play in a conference title game and get people off their back. In years when the Irish stub their toe a time or two, they would then have a conference championship to play for, even if they were out of the national picture.

While Notre Dame doesn’t need a conference, nor do I think they should join one, it’s interesting to think about how the landscape of college football would be affected if they did.