Notre Dame Football: Could the ACC adopt the Irish?

Amid the announcements of power five conferences playing only conference schedules, Notre Dame football is looking to fill some open dates in 2020.

Multiple Power 5 conferences have announced that they won’t be playing out of conference games in 2020. For the Notre Dame football, this has taken away three games, all of which are marquee opponents, from the Irish. The question is being asked, how do you replace these games?

The easiest answer is with ACC teams. Several ACC teams now have gaps in their out of conference schedule, and the affiliation between Notre Dame and the ACC would make this easy enough to set-up.

However, and for right now this is just in theory, if the ACC were to cancel their out of conference games, what would happen to their games against Notre Dame?

Notre Dame isn’t an ACC school in football. All ACC vs. the Irish games are considered out of conference games. As of right now, that’s six games this upcoming season. Most notably, Clemson’s trip to South Bend would come into question.

One would hope, through their influence in the sport, Notre Dame would be able to be considered an exception to this rule for ACC teams in 2020. This would let everyone fill out their schedules, make some more gate money, and feel like the schedule is as normal as possible.

On the other hand, what if the ACC feels they have Notre Dame’s feet over the fire? What if the ACC uses this as an opportunity to try and strong arm Notre Dame into joining the conference for football?

The Irish would be left with three out of conference games. Navy, Arkansas, and Western Michigan aren’t enough to play football in 2020. Furthermore, the MAC’s testing is questionable at best, as it’s being reported they’re not testing asymptomatic players, and that could eliminate Western Michigan from the schedule for safety purposes.

So, what would Notre Dame do? Be forced to join the ACC, and fight it on a legal precedent later? Would they accept that a global pandemic shifted Notre Dame from its proud Independent status to a full member of the ACC? Would Notre Dame try and make it work, playing Independents and FCS schools in 2020?

None of these are ideal options, but nothing about the situation is ideal, as it continually looks like this is the situation that the Irish face.

With all of this being said, the ACC’s commissioner John Swofford has said that the ACC would assist Notre Dame filling out their schedule, “with as many games as possible,” in the past. So, while there shouldn’t be an issue there, you just hope the conference’s attitude hasn’t changed.