Notre Dame Football: Atlantic Coast Conference announces 10-game schedule

On Wednesday, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced its 10-game schedule, including 10 conference games for Notre Dame football.

Today, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced its revised football schedule for 2020. No dates have been announced, but we at least now know who we can expect to see Notre Dame football play this season.

The announcement includes information that all ACC sponsored fall sports will begin the week of September 7. The Notre Dame-Navy game, currently penciled in for September 5th in Annapolis, may end up being canceled or moved to a different location. Under the new ACC guidelines, the non-conference game must be against a team in the state of an ACC school. For Notre Dame and Navy, that likely means the game gets flipped to South Bend or played at a neutral site.

If Notre Dame wants to play a team in the state, that would mean Ball State would be a logical opponent, since the Big Ten is not playing out of conference games.

There are several big changes for this season, with the biggest being the at least for one season, Notre Dame has officially joined a conference. The Irish will be eligible for the ACC Championship game.

There will also only be one division, meaning the Atlantic and Coastal are out the window this year. The championship game format will be similar to the Big 12, where the top two teams based on win percentage will advance to the game played in Charlotte on either December 12 or 19.

This will be an 11 game season in the conference, which includes 10 conference games and only one non-conference game. So far, no ACC teams have a non-conference game announced. These games will happen over a 13-week period with two open dates per team.

This will also be a big financial gain for the ACC, as quoted from their press release: “All television revenue for the 2020 season, including Notre Dame’s home games broadcast by NBC, will be shared equally by all 15 institutions.”

Notre Dame finally has at least a little clarity as to what its football season will look like, which is always a good sign. It will be interesting to see the way the schedule officially takes shape in the coming weeks.