Notre Dame Football: New Schedule likely nixes two more scheduled opponents
By going to a 10-game conference ACC schedule, Notre Dame football likely misses out on playing Arkansas and Western Michigan.
On Wednesday, it was announced that the ACC will foster Notre Dame football for the 2020 season. In doing so, Notre Dame will be playing 10 ACC opponents, and is eligible for the ACC Championship Game next season.
Now, that’s obviously the headline. Lost in that headline, is the fact that Notre Dame had to cancel two more games, one of which was against a SEC opponent. If they didn’t cancel, the Irish would simply have an overloaded schedule, and not enough space to play 10 ACC games. Without the 10 ACC games, Notre Dame wouldn’t have been able to play a full schedule.
None of this is ideal, but the ACC deal is by far the better option. It’s just also the option that lead to Notre Dame needing to take Arkansas and Western Michigan off their schedule.
This means Arkansas won’t be coming to South Bend to compete in the Lou Holtz Bowl. It would have likely been a pushover win for Notre Dame, who would have then been able to use it to brag about how many Power 5 wins they had during the regular season. After all, Arkansas is in a complete rebuild, with first year coach Sam Pittman being tasked to take on the job.
Western Michigan likely also will not be on the schedule. The Broncos would have been one of the tougher MAC opponents that the Irish could put on their schedule. Of course, that only means so much. Western Michigan may have kept things close and uncomfortable, but the talent gaps was always going to shine through.
Both of these games would have been home games, and will, in effect, be directly replaced by two ACC opponents. Florida State and Syracuse were added to Notre Dame’s slate of home games by the ACC. Frankly, that’s an upgrade for Notre Dame. There’s just a higher quality match-ups with the ACC teams.
Next. Irish owe a debt of gratitude toward the ACC. dark
In the long term, it is likely a matter of ‘now or later’ in regards to cancelling these games. After all, the SEC is rumored to be cancelling out of conference games shortly. The MAC, for financial reasons, will try and hold out as long as possible, but the inevitable is the inevitable.