If you’ve followed us at Fighting Irish Wire at pretty much any point over the last year or so you’re aware that we refer to Notre Dame’s football relationship with the ACC as a “friends with benefits” situation.
Notre Dame gets six games annually but keeps their independence while the ACC gets Notre Dame on the schedule for six of their teams each year. The Irish then belong to the conference for every other sport the rest of the year.
Both Notre Dame and ACC have a football fling, but neither appear racing to change their Facebook relationship statuses, either.
According to a report from SI’s Wolverine Digest, Notre Dame staying at six games with the ACC when things return to normal, might not be a given.
From the Wolverine Digest report:
“Notre Dame really wanted to play and was willing to enter into an agreement that could lead to something down the road … at the very least, more games every year against ACC teams,” an insider shared. “They’re adamance about playing was the ace-in-the-hole a group, led by Clemson, needed to really push for a season and turn the tide in favor of ignoring the Big Ten.
“I mean, if Notre Dame, with their academic reputation and their national brand, was willing to go forward … it sort of just sealed the ACC’s fate.”
– Wolverine Digest Staff Report 8/26/2020
There isn’t clarification as to whether that means simply adding a seventh ACC game to Notre Dame’s schedule soon or if it means that Notre Dame has promised to join the conference as a full-time member down the road.
Is the entire ACC only on board with playing football in 2020 because it means that Notre Dame MIGHT one day decide to lose it’s independence?
That seems a bit far-fetched to me.
For instance – if Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Florida State are that set on following the Big Ten’s lead, Notre Dame offering to play more ACC football down the road makes them change their beliefs?
I’m not buying it.
There are a lot more questions from this report than there necessarily are answers – one being why Notre Dame pushing for football, something the Michigan football program is said to have also wanted for this season, is another reason to hate them like this piece flat-out says:
And if you’re looking for another reason to hate Notre Dame, now you have it.
-Wolverine Digest Staff Report 8/26/2020
I won’t sit and question the entire validity of the report, they’ve got to have someone in Chicago and Ann Arbor like they say, if they’re willing to go to press with this.
However, to me this feels like this is written a lot more as a piece trying to throw a life-raft to the Big Ten and its commissioner for the conference overestimating it’s own power than actually accepting any blame for a decision that is only being questioned more and more by the day.
What I do know is that Notre Dame seems a lot more open to the idea of one day joining a conference than it ever has been, but that that decision is anything but imminent, too.
This is compelling and thought-provoking, no doubt – I’m just not too certain it all adds up.
Stay tuned to Fighting Irish Wire for anything else that develops off of this and everything else related to Notre Dame as always.