Notre Dame Football: Reasons for and against Irish finally joining a conference

Reason No. 2 not to join: Possible loss of national rivalries

The Irish have two different types of rivals; teams they play every year and teams they have a history with — maybe even a trophy — but do not play annually. They play USC, Stanford and Navy every year. They have a history with the likes of Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Boston College and Pitt.

Depending on which conference they join — let’s keep it to the Big Ten and the ACC for context — the historic rivalries take care of themselves depending on which conference they play. For example, if they end up in the Big Ten East — which makes the most sense — they’d play Michigan and Michigan State every year.

If they played in the ACC, they would play Boston College or Pitt, depending on which division they played. In both cases, they could do what UNC and Wake Forest did and schedule “non-conference, conference games”.

It is their national rivalries that would be in jeopardy if they joined a conference. The Big Ten plays an eight-game conference schedule while the ACC plays a nine-game conference slate. The Big Ten schedule is a bit more traditional playing all four non-conference games first and their final eight in the league.

The ACC is different. With a nine-game schedule, they schedule only three non-conference games and adjust some teams’ league games the season they add Notre Dame to the schedule.

If Notre Dame is in the Big Ten, could it schedule its three annual rivals in their first four games? Would they want to since they’d likely draw Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State with a crossover that would include Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa in some combination every season?

If those teams did not have the room on their schedule, the Irish would lose at least one if not two of those annual rivals. They could have more flexibility in the ACC since there is little continuity with scheduling non-conference games. That could change since one of the reasons the ACC schedule seems all over the place is because of Notre Dame.

Still, if the room is not there, they would likely lose one if not two of their annual rivals.