As you may or may not know, I am a huge Fighting Irish fan.
One of the biggest arguments against Notre Dame is the fact that they are still an Independent and not officially affiliated with a conference.
Not being part of a conference is the number one thing Irish haters go to when they are in the hunt for the College Football Playoff. People, including Paul Finebaum will scream “No conference championship, no playoff!”
Well, now… No conference may mean no season for the Irish.
There is serious talk that if the college football season goes on this fall, it could be a reduced schedule and teams only playing conference games.
Enter: *But… Notre Dame isn’t part of a conference.
Exactly. What does that mean for the Irish? Would college football just play without Notre Dame? Would they just play other Independents?
But… There is their “unofficial affiliation” with the ACC. (All of their sports besides football & hockey have full affiliations with the ACC.)
For the last few seasons the Irish have played 6 ACC games, and again have 6 ACC games on their schedule.
Wake Forest, Pitt, Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech & Louisville.
Will this be the savior for the 2020 Irish season? Will the ACC “count” these games as ACC Conference games? And my guess will be yes.
The ACC won’t want to miss out on having the amount of eyes on them that come from when the Irish play. There is no way that the conference will want to miss out seeing the Clemson Tigers play the Irish in South Bend.
Only time will tell if we will get any college football season this year. My vote is to have college football play in the Spring! Let the NFL own the fall, then when the Super Bowl ends we flow right into college football.
Yes please.
Then hopefully we won’t have to worry about these shortened conference only schedules and have to figure out the whole Notre Dame Independent issue.
GO IRISH!
-Kmess
Feature Image – South Bend Tribune