What happens to Notre Dame if conferences can only play each other?

What happens to Notre Dame football in a conference-only 2020 season?

Is Notre Dame football about to be left by its lonesome in the 2020 college football season?

Should the rest of the Power 5, as well as the Group of 5, echo the Big Ten’s sentiment of playing only conference games for the 2020 campaign, what happens to the Golden Domers? Notre Dame has been a national independent in football forever, but they would be one of seven Division I programs who could be left out to dry. Will the college football gods let Notre Dame suffer?

David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, “ACC commissioner John Swofford has said that if league adopts an all-conference football schedule for 2020, Notre Dame likely will be in mix. Irish already have six ACC opponents on docket.”

Notre Dame is already a full-time member in all other major sports in ACC, so the transition to an eight, nine, or 10-game ACC slate could totally be in play for the Irish. That sounds fine and all, but how do they go about handling their six non-ACC games, including ones against traditional rivals like the Navy Midshipmen, the Stanford Cardinal and the USC Trojans?

Will Notre Dame join the ACC as a temporary football member in 2020?

If that were to happen, we must assume divisional play would fall to the wayside in the ACC. What division would you put Notre Dame in anyway, the ACC Atlantic or the ACC Coastal? As it stands now, the Irish play three apiece in their ACC allotment for 2020. They get Clemson, Louisville and Wake Forest out of the Atlantic, drawing Duke, Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh out of the Coastal.

If the Irish had to play an eight or nine-game ACC schedule, they could pick up dates with the Miami Hurricanes and the Virginia Tech Hokies. Though both schools play in the ACC Coastal, the Hurricanes now lose their Big Ten date with the Michigan State Spartans and the same thing applies for the Hokies with their game vs. the Penn State Nittany Lions.

As for what could happen to other national independent programs like the Army Black Knights, the BYU Cougars and the UConn Huskies, it’ll be interesting to see if they choose to pay football or not this fall. BYU would definitely want to, as long as its not on Sundays. The Cougars could go to the Pac-12 or, better yet, the 10-team Big 12, who will do everything in its power to have a season.

Though Notre Dame could be left without a seat, it seems that the ACC will have the Irish’s back.

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