Dabo Swinney wants Notre Dame to be permanent members of ACC

Dabo wants Notre Dame in the ACC full-time.

The ACC picked up a much-needed new member for their truncated 2020 season, as Notre Dame joined the ACC in order to help get the Irish a schedule in 2020 after many expected opponents canceled their fall football season. While Notre Dame might make the schedule a bit tougher for powerhouses like Trevor Lawrence’s Clemson, Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney is on board wit bringing on Brian Kelly and company full-time.

Swinney is already a big fan of Notre Dame in the conference, so much so that he’s pining for the Irish to join the ACC as a full member in football. Adding them would push the conference to 15 teams.

Notre Dame is the country’s most well-known independent team

The Irish are one of only a handful of teams that are still fully independent, and many think that the time has come for them to join a conference full-time rather than putting together a patchwork schedule every season. Considering that the Irish are already in the ACC for a variety of other sports, most notably basketball, it’s a natural long-term fit for the Irish.

There are some geographic concerns about a team in Indiana playing in the ACC, but a conference with teams in upstate New York and eastern Massachusetts probably won’t be that bothered by South Bend being so far away. With their status as a blue-blood program impregnably confirmed, adding the Irish to compete with Clemson, Miami, and Florida State could give the conference some much-needed depth.

https://twitter.com/NDFootball/status/1301591959392464896

If Notre Dame’s test run in the ACC goes well both on and off the field, that might be enough for the Irish to spurn tradition in the name of finally deciding to join 95 percent of the FBS world inside a conference.