Will the ACC and Notre Dame pull off another shocker?
While the ACC decides whether to follow the Big Ten and Pac 12 into conference-only football play, Commissioner John Swofford may be holding a Shamrock green card in his vest pocket that could send him into retirement with the most memorable play in league history.
Recently, Swofford said that the ACC, too, is looking at revising its football schedule with only conference games and hinted that if it did so Notre Dame might be in the mix. The Fighting Irish are not a football member but, by agreement, play at least five games every season with ACC schools. In 2020, it has six ACC football opponents.
When the Big Ten and Pac 12 made their decisions, it effectively canceled Notre Dame’s home games with Wisconsin and Stanford and a road trip to Southern Cal. Unless the Big Ten makes an exception and allows the Badgers to play at nearby South Bend, the Irish will need to fill all three of those dates.
The ACC already has games scheduled with Notre Dame against Wake Forest in Charlotte; at Pitt and Georgia Tech; and at home against Duke, Clemson and Louisville. The Big Ten has cost Syracuse and Miami games at Rutgers and Michigan State and Boston College and Virginia Tech home dates against Purdue and Penn State.
So, there is an opportunity for the Irish to find at least four more ACC games, and still has Navy, Arkansas and Western Michigan on its schedule, pending what the AAC, SEC and Mid-American will do.
The ACC staged a coup of sorts in 2012 when it accepted Notre Dame in all sports but football, and it’s been a good marriage with the big crowds the Irish draw into ACC stadiums. Now it’s a partnership that could grow even further in football.
Obviously, South Bend is not an easy bus ride to and from any ACC site, but there would be plenty of money if Notre Dame shared its $20 million NBC-TV home game contract with the ACC to lease a fleet of planes and rent and sanitize luxury hotels and test athletes regularly.
So far, all these considerations have been based on the health of the players, coaches and staff. But if Swofford could pull off this mega move safely, the ACC may own the biggest college sports story of all.
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