SI Insider: Notre Dame Will Join the ACC for This Coming College Football Season

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC]

00:06 Well, the hottest bachelor in all of college football finally settled down,

00:12 at least for one year.

00:14 Notre Dame has agreed to be a full member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in

00:19 football.

00:20 The Irish have been playing since 1887 and

00:23 they have been a loud and proud independent that whole time.

00:28 They have resisted the urges to join basically every conference out there and

00:32 have maintained that independent nationwide schedule which they have cherished.

00:37 Well, the pandemic can change everything,

00:39 including sending Notre Dame scurrying for a safe harbor.

00:43 The Irish already were scheduled to play six ACC teams and

00:46 that's the conference they're most aligned with in everything other than football.

00:49 Most of their teams do play in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

00:53 And now having lost games to USC, Stanford and Wisconsin,

00:56 there were some big holes in the schedule.

00:59 They filled those by agreeing to play a ten game ACC schedule,

01:03 plus one non-conference game that will probably be against Navy.

01:07 So Notre Dame is all in, their games will count in the league standings.

01:10 They will compete for the conference championship.

01:13 If there is a championship game and they're good enough, they would be in it.

01:16 And if they don't go to the playoff,

01:18 they could take the ACC's championship spot in the Orange Bowl.

01:22 So pretty momentous season coming up for Notre Dame.

01:25 Let's hope they play the season because I think all of us would like to see how

01:29 this goes for Notre Dame as a conference member in football.

01:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]