Notre Dame should join ACC football!

As we approach the point where the 2020 college football season needs to either fade into the sunset or be part of a reasonable solution to play the games and determine a national champion, the coronavirus may have just solved the Atlantic Coast Conference-Notre Dame football question:

Should and will the Fighting Irish give up the gauntlet and join the ACC as a full member, competing for the football championship as it does in most every other intercollegiate sport or will Notre Dame be shut out of post-season play this year, if games are played.

When the ACC agreed to take ND into the conference for every sport except football (which is what Notre Dame wanted, not what the ACC wanted), the Irish had demanded its football program not be part of the ACC, allowing it to keep its mega-dollars contract with NBC Sports to televise home football games.

The ACC wanted Notre Dame and its national appeal so the league and the school compromised. Notre Dame agreed to play five football games (minimum) a year but not compete for the ACC title. And, Notre Dame would figure into a complicated post-season bowl alignment. So the ACC got ND in the lucrative ACC basketball schedule and other sports but ND kept its football independence.

Now, the Power-5 conference commissioners and the Irish's athletic director have had discussions about how to move ahead with college football. In the discussions is a limited schedule which would be comprised of conference games alone. Oops, said Notre Dame!

For the members of the ACC and Southeastern, Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 10, that's a good solution. For Notre Dame, that's an issue. ND belongs not to a conference, though it has six games scheduled with ACC teams: Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Pitt, and Wake Forest.

The ACC could tell ND those six games will not be played, keeping with playing conference games only, or the ACC could extend permanent and full football membership to Notre Dame which would become the ACC's 15th member. If so, Notre Dame should accept without delay.

Each ACC team currently has eight conference games scheduled. Where there's a will, there's a way to adjust schedules to give ND two more ACC opponents without short-changing other ACC team schedules. For instance, N.C. State has a game with Boston College; neither play Notre Dame. So cancel the N.C. State-BC game and have each play the Irish, giving all three eight ACC games.

To throw ND a bone, let ND choose either to keep its contract with NBC to show four home ACC games (and other non-conference home games in subsequent years) or offer to include ND in a renegotiated ESPN football contract that includes Notre Dame. Either/or but not both.

Speculation is one day Notre Dame would join the ACC in football, but not for the foreseeable future. The coronavirus may have pushed that date forward by many years.