You're wrong. Don't believe me, go read ND boards. They often complain about not being able to get QUALITY non September games from big conferences. Lots of talk recently about who they might get to replace ACC games - some screaming they can get "anybody/anytime", while the sane ones are saying we can get more B1G and SEC - but they'll only play us in September - we need a long term partner to replace the ACC games - or, gulp, join another conference. My ND buddies say the same thing. LSU and Bama would likely not take late season ND games - that's been proven in the past - why don't they do it now? They very rarely play OOC games in Oct/Nov, if they do it hasn't been stiff competition. Might VT take a Oct/Nov game? Well our next two scheduled ND games are in Nov - and that's a perfect example - benefits us and ND. Would we take it without the ACC wide scheduling agreement? It'd be good, but you think team reps are going to show up in the spring at the conference scheduling meeting for that year - say with the Carolina Mafia - and tell them, "Oh you have to schedule around this Nov date for us to play ND" Right. "Well that could be worked out by planning over a few years" True. Exactly what the current scheduling agreement does. I'm not getting into one of your typical back and forth convos on here... I posted this in other threads...go look at the data... Go look at almost any P4's future schedules - usually the dates in September for OOC teams are set, most several years in advance. Conference opponents are set years in advance. But, the actual dates for the late season in conference games are typically done earlier the same year. ND can't wait until dates for in-conference games are scheduled in the spring/summer of that year - then look for who is left at the bar at closing time. Most of all, go look at NDs combined future schedules for October/November games thru 2030. For the next five years they include ONE outlier game with Auburn. All other games - after September - are ACC, Navy or USC. All of these teams are involved in long term contract type scheduling with ND - and why they are at the end of the season to coincide with other teams playing conference games. At that point, for scheduling purposes only, ND is an ACC member who just plays fewer ACC games so they can play Navy, USC and maybe a one off. ND didn't need that when conferences were smaller. Doesn't mean ND wouldn't be able to schedule one offs and occasional home/home - but not enough to not be scrambling to fill out a Oct/Nov schedule a lot of years. And the years that breaks against them...and they end up with a couple of scrubs because that's all that is left with dates that match..., well you know how they act when things break against them...