The ND boards talk about difficulty scheduling. They NEED the scheduling agreement - they had other options for non revs, but those would not have provided football games - including some historically (not recently) good teams. Sure, schools WANT to fill stadiums, but they have to play conference games - the smaller, less desirable football conference teams aren't going watch ND play all the bigger teams in that conference - the ones ND would rather play - while they lose conference games AND the possibility of playing ND in an ACC type agreement - otherwise why have the conference? Those "other" type schools (Wake, Duke, etc.) are who ND plays now with the scheduling agreement - the blue bloods don't need to fill stadiums. Why take a chance on an early loss that knocks you out of CFP discussion? This is exactly what happened to ND. If they were in a conference, they would have either won it (ACC) or been in bigger games at end of year (SEC, B1G) and the SOS would probably have been high enough above Miami to make a difference. The fact that some mid level B12 teams will rearrange doesn't move the needle for ND games - they have that level team with the ACC.