...publicly today to take the place of Texas if the Longhorns do indeed chicken out.

ND boards complain about late season scheduling. More conference games will only make that harder - unless a break away occurs. Go count the number of P4, non ACC games on ND's schedule in the next 10 years and get back to me.

telling anyone that will listen, that ND will have no problem scheduling P4 games later in the season. They might have difficulty with Michigan, Ohio State, and some other blue bloods, but...... Stanford? Clemson? Navy? - then look at the 10 schools that ND has played historically, and you will find some former Big East schools, MSU. Purdue, and of course USC. BTW, none of the ACC schools, except for a few former Big East schools are on that list. Of course, you also have the B12 schools that would schedule them in a heart beat, and adjust their "conference schedules" to accommodate, but none of those schools are traditional ND opponents - so, while ND could schedule about any of the B12 schools, anytime they want, I do not think that ND has too. Purdue and MSU would sign a "Clemson" deal in a heartbeat. ANY ACC school would do the same. There might even be an SEC school or 3 that would do the same thing - regardless of the 9 game conference schedule. While I'm not saying the schedule would be a cake walk, ND could do it. How does UConn get games in October or November? How did BYU do it before they joined the B12? Hell, if UConn can do it, you don't think that ND could? ND needed a place for their basketball and non revs. Not a lot of conferences that are better with those when compared to the ACC. ND sold those 5 games to have a place for their non revs - NOT for the ability to schedule Duke, WF, NCSU, and others in football. ND could, and would schedule better P4 schools if they were not stuck in the ACC deal they signed on to.

Apples and oranges, but they do it just like ND, UCONN's late season schedules thru 2029 - the furthest out released (hmm... maybe a reason) includes ONE non ACC P4. ND has three in the next 10 years. BTW Navy isn't a P4, and they play ND every year because the Navy saved ND from bankruptcy in the 40s during the war - and ND promised to play them every year as payback - got nothing to do with current scheduling. Do a little research versus your feeling that ND will get almost exactly the late season games they want - they will eventually get games, many teams want to play them no doubt - but ND doesn't want to play Temple, Rice, FIU, UMass, Delaware, Old Dominion, Liberty and James Madison - all on UCONNs schedule the next few years. Heck, VT fans complain about playing a couple of those in our OOC. NDs agreement to the ACC deal wasn't just for other sports - it also makes their Oct/Nov FB scheduling for P4 teams easier - but like always they want their cake and eat it too... they try and get other P4 games, and sure they would rather play a late season B10 or SEC game (who are playing more conference games than they use to) instead of Wake or Duke - most years they would rather play fewer ACC FB games - while still having the flexability to use them if needed to fill out a schedule, that's called negotiation. ** Edited by RTFC at 5/31/2026, 1:42:37 AM

be the best example, but the do have a November game this year against UNC - what gives with a November game against a P4 school? I think I'm just saying that the football scheduling is not the driving force for ND's football in the ACC. The B12 had no issue accommodating BYU's late season game with ND, and that game was scheduled last minute. If ND was not in the ACC currently, do you really believe that the ACC would not allow schools to schedule ND in October and November?

basketball game. If Notre Dame wasn't in the ACC, then it unlikely the ACC would prevent schools from play them in October and November. However, ask yourself this question; how likely would Notre Dame be interested in playing majority of the ACC schools (aka any school not named Clemson, FSU, Miami, Stanford, maybe Pitt, maybe Syracuse, and maybe GT) if they were not required to do so? Also, it is unlikely the ACC would bump a conference game so a team could play Notre Dame. Particularly if that is the only weekend the conference game could be played. The reason I bring it up is because the schedule generator the ACC uses likely factors in the required games against Notre Dame when generating the conference schedule.

Made yearly. Contract (OOC) games are made years in advance. The conferences schedule around ND games, they always have. Ask yourself this - which media company that owns the rights to any conference would not accommodate a ND game?

matrix for 2024-2027. Every conference does some version of the schedule matrix. It just may not always be well publicized for various reasons. If it is publicized, then it will eventually appear on https://fbschedules.com which may be the best source for a school's future football schedule. Kansas 2027 football schedule: https://fbschedules.com/2027-kansas-football-schedule/

because every conference has a "cycle" to define how long it takes for a team to play every other team in the conference home and away at least 1 time in order to "complete the cycle." Plus, some OOC games aren't scheduled that far in advance. For example, VT's games against USC and Boise State at FedEx were scheduled on short notice. The year Michigan cancelled its home-home series against VT (in the same year the first game was going to be played), Michigan's replacement opponent that year was a home game against Arkansas State. As a result, VT was forced to agree (on short notice) to agree to a home-home series with Middle Tennessee as a replacement. It is worth mentioning that year turned out to be the COVID year so VT never ended up playing at Middle Tennessee. Also, the issue has nothing to do with whether a network will accommodate a late season OOC game against Notre Dame or not. The issue is a conference has a certain number of weeks, usually 13 or 14 depending on the calendar, for every team to play the defined number of conference games. Historically the first couple weeks of the season and the final week of the regular season has been reserved for OOC games. As a result, that can reduce the window on when the conference games can be played even if the conference adopts the same scheduling policy as the SEC where at least 1 conference game is scheduled every week of the regular season. Whenever a team is allowed to play Notre Dame in Weeks 6-12 or 13 (in a 14 week regular season), then that means 1 of 2 things has to happen: 1. Another team in the conference plays an OOC game that same week; or 2. That same team has to make that week their Bye Week. For seasons where teams only get 1 Bye Week, the October games are a nothingburger because that is when teams often take their Bye Week to break up the season. The other main reason a team places its Bye Week where it does is because they are scheduled to play their next game on a Thursday. They don't want to be placed in a situation where they play on Saturday and then play their next game 5 days later on the following Thursday (if it can be helped). However, the November games are a difficult story because potential OOC opponents are a lot fewer even if you include DI-FCS and most coaches don't want to wait to take their Bye Week that late in the regular season for a number of reasons. If Notre Dame wants to play Clemson in Week 11, Clemson is scheduled to play 9 conference games this year, Clemson's 9th conference game is at UVA, and Week 11 is the only week the game can be played in because the teams have different Bye Weeks and the other games (OOC and conference) can't be moved around to move the Clemson-UVA game to a different week, then do you truly believe the ACC would still allow Clemson to play Notre Dame? If you believe so, then what does that mean for UVA who is only scheduled to play 8 conference games this year? My point is the same logic would still apply to a conference where every team plays the same number of conference games (8, 9, or even 10). If the scheduled conference game can't be moved to another date to accommodate the Notre Dame game, then the conference game will always trump an OOC game regardless whether it is Notre Dame or someone else.

Texas Tech immediately volunteered to play ND if Texas wavers.