Notre Dame announced Wednesday morning that they will be joining the ACC Conference as early as 2014. While snubbing the BIG 10 who was rumored that they would accept Notre Dame only if they moved all of their athletic programs to their conference. By aligning with the ACC, they came to the agreement that only the football program would remain independant, but would still have to play 5 ACC opponents during the football season.
This is a smart move for Notre Dame for several reasons. The basketball program would now play basketball powerhouses such as Duke and North Carolina and then get back the old rivalries against Syracuse and Pittsburgh. The football program would have to compete against Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech and Clemson. Notre Dame did announce plans to hopefully further thier rivalry games versus USC, Navy and Michigan. Another notch in the deal is that Notre Dame has access to the Orange Bowl and the ACC's non-BCS bowl tie-ins. This schedule put Notre Dame's football program a step up in talent against their ACC's foes, which will hopefully boost their win/loss record.
The move does come at a cost. According to Big East associate commissioner John Paquette, Notre Dame must pay the conference a $5 million exit fee and provide 27 months' notice before leaving. Which is far less then the $7.5 million that Pittsburgh and Syracuse had to fork over to join the ACC by 2013. With the Football program waning, and the basketball program strengthening, both are going to benefit greatly from this move.
The only downfall here is that Notre Dame's independance is waning. By a vote of 7-5, they were forced to accept the 5 games against its ACC opponents in football. Which shows that Notre Dame's grip on being 100% independant is slowly slipping away. It is inevitable that sooner, rather then later, they will have to bite the bullet and pledge its loyalty to the ACC. They ACCepted the move, but how much longer until they ACCept their fate? Time will only tell...
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