Quote Originally Posted by lawhokie View Post
The ACC can only offer ND membership in a 16 team conference, which either means 1. ND will have to play 9 conference games or 2. they play 8 conference games and ACC schools will rarely play each other in football.

Geography, money, and academic and athletic prestige all weigh in favor of the Big Ten. I understand that Notre Dame may want to associate with small private schools like Duke, Wake, BC, but has anybody from Notre Dame ever said this matters at all?

Notre Dame may in fact want to be a bigger fish in the ACC, and OSU, Nebraska, PSU, et al. might diminish their importance. BUT, do the Irish really want to pack their schedule with Duke, Wake, Syracuse, Maryland, while only having a few possible big conference games every year.

I think the ND to the ACC talk is no better than the B12 twitterfest. It's a nice dream, but I just don't see it.
I think that the ACC has a better chance to land Notre Dame than the Big 12 but those chances are slim at best. The Big 10 has always made the most sense to me. Notre Dame could play in the same divison with rivals Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue. When the Big10 and Pac 12 begin their annual match-ups, the Big 10 could make USC the permanent Pac 12 opponent for Notre Dame. That wouldn't make some Big 10 schools happy but getting Notre Dame would be worth it for the Big 10 finanacially. That leaves Notre Dame with 2 00C games that could include longtime rivals Navy and Boston College. Only the Stanford rivalry would be lost if Notre Dame joined the Big 10.

If I'm Notre Dame, I would just remain a football independent and play all my other sports in the Big East. The Big East will still be a very good basketball conference. Notre Dame can continue to play rivals Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, USC, Stanford, Navy, and BC. That leaves Notre Dame with 5 extra games to play which probably would include 3 BEFC teams. I'm sure 2 of those BEFC games would be at home and the other would be played at a sold out professional stadium in New York (Rutgers), Houston, Cincinnati, USF, San Diego, Dallas, ... Notre Dame is still in the driver's seat.