Notre Dame to join ACC in all sports except Football

By Kevin Kelley -

Notre DameThe Notre Dame Fighting Irish will join the ACC in all sports except football, but the Irish will play five football games per year against ACC members.

The latest news in conference realignment was announced this morning in a release from the ACC. Notre Dame will likely join in 2015 unless an earlier exit can be negotiated with the Big East.

“We are committed to keeping the Atlantic Coast Conference a vibrant and competitive league dedicated to ensuring the appropriate balance of academics, athletics and integrity,” said the ACC Council of Presidents in a joint statement. “The addition of Notre Dame further strengthens the rich tradition and culture of the ACC as well as allowing for future academic collaboration and we enthusiastically welcome them into the league.”

“We have monitored the changing conference landscape for many months and have concluded that moving to the ACC is the best course of action for us,” Swarbrick said. “This will enable us to maintain our historic independence in football, join in the ACC’s non-BCS bowl package, and provide a new and extremely competitive home for our other sports.

“We are immensely grateful to the members of the Big East, which has been a wonderful home for us the past 17 years. We also think that the conference has a strong future under the leadership of its new commissioner, Mike Aresco.”

As previously mentioned, Notre Dame has agreed to play five ACC opponents annually in football, which means they will play each conference member at least once every three years.

The only ACC school that Notre Dame has never played is Virginia Tech. They have played the most contests against future ACC member Pittsburgh (67).

Here is Notre Dame’s record against the 11 other ACC schools, plus Pittsburgh and Syracuse that join in 2013:

  • Boston College: 12-9
  • Clemson: 1-1
  • Duke: 3-1
  • Florida State: 2-5
  • Georgia Tech: 27-6-1
  • Maryland: 2-0
  • Miami (FL): 16-7-1
  • NC State: 0-1
  • North Carolina: 16-2
  • Pittsburgh: 46-20-1
  • Syracuse: 3-3
  • Virginia: 1-0
  • Virginia Tech: 0-0
  • Wake Forest: 1-0

The Fighting Irish have played the most games against Pittsburgh (46-20-1), followed by Georgia Tech (27-61-1).

In addition to extending an invitation to Notre Dame, the ACC Council of Presidents voted to increase the conference exit fees to more than $50 million.

The only ND sport that will not move to the ACC is hockey. After their final season in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (2012-13), Notre Dame will move to Hockey East.

Comments (16)

Notre Dame has been the cancer of the Big East, they were a part of the expansion committee for the Big East, they have a deep relationship with UT.

UT has been the cancer of the Big12

– notice how the two conferences with a cancer, have fallen apart.

ACC just got the Big Easts cancer. Big12 still has it.

Chip that is stupid. No one has Cancer it is all good. Notre Dame is a great school and so are the schools of the Big 12.

Well, this is massively huge news.

Each ACC football team will play Notre Dame once every three years. Pretty cool.

Exit fee was also raised to 3x the annual budget (of the conference, I guess) … currently over $50 million.

Yup, somehow I think “cancer” isn’t really appropriate for Notre Dame.

I hate to be blunt, but Notre Dame’s Olympic sports have essentially outgrown the Big East. The ACC is a very strong conference in multiple sports, and generally has at least a few top-20 athletic departments (based on Director’s Cup standings) each year.

The ACC now has 15 home football games over six years against Notre Dame that it can sell to ESPN/ABC during the TV contract renegotiation.

The ACC now has a decent alumni base for basketball (and other sports) in New York City with both Notre Dame and Syracuse in the conference.

Each ACC team gets a football opponent with a nationwide following on its schedule once every three years.

Sounds good to me.

It depends on the contract. I think the majority of the games for Notre Dame are already guarantied with NBC. I do not know the payouts to the other teams. About the only good thing about the football part is that it eases time needed to fill a football schedule. I’ll be honest Notre Dame needs the ACC more then the ACC needs Notre Dame.

Notre Dame’s schedule is full for 2013 and 2014, and has 11 games for 2015. If Notre Dame wants to adhere to the 5 ACC games per season rule, they will have to either a) cancel a lot of games, or b) go the Navy route and wait several years before joining.

the standard time frame to leave the big east is 27 months. So after 2 years there be a member of the ACC. In time for the 2015 season.

That’s not the issue. The issue will be whether or not Notre Dame will have cancelled enough non-ACC games in time for the 2015 season.

They won’t have to cancel any games unless they start their ACC games before 2015. They already have four ACC games on their 2015 schedule (Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, and Wake Forest). They just need to add one more game in October with another ACC school and they’re set.

Basically, the schedule work has already been done.

No need for the Irish to try to make room for five ACC games in 2014, too much shuffing already has happened in the recent months. 2015 is early enough for the ACC football “agreement” to start……

Florida State is the ONLY school in the ACC that has a winning record against ND.
Refer to the information above…FSU has 5 wins and only 2 losses versus ND.