Notre Dame Football: ACC Should Make Strong Push to Land Irish

With Syracuse and Pittsburgh leaving the Big East for the ACC, Notre Dame’s best option to join a conference is to join these two schools in their move.

However, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick is stubborn and refuses to realize that the dawn of the "super-conference" era is upon us, and remaining independent is going to hurt the team in the long run.

"We will approach this—no matter what the change is—with that as our goal," Swarbrick said of football independence. "We'll see whether we can manage our circumstances to meet that goal. It felt like maybe things were about to settle down a little bit. I think the Pac-12 was pretty intent on staying where it was. If that were true, the Big 12 had a chance to hold. This was a little bit of a surprise.”

Things aren’t settling down in the college football realignment area, with the Big 12 looking like it could collapse at any moment.

The Big East is looking like more and more of a joke of a conference, and the ACC is asserting their dominance on the East Coast.

The Irish would be smart to join the ACC now and finally shed their independent status. It is unrealistic for them to remain independent once the super-conferences take shape and teams are playing a nine- to eleven-game inter-conference schedule, leaving barely any time to schedule a team like the Irish.

Al Lesar, a columnist for the South Bend Tribune, said:

"In this game of finding the right seat in a game of musical chairs, Notre Dame risks being left standing. There's a time to smugly proclaim the world won't turn without its presence. Then again, there's a time to hunker down, drop the pretense and make a deal."

Notre Dame needs to get with the times and realize that remaining independent will harm their football program in the long run.