Notre Dame Football at Wake Forest: Is November an ACC Audition for Irish?

Notre Dame will take a road trip down to Winston-Salem for a battle with Wake Forest tonight, a game that will be the first of three straight against ACC opponents, with matchups against Boston College and Maryland coming up as well.

It seems like pretty convenient timing.

During the chaotic conference realignment frenzy back in September, there was talk that Notre Dame could be forced into joining a BCS conference if the dominoes fell a certain way, and the ACC was a conference that was thrown around quite a bit.

Now that things have died down, though, and super conferences aren’t on the immediate horizon, it seems like the Irish will be able to stay put, at least for now.

Notre Dame has always made it clear that it takes pride in being a football independent and that its rich and prestigious history is rooted in being an independent, however, in these ever-changing times when teams are switching conferences left and right, it may be necessary for the school to look into joining a conference down the line, just for future security and stability.

The two most logical conference choices for Notre Dame are the Big Ten and the ACC.

The Big Ten makes more geographical sense, but overall, the ACC could be the more likely destination for the Irish if they were to ever make the move to a BCS conference.

After the arrival of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, the ACC will be the deepest conference in the country with 14 total teams, and if Notre Dame ever decides to apply for membership, it wouldn’t be terribly hard to find a 16th team to pair with them, such as a Rutgers or Connecticut out of the Big East.

There have been rumblings and rumors around the blogosphere for the past few weeks about a possible move, but nothing has come out that has even come close to indicating that Notre Dame is on its way to the ACC.

Right now, it’s all just speculation, but as we enter a new college football era where the idea of super conferences is looming, Notre Dame is the type of school that will have to continue to keep its options open at all times.

All I know is, if the Irish dominate these next three games, it will at least give them something to think about.