Notre Dame Football: Why the Fighting Irish Will Abandon Independence

While taking a look at Notre Dame's schedule prior to the start of the season, one most likely noticed three consecutive games against opponents from the Atlantic Coast Conference. At the time it didn't spark any intrigue, but it certainly does now.

With conference expansion and realignment heating up during the season's first few weeks, Notre Dame's independent status was, and continues to be, a heavily discussed topic.

In the current moment, those three consecutive games against ACC teams, which started with a 24-17 victory over Wake Forest on Saturday night, continue to look more and more like an audition.

It's unclear how far the fans should look into it, but the ACC moved the start time of the Fighting Irish's game against Wake Forest from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. The game was also telecast by ABC, giving the teams a national audience.

This Saturday's contest between Brian Kelly's squad and the Maryland Terrapins will continue that trend with a 7:30 p.m. start time in front of a national television audience, thanks to NBC.

The game is the third edition of Notre Dame's neutral site "home games."

The third and final ACC opponent of the season is Boston College, which will be traveling to South Bend for the first time since 2009.

These three games began to have "Notre Dame to ACC" rumors long before the Fighting Irish made the trip to Winston-Salem last week.

They started after current Big East members Syracuse and Pittsburgh agreed to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Given Notre Dame's membership in the Big East for all sports aside from football, it wouldn't come as a surprise for the school to follow suit and join the Orange and Panthers in the ACC.

Former Notre Dame athletic director and ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan is in agreement.

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"I love the ACC, and I love Notre Dame. I think it would be wonderful. They're certainly going to think about (full conference membership) more than they ever have before because things have changed so much. You pick up the paper every day and you have no idea what you might read (about conferences)."

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Corrigan's notion about the shifting conference landscape is what concerns Notre Dame the most. If "mega conferences" come about, which is more likely than not, the Irish would be left behind if they remained as a football independent.

Access to the BCS, if still in existence after the creation of the monstrous conferences, would be hard for Notre Dame to come by as an independent.

The schedule would look a bit different, too.

Yes, if Notre Dame were to join the ACC, or any other conference, it would be forced to abandon a few of its traditional rivals, but would likely be able to keep its most lucrative rivals - USC and Michigan - on the schedule.

Corrigan believes Notre Dame joining the ACC is quite an easy decision for the university's administration. "From a competitive standpoint, it couldn't be better," he said "To me, it's a no-brainer."

With these factors at stake, along with Gene Corrigan's insight, we're likely to see Notre Dame in a conference when the dust settles on conference realignment.