Notre Dame football has committed to playing five games per season against ACC opponents when the Fighting Irish switch conferences for all sports excluding football and hockey, and that move will have repercussions for some of the traditional football opponents on their schedule.
SI.com is reporting that Notre Dame officials still want to maintain a presence on the west coast, as well continuing to hold their annual contest with Navy. This would likely mean that 2-3 of Notre Dame's Midwestern opponents become the contests that end up being cut.
SI also had a comment about the reasoning for the conference switch from an official at Notre Dame. Via SI:
In any short-term way there's no financial benefit. If we wanted to do something for money we would have joined the Big Ten. What it's really about is postseason play.
It's a really good fit academically. There are sports that we're going to play, the non-football sports are very good and they're going to test us.
In addition to adding Notre Dame to the conference, the ACC presidents have announced that they have upped the exit fee for the conference to over $50 million.
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