The other day, I saw an article from the Raleigh News & Observer speculating that the ACC is the conference Notre Dame may eventually land. I did not post it here because it was not any announcement or new news development.

What may be evident, is that the ACC is being setup as the future ACC home IF or WHEN Notre Dame may decide they need to make an all-sports conference commitment.

Sentiments often change, but it is getting more clear that Notre Dame favors a future association with the ACC over the B1G and B12. The ACC & ND are doing a lot of "footsy" stuff recently. Doubt the ACC could be used to the level and manner the BE was.

Tute79, from my understanding from press reports...

Every PSU win 1998-2011 has been vacated. Paterno's 111 wins during the period are lost;
#112 is lost too after Paterno's dismissal on Nov. 9; added also against the school (the game won against Ohio State);
Vacated wins don't count as losses or wins for either school.

As to scholarships...
Next season through 2016, PSU can sign 15 recruits per year; most teams can sign 25.
Starting with the 2014 season, PSU can have 65 players on fb scholarship until after the 2017 season, instead of the usual 85.

Note...
FCS schools may offer a total of 63 fb scholarships. So in numbers, PSU would not have to fall below that level, and could still draw better recruits than near all FCS level schools. Where it may hurt, like when many FCS schools play FBS schools, is in the matter of depth.
PSU will have to be very strategic in their near future scholarship rendering, coupled with potential recruits who may opt from Penn State due to bowl and championship bans and related. I doubt the school will be focusing on depriving scholarships already signed and rendered. The new PSU fb coaching staff probably had a good idea something like this was coming.

(Know this is the ACC thread, but Pitt, 'Cuse, Maryland, etc., may pick up some recruits that otherwise may have gone to Penn State during the next few years or so.)

If one looks at Rivals and other published recruiting rankings, FSU is consistently in the top ten by most nearly every year, and frequently in the top five. This year is no exception. We know there are factors that influence performance, i. e. injuries, coaching, schedules, etc. And, much of the predictions and rankings are subjective and preferential at best. The point is FSU does not appear to be suffering, comparatively, because they are in the ACC. VPI, Clemson, Miami, and often GT are regularly in the top 25 recruiting lists.

It may not be the conference causing the recent lackluster in top post-season performance. Much parity does exist in the ACC. The situation may be more individual schools are not fully meeting their billing due to over-blown expectations and team problems emerging unexpectedly.

That's always been my assuption. Swofford has said for a long time (getting close to about a decade now) that "should Notre Dame give up their football independence, we'd make them an offer they can't refuse"

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indeed. And I do think that in time, ND would look at the acc as a fit. Similar types of schools outweighs being a geographic outsider, especially given the changing landscape where location means little.

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For someone that has been annoyed at the ACC for the last decade for raids on the Big East, God I sure hope Notre Dame ends up in the ACC.

Will the ACC finally steal the bad apple from the Big East and finally succeed in spoiling the whole butch.

Please I am begging the ACC to take Notre Dame as the potential colossal mistake of the century. Oh wait. The Big East ha this distinction. Maybe the second biggest mistake of the century.

Obviously there is not a snow ball chance in “hello guess who is coming to the table for dinner” this will ever take place.

It is a fun thought of the ciaos this alignment would bring down on the ACC. I would love to watch Florida State and Clemson try to back door their way out of this league.

If ND was brought into the ACC for non-fb sports only, it would damage the ACC IMO. The ACC is aware of this, and so far resisted such a conditional arrangement.

As an all-sports addition, the results could work out great. As Quinn noted, the geography is a bit off-set, but not particularly displaced in context.

Hypothetically speaking if the ACC were to add Notre Dame to the conference in 2013 when the new TV contact kicks in with the additions of Pitt and Syracuse, the average per school payout will be around 17 million dollars per school.

Notre Dame’s new NBC contact will kick in with NBC in 2014 and is estimated to be around 20 million dollars per year.

Assuming the estimates for NBC are correct, the ACC contact would have to increase by 3 million dollars per school just to break even for Notre Dame. That would be a whopping 42 million dollars for each of the 14 schools and the additional 20 million per Notre Dame bringing the new yearly ACC contact total requirement to over 60 million. If a 16th school were needed to balance out schedules, the ACC would be needing to increase the yearly contact to over 80 million dollars per year.

Is Notre Dame worth 80 million dollars per year?

If yes, then Notre Dame should use this information to persuade NBC to increase its unique contact well beyond 20 million dollars and remain independent.

Either way, as long as Notre Dame has NBC in its back pocket along with BCS playoff access that will be available for Notre Dame, there is just no way Notre Dame is ever going to need to join a league for football.

If the ACC is forced to provide partial membership, it has become not better situated than the current Big East. Actually would be worse for the ACC because Florida State and Clemson have other options. The Orange bowl would have less options as well which is really not that great with Notre Dame as an independent.

The Big 12 should thank their lucky starts that Texas did not succeed in gaining partial membership for Notre Dame in the Big 12 as Texas would have been one of the schools each year to have benefited from 6 games required by Notre Dame to gain membership in all other sports. Most of the other Big 12 schools would have received some possible increase without any other direct SOS scheduling benefits. Maybe it had more to do with access to the new playoff regardless it was a blessing in disguise for the Big 12 that Notre Dame never became an option.

Less face it, Notre Dame is a parasite when it comes to conference membership as long as NBC is backing its football program.

Is it worth for the other ACC schools to take a cut in pay from estimated 17 million per year just to gain Notre Dame membership?

Anything less than equal shares per school and buyers better beware of the consequences of taking Notre Dame as a partial member. Big East is a great history lesson with issues of taking Notre Dame without full football.

Notre Dame football program joining full membership to any league is nothing more than a pipe dream.

Agree with you Lash on the NBC factor & ND. I expect ND stays in the BE for non-fb as long as there is no BE split; & the BE is built to discourage a costly split. While the BE has some new all-sports members replacing some old stalwarts, the clout and the will is not there to force ND to move elsewhere.

ND's flirtation with the ACC is self-serving and MAY be useful later. The Orange Bowl factoring in is also a consideration. ND covers their bases and maintains their options.

Only when ND confronts a diminished TV contract, coupled with a continuation of mediocre performance, they may make a serious move. That could be years down the road, if then.

I am of the opinion that Notre Dame will wreck whatever conference they come in contact with. They have been toxic for the Big East; rather than unifying the conference they have kept the factions at odds against each other and prevented the conference from moving forward. Notre Dame's interests continued to be served while the conference suffered and the Irish did nothing to keep Virginia Tech, Miami, Boston College, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse from leaving. The only schools that Notre Dame felt were "worthy" to play them are all gone.

The ACC would be no different. Notre Dame would probably insist that a non-football school enter the league with them as well as some clauses that would favor them as well as unequal revenue sharing so that the Irish take home a bigger pay check then their peers. The Irish would then try to create a voting block to ensure that they always got their way--they'd pressure the weaker schools in the ACC to vote with them using the threat of leaving as leverage. Meanwhile, the leagues strongest teams--Clemson, Miami, and Virginia Tech will become increasingly frustrated with the new ACC set up that they will abandon the league, sucking the life blood out of the ACC.

The solution to the Irish problem is to starve them out. If the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 were to make a pact to abandon their series with the Irish they would have no choice but to join a conference as an equal member without any special treatment.

One may find that were Notre Dame's membership in the hands of the ACC member schools' presidents and ADs, Notre Dame may not find entry. Not that they don't belong, as academically, the institution and athletics fits more within the ACC than the B1G, but looking at who calls the ACC home and how and why they got there...Notre Dame made some enemies. I suspect it's probably not that dire or bleak for the Irish, but I don't think a membership vote would be unanimously favorable.

Muskie, Cutter.....good points to see.

I'd not dismiss that Notre Dame conveyed to the ACC, something like "we'll join the ACC for non-fb sports if Georgetown (or another bb-only from the BE) comes along as well for #16".

I recall one poster some time back during the latest BE exits defending Notre Dame, exclaiming ND did nothing wrong. In a legal and/or technical way, that would be true. But in terms of being less self-serving and assisting in the overall good and stability of the conference they call home to their non-fb sports, I don't buy it.

The blame has to center on the enablers: NBC, the BE, certain B1G schools, the ole BCS ADs' with their tie-ins' & distribution system, USC, fawning media, prominent bowls that take ND based on name rather than season record, etc.

Concur Muskie, the major conferences actually now have a reason to cut back on games with ND, particularly for the late season. It's fair game for certain conferences to decide not to play ND regularly. Getting inter-conference cooperation to do this will lack the will, since individual schools control their OOC game scheduling.
The ACC is not going to risk losing their top fb programs in the south to accomodate some special access for ND.

Agree Cutter, those BE schools that have joined the ACC know first-hand how ND operates and deals with others. I recall Boston College when they left the BE were not so silent about it.

May ND stay fb independent; but the enablers need to stop. The BE bears the consequences of how they designed themselves. They outwardly keep defending ND's role in the conference. It is hard to see where any of it has helped BE fb stability; and appears to have hurt for the long-run. If bowl deals, a BE school or ND, is such a plus for the BE, how much of that bowl revenue is distributed to the BE fb schools when ND participates? And given near equal records between ND and a BE fb school, the bowl will opt for ND near each time if ND is available.

If I'm not mistaken, the Big East was supposed to have this "good faith" deal with the Irish that they should schedule 3-4 Big East schools a year. The problem was, it was never drawn up with specifics or really formalized. ND walks from a lot of its calls, I hear. They WON'T do certain stadiums if near enough to a more professional neutral field (ask Rutgers), and while that's fine for some schools (the SA's), it's an insult to nearly every other.

Doesn't sound very honorable to me...

ND joins ACC in all sports except football.

Obviously the ACC will take another nonfb school to even out the numbers, odds are it'll either be Georgetown or Villanova. Nova is a better market since Maryland/VA Tech have DC somewhat covered, but GT is still good and with the rivalry with the Cuse I could see that happening.

The question is...do they go for the kill and take Rutgers&UConn for 16 in fb 18 in bb?

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