Notre Dame has taken a different approach on business after being snubbed for the College Football Playoff, but is it too much? Athletic director Pete Bevacqua took a brief media tour to promote the Irish's position and it appears his tone is turning off many other figureheads.
For a school with a scheduling dependency on other school, especially in the ACC, future outlook is becoming increasingly uncertain. And industry leaders warn the situation could deteriorate further if the Irish cannot reach an agreements with rival schools and gets shut out.
Athletic directors across multiple leagues, reacting to Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken's revelation of a memorandum of understanding granting Notre Dame preferential playoff access, have floated the idea of freezing the Irish out of future non-conference slates.
After learning of Notre Dame's memorandum of understanding that grants the Irish preferential playoff access starting next year, athletic directors in other leagues are threatening to freeze Notre Dame out of future schedules, per @DanWolken pic.twitter.com/xrxN3meME8
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) December 11, 2025
Whether those threats materialize remains unclear. Notre Dame still fills stadiums and draws significant television interest, but the warning signs are unmistakable.
With every major conference moving to a nine-game league schedule, available nonconference openings will shrink, making an already difficult scheduling model even more complicated for an independent program.
That raises a larger question of how sustainable is Notre Dame’s prized independence as the sport continues to consolidate power among league. Bevacqua has insisted the school remains committed to remaining outside a conference, but the path is dwindling. Upcoming schedules, including a thin 2026 slate anchored only by Miami and USC, offer few opportunities for the resume-enhancing matchups required in the expanded CFP era.
Pressure is also mounting within the ACC framework. Under the league’s grant of rights, Notre Dame is contractually bound to join the ACC as a full member if it ever chooses to join a football conference.
The broader landscape is shifting as well. Power-conference commissioners, including the ACC’s Jim Phillips and the SEC’s Greg Sankey, met this week in Las Vegas to discuss expanding the College Football Playoff from 12 to 16 teams. Any change would require approval from the playoff’s governing board, where Notre Dame still holds a seat.
As expansion momentum builds and schedules tighten across the sport, Notre Dame faces a strategic crossroads. Independence remains valuable but increasingly, it appears harder than ever to maintain.
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