Notre Dame’s ACC Scheduling Arrangement Doesn’t Start Until 2014, But We Took a Quick Look at What the Future Holds Anyway
The University of Notre Dame is officially ACC-bound (per SI.com) for non-football sports (where applicable) come July 1 of this year. And while the early entry means both sides are passing on the first year of the “five ACC opponents per season” agreement, there’s still plenty left to figure out in terms of Notre Dame’s future. Starting in 2014, they’ll be starting the five-teams-per-year rotation, and as of right now, it seems the Irish and the ACC’s schools all have some reshuffling to do both in the short- and long-term.
Inspired by some initial questions over at Hokie Mark’s ACCFootabllRx, we wanted to take a look at just what needs to change in order for this ACC scheduling rotation to get rolling for 2014. First a look at Notre Dame’s 2014 schedule layout (*note, all schedules based on information from FBSchedules.com):
Current Open Dates: One
Locked Games: Seven (Michigan, Purdue, Syracuse, Stanford, at Navy, Pittsburgh, at USC)
The Rest (Flexible): Four (Rice, at Temple, at Arizona State, Northwestern)
With two ACC teams already on the docket (SU & Pitt), they’ll need to drop two of the four games in the flexible pile. Rice and Temple can be assumed as two of those, and I’d think Arizona State’s would be another possibility, since the Irish already head west once in 2014 when they head to Los Angeles to face USC.
But in trying to fill the three open games, which ACC teams will they have to choose from. A look at each school’s non-conference schedule as currently comprised:
Boston College: at UMass, USC, Army, Rhode Island
Clemson: at Georgia, Coastal Carolina, South Carolina
Duke: at Troy, Kansas, Elon, Tulane
Florida State: Oklahoma State, The Citadel, Florida
Georgia Tech: at Georgia, at Tulane, Wofford
Louisville: Kentucky, at Florida International, at Marshall
Miami: Florida A&M, at Nebraska
NC State: at Central Michigan, at USF, Presbyterian
North Carolina: at East Carolina
Virginia: UCLA, Richmond, at BYU, Kent State
Virginia Tech: William & Mary, East Carolina, at Ohio State, Western Michigan
Wake Forest: at UL-Monroe, Northern Illinois, Army, at Vanderbilt
