The ACC is considering partnering with Notre Dame as a quasi-league member only for the 2020 season, sources confirmed to CBS Sports, with the idea that the Fighting Irish would factor into an 11-game schedule that would include 10 ACC games and one nonconference affair.
Notre Dame, the nation's most powerful independent college football program, would conceivably play a 10-game ACC schedule plus one nonconference game instead of its normal six ACC opponents, Stadium's Brent McMurphy first reported Friday morning.
That conceivably would allow the Irish to count in the ACC standings for the 2020 season. What is yet to be determined is whether Notre Dame would be eligible to play in the ACC Championship Game or receive the ACC's automatic berth in the Orange Bowl as a potential league champion.
Notre Dame has a bowl partnership with the ACC, but in this scenario, the Irish could be eligible for that automatic berth as the ACC champion.
"I guess they would eligible. If they are in, they are in," one ACC source told CBS Sports.
For loyal Golden Domers -- and for football fans everywhere -- Notre Dame competing for a conference championship would be another jarring change during this offseason of changes.
Such a move would essentially align the ACC with the Big Ten and Pac-12, which have gone to conference-only schedules for the 2020 season.
CBS Sports reported this week that all Power Five conferences are considering "plus one" models, though potentially with different total numbers of games.
All of the ACC's moves are subject to presidential approval.
Notre Dame has already lost games against Wisconsin, USC and Stanford from its 2020 schedule after the scheduling announcements from the Big Ten and Pac-12.
The Irish's remaining non-ACC games on the schedule are Arkansas, Western Michigan and Navy.
