ACC Dead Weight Is Pulling Down Notre Dame’s Strength of Schedule

For more than a decade, Notre Dame’s scheduling agreement with the ACC has been framed as a reasonable compromise: preserve independence, maintain national flexibility, and gain a predictable rotation of conference opponents. In 2014, that made sense. Clemson and Florida State were national powers, Miami looked like it might re-emerge, and the ACC had enough competitive depth to justify an annual commitment.

That world is gone.

The ACC has weakened while the SEC and Big Ten have evolved into super-conferences. Yet Notre Dame remains locked into an arrangement that guarantees five ACC opponents every year – and in certain seasons, like 2025, even adds a sixth. Every November, the same story returns: the Irish play well, accumulate wins, sit near the top 10… and still get dinged because the schedule simply isn’t strong enough.

Most outsiders blame Notre Dame for “scheduling weak” while ignoring that the real reason Notre Dame’s schedule can be lacking at times. Not because Notre Dame avoids tough games – who else started their season with back-to-back games against playoff teams?. Not because of independence. But because the ACC isn’t pulling its weight.

The deal Notre Dame signed isn’t the deal they have now

Notre Dame agreed to the ACC structure under the belief that the conference would maintain its relevance in the national landscape by continuing to produce multiple ranked opponents, reliable depth, and stable competitiveness.

Instead, the ACC is now the weakest of the Power Five conferences. This past week a team with a 7-5 record in regular season not only made it to the conference championship game, but won it and didn’t even make the playoffs because mighty James Madison was ranked higher. That would have been unthinkable in 2014, but it’s not overly surprising now, given how bad the ACC has become.

Clemson slid backward as Dabo Swinney refused to embrace the transfer portal and NIL. Florida State fell into a multi-year hole and has been see-sawing under Mike Norvell. Georgia Tech and Louisville have been solid, but rarely ranked highly. Virginia Tech, once one of the conference’s football powers, has been largely irrelevant for the past decade. SMU joined the conference and made the playoffs last year, but got absolutely smoked by Big Game James Franklin and Penn State before falling off this year. Pitt, Virginia, Boston College, NC State, Syracuse, Stanford – it’s more common for them to have down years than to be a formidable opponent.

And while Miami finally surged in 2025 — beating Notre Dame and reaching the Playoff — one ascending program doesn’t make a strong conference.

The bottom line: the ACC doesn’t have many teams that routinely finish ranked and rarely add much to Notre Dame’s schedule. In a 12-team Playoff era where strength of schedule is measured relentlessly, that’s a structural problem.

2025: Six ACC Games — And Almost Nothing for the Irish to Show for It

Notre Dame played six ACC foes instead of five this year, with the Miami opener added to the other five. Notre Dame went 5-1 in those games and got almost no credit for any of them, except a bit for Pitt, but the Panthers ended the season unranked.

2025 ACC Opponent	2025 Record	Résumé Value
Miami	10–2 (Playoff)	High-value opponent
NC State	7–5	Unranked, no CFP impact.
Boston College	2–10	Drags down SOS.
Pitt	8–4	Solid but unranked.
Syracuse	3–9	No value.
Stanford	4–8	Still rebuilding.

That’s six ACC games. One strong opponent. Five resume dead spots. That’s half of Notre Dame’s schedule that it had no control over, and only one game against a real quality opponent. The other problem with this set of deadbeat opponents was that the schedule was backloaded with the depths of the ACC schedule. So while the Irish were running through November with ease, none of the wins – even a 70-7 win – earned the Irish much credit in the eyes of the committee. Reminder: the ACC controls Notre Dame’s yearly opponents, not Notre Dame.

While this is essentially an ACC problem for having a conference that is almost entirely void of elite programs anymore, it’s become a Notre Dame problem because the Irish are contractually tied to this slate.

Ironically, if you look at Miami’s schedule, the only win they got much credit for is their win over Notre Dame because as a full ACC member, their schedule was littered even more with their conference’s bottom feeders.

2026: Miami once again holds all of the ACC slate’s water

The 2026 schedule features the rescheduled Miami game (initially planned for 2024), which could be a real asset if the Irish can get revenge for this year’s last-minute loss. The Hurricanes finally look like a top-tier program again under Mario Cristobal.

Everything else? More of the same:

• Boston College: 2–10 last season, stuck in neutral
• North Carolina: 4-8, maybe they look better in year two under Bill Belichick but that’s a big if
• SMU: competitive but not nationally relevant this year
• Syracuse: 3–9, no momentum, although they would have been better had Steve Angeli not been hurt
• Stanford: 4–8, years away from competing

One high-quality opponent surrounded by five games that will not earn a lot of respect from the committee. This is the heart of the problem: the ACC can occasionally give Notre Dame a strong matchup, but never enough of them to help build a Playoff resume comparable to the SEC or Big Ten. Even in 2024, when Notre Dame went to the playoffs, its ACC schedule didn’t offer much. Louisville was the toughest of the mix, finishing 9-4. The rest? Georgia Tech (7-6), Florida State (2-10), Virginia (5-7), Stanford (3-9). Woof.

While these games hurt Notre Dame’s resume, they also rarely produce an exciting matchup for Notre Dame’s spread-out fanbase to make the trip to South Bend. Who is emptying their wallet to travel from halfway across the country to see SMU next year?

Meanwhile, the SEC and Big Ten now operate on another level

Just look at the landscape of college football since Notre Dame entered its agreement with the ACC. The SEC added Texas and Oklahoma. The Big Ten added USC, Oregon, Washington, and UCLA.

These mega-conferences generate multiple top-15 matchups per season, deeper competitive schedules, and more natural opportunities to build a resume for their institutions.

Notre Dame, meanwhile, is tied to the ACC — a league that responded to the arms race in college football by adding SMU, Cal, and Stanford. That’s not helping the Irish keep pace with the sport. It’s pulling them backward.

The ACC gets more out of the deal today than Notre Dame

Despite its struggles, the ACC continues to rely heavily on Notre Dame to enhance its members’ schedules. Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua pointed out Tuesday that since Notre Dame joined this agreement, ACC teams sell out roughly 23% of their games that don’t include Notre Dame, but that number jumps to 90% when the Irish visit an ACC campus.

While the ACC is getting increased draws at members’ games, Notre Dame has been getting weak opponents, low-value November results, and constant digs at its strength of schedule when so much of it is being dictated by a league that is struggling to maintain any semblance of relevance now that Clemson has fallen off its mega-power perch.

This isn’t balanced. It’s a lopsided arrangement that benefits the ACC and burdens Notre Dame.

The Path Forward: Stop making the ACC Notre Dame’s problem

Rather than asking how the Irish can make the ACC work, the real question might be:

Should Notre Dame be looking for the same or a similar scheduling model with a conference that actually elevates its resume?

The structure itself – a semi-affiliated partnership without conference membership – wasn’t a bad idea. The problem is that Notre Dame applied that model to a conference that has not maintained competitive relevance in the current landscape of college football.

The solution is obvious, at least for football. Notre Dame should copy the ACC blueprint and pitch it to other conferences that are more relevant. That could be a tough sell, as the conference overlords are almost certainly going to use Notre Dame’s exclusion this year to strong-arm the Irish into abandoning football independence, but it doesn’t seem there is any risk of that at this point.

The ACC isn’t improving – Notre Dame shouldn’t wait

Nothing about the ACC’s trajectory suggests a comeback is coming. Stanford, Cal, and SMU don’t move the football needle. The depth isn’t returning. The competitiveness isn’t rebounding. Clemson and Florida State could rebound quickly, but both institutions have been looking for their own ways out of the conference.

Notre Dame can keep waiting for the ACC to get its act together — or it can get more proactive in looking for alternatives. The challenge they face in doing this now, versus when they made the agreement with the ACC, is that other conferences that would be beneficial to Notre Dame now have MUCH more leverage than they did a decade ago. While ideal for Notre Dame, it’s hard to imagine the Big 10 or SEC offering Notre Dame a similar deal without some significant concessions from Notre Dame, if not outright full membership in football.

Notre Dame’s ceiling shouldn’t be defined by the ACC

Notre Dame’s independence isn’t a problem. Its scheduling philosophy, though, and a large part of that is how much it’s hindered by the ACC. The Irish need multiple premium matchups every season – not one Miami surrounded by four resume dead-weight games. The ACC simply can’t provide that right now, and it’s safe to wonder if they ever will, with Clemson and Florida State probably not long for the conference. Future Notre Dame opponents like Alabama, Texas, Auburn, and Florida should make for more challenging schedules, but the trajectory of the ACC doesn’t seem like it will do that anytime soon.