Keeping It Heel
Fansided

ACC Sports: What if Notre Dame joined in football?

By Brandon Griffin

Apr 22, 2017; Notre Dame, IN, USA; A Notre Dame Fighting Irish football helmet sits on the field following the Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 22, 2017; Notre Dame, IN, USA; A Notre Dame Fighting Irish football helmet sits on the field following the Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 5
Next
Nov 7, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; The American Athletic Conference logo at Yulman Stadium before the game between the Tulane Green Wave and the Connecticut Huskies. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 7, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; The American Athletic Conference logo at Yulman Stadium before the game between the Tulane Green Wave and the Connecticut Huskies. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports /

A Sixteenth School

If Notre Dame joined the ACC it would cause a problem.

Currently, the football membership sits at 14 and that works out to a nice seven and seven in two divisions.

However, if the Fighting Irish were brought in the fold, a 16th school would need to be added to even things out. So who would that 16th school be?

With the opportunity to join one of the Power Five conferences, the list of willing candidates would be about 60.

Before we get into this, know that no other Power Five school would be in real consideration. Sure a school like South Carolina, Tennessee, or West Virginia might make sense geographically, none of those schools is leaving their current conference.

Why?

The main reason is money.

Outside of the SEC, the other Power Five conferences have grants of media rights deals, the ACC included.

Those deals pretty much say that if a school leaves its conference before the end of the deal, all the TV revenue, including home games, stays with the previous conference. No school is giving up that much money to join the ACC or any other conference.

This was done to keep schools from jumping like what happened in 2012 when Texas A&M went to the SEC and in 2014 when Maryland went to the Big Ten.

The reason the SEC doesn’t have this yet is because they are the SEC and no team is leaving the best college football conference, period.

So that leaves just five other conferences to choose from: the American, the MAC, the Sunbelt, Conference USA, and the Mountain West.

To be fair, outside of the American, none of the conferences really offers anything the ACC would be interested in.

The American offers about 10 programs that would seem reasonable (Tulsa and Tulane would be quick knock offs).

Of those 10, Houston and SMU don’t really fit geographically. East Carolina and UCF would raise up issues of over saturation, and Navy would only be interested in football.

That leaves just five schools. So what does each school bring to the table?

Feb 23, 2017; Cincinnati, OH, USA; A view of the Cincinnati Bearcats logo on the Under Armour jersey of guard Troy Caupain (10) at Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats won 87-74. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 23, 2017; Cincinnati, OH, USA; A view of the Cincinnati Bearcats logo on the Under Armour jersey of guard Troy Caupain (10) at Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats won 87-74. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports /

Cincinnati

Cincinnati brings the most winning basketball and football teams over the past five seasons.

They also bring the 36th largest television market as well as open up the opportunity to reach the 19th and 32nd markets, which are Cleveland and Columbus respectively.

Connecticut

Connecticut brings the prestige of four basketball national championships. No other school on this list can claim that.

The biggest negative is that they currently reside in a nonexistent TV market and only open the door to the 30th largest market in Hartford/New Haven.

With Boston College, most of that market has already been tapped by the ACC.

Memphis

Memphis would also open a new market for the ACC. However, Memphis is only the 51st largest network, easily the worst of all the programs. It might open the door for Nashville (29th), but that is smack daub in the middle of SEC territory.

Memphis’ basketball program has also been on a decline and its football program has been inconsistent.

Temple

Temple is appealing. They have some history and have the most successful football team of the previous options the past two seasons. They also play in Philadelphia, the fourth largest television market.

Temple like Memphis has been inconsistent of late. Also like Connecticut, thanks to Pittsburgh, the Philadelphia area is already a market tapped by the ACC and Temple may be seen as a redundancy at that point.

South Florida

South Florida does bring the 11th largest market in Tampa as well as the 18th in Orlando. It also brings the best bowl record of the five programs.

On the flip side, South Florida is the worst of the five schools in basketball, having a .304 winning percentage over the last five seasons. Football may drive realignment, but the ACC is still a basketball league.

Also with Florida State and Miami, all TV markets in the state of Florida are already open to the ACC. Additionally, neither of those schools would be interested in adding competition to recruits within the state.

Considering they bring the most competitive teams as well as a currently untapped media market, Cincinnati makes the most sense to be the 16th ACC school. So now that the conference has 16 teams, what do they do next?

Home/UNC Football