The Power Five is back in university football.
No, we are not looking at the CAP-12, which in 2026 will add five schools in the Mountain West to look more closely at a modern FBS League beyond its current range of two members.
The fifth power conference of university football is Notre-Dame, and the changing sporting landscape has provided 10-year prospects at the Notre-Dame conference which makes Fighting Irish very unlikely to feel obliged to leave one of the best offers in university football.
Now there is an argument that Our Lady has been a conference on power in itself for some time; He has experienced his own lucrative media rights agreement and independence planning even if the number of FBS independents has decreased in the past 40 years. Fighting Irish abandoned part of the programming independence in 2016 when they concluded an agreement with ACC for complete membership of all other sports, but partial support for football.
This week, Notre Dame brought back part of this independence with a new annual, Long -term planning partnership with Clemson. From 2027, the two schools will have to play in football every year until 2038. Some of these matches were already on the books as part of Notre Dame’s long -term agreement to play five ACC opponents each season, but six of the games were not. Given that the Notre Dame Clemson series will count for the commitment of the school to play five ACC games per year, this means that another ACC school could lose an Notre Dame game in 2029, 2030, 2032, 2033, 2035 and 2036.
According to Yahoo! Sporty.
Take 2036, for example: Notre Dame turned Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Pitt and Caroline du Nord as an ACC adversaries. The year 2036 can be for life in university football, the way things have changed recently, but if the agreements are taking place and Notre Dame-Clemson counts as one of the five for Fighting Irish, this would mean that at least one of these schools is starting the calendar.
And, there is a good chance that it is not Florida State.
Notre Dame, Clemson Plan the 12 -year -old football series with the ACC income sharing model as a motivation factor
Will Backus
When the ACC reached its settlement with Clemson and Florida State and accepted a new income distribution model for the conference, it was widely reported that the emphasis would be on the creation of more matches between Notre Dame and its best university football brands. This annual 12 -year agreement with Clemson is a huge song, but the wait is that the future additional matches against Florida State and Miami could follow.
So consider Notre Dame’s position and the benefits of being the Notre-Dame conference. In the NDC – he has a ring somehow, right? – Fighting Irish position themselves to choose their five ACC opponents by hand, stacking the top of the range with the best ACC football brands, then satisfying certain historical rivalries with matches against Stanford, Boston College, Georgia Tech and others. All home games are broadcast as part of their own NDC media rights with NBC, then the school retains total control of the rest of the calendar to maintain other rivalries and fill their home schedule.
When Notre Dame and the ACC concluded their agreement for the first time almost a decade ago, the slogan used by former commissioner John Swofford and others was a “win-win”. The conferences have developed, the hours of the league doing the same, and Notre Dame was able to obtain the certainty of strengthening a handful of spots instead of starting from zero each year. The ACC also had to benefit, because obtaining Notre Dame on the campus would be – and turned out to be – a huge draw to sell tickets in a single match and season, while the South Bend games have become a bit of a university football pilgrimage for fans who could afford travel packages – which, once again, could be provided by a sports department or an organization affiliated to the university.
The part of the ACC which does not include Clemson, Florida State or Miami loses the advantage of having Notre Dame as a partial member if they are replaced in the future Irish combat schedules. Without these games, these schools cut a piece of pie for a program that he will rarely play in football. And with the current income distribution model which provides financial awards to generate major television notes, the rest of the league will be less likely to be seen on a large scene due to fewer games against Fighting Irish.
This is one of the reasons why the regulations were a lot for Clemson and Florida State, because a revenue distribution model that takes into account a “metric of media value” will always reward the time slot champions. The games that are chosen for the Prime TV windows get the best grades, and like two of the main brands of Clemson and Florida State football brands are often chosen for these windows.
Now Clemson, and perhaps Florida State and Miami also if they follow suit, guarantee even more wholesale grace confrontations thanks to additional matches against Notre Dame. These matches increase their calendar strength with regard to competition for the places of eliminatory series of university football and is based on the distribution of income to promote the elite of ACC.
Speaking of the playoff series of university football, the future models offered by the playoff series of university football for 2026 and beyond the start of the school year, why Notre Dame is a power conference in itself without having to create more alliances at the highest level. The 14 team model which includes automatic offers for Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 also has a place assigned to Irish Fighting in the years when they finish the regular season in the top 14. During the last 10 seasons, Notre Dame has finished outside the Top 14 in the last Top 25 AP just twice, and one of them was an 18th place in 2022.
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While the national finalist of a season continues to thrive under Marcus Freeman and now increases his calendar force by exchanging lower levels against the biggest brands, the chances are even more stacked in favor of Notre Dame being an annual part of the series of university football playoffs if the models offered 14 or 16 stages were approved.
Nowhere else else, but the Notre-Dame conference could you not choose your schedule while enjoying a path to the university football playoffs which seem to be similar to bowling with bumpers. Fighting Irish have lifting on all suitors who are looking for their full -time members because the company line has long been that independence has been a priority as long as it does not bother a calendar or competition for the university football playoffs.
Looking towards the future, with an annual agreement against Clemson and the more potential planning provisions on the horizon, Notre Dame is undoubtedly in the best position that she has ever had to achieve these two objectives as an independent. We have always known it according to the way the CFP creates its committees and the rest of the university sports works, but these moments are in addition that Notre Dame is a power conference in itself.
