The Notre Dame Elephant
The proverbial elephant in the conference realignment room remains: Notre Dame. If Notre Dame says it is ready to join a conference, you can expect the Big 10 and the ACC to start recruiting. Notre Dame to the conferences is like Lebron James times Sid Crosby to the power of Peyton Manning. The reasons why the Big 10 and the ACC would want Notre Dame do not need to be listed.
But why would Notre Dame consider the ACC?
Well, we all know that Notre Dame is not on the Atlantic Coast. Or near it. Or near ANY coast for that matter. So there is a poor geographic fit, compared to the Big 10.
Also, Notre Dame has a history of playing the nearby Big 10 schools, especially Michigan, Michigan St. and Purdue. And the ACC cannot match the Big 10 and its lucrative Big 10 network dollar-for-dollar.
However, contrary to the opinions of your garden-variety Internet troll, Notre Dame is not all about the money. Notre Dame is all about its football independence. Notre Dame’s NBC contract allows it to remain independent. They would get a a raise jumping to the Big 10. But that would compromise football independence.
Why does Notre Dame care about football independence? Because it sees itself as a national school. They want to be seen in the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and West. Their main rival is USC–a home and home between California and South Bend. They are going to play Navy every year. A game that gives them some visibility in the mid-Atlantic. They want games in New York City, as evidenced by agreements to play Army and Syracuse in that market. They will gladly play against Boston College, Stanford, Texas, Georgia Tech, and Miami. When you are not confined to a conference schedule, you have the freedom to play a unique schedule every year. This is HUGE. It is huge for the alumni. It is huge for recruiting. It is Notre Dame.
This is also a strength of the ACC. The ACC stretches from Boston to Miami. Notre Dame’s home games cover the Midwest. It’s away games could include, in any season, trips to Boston, New York City (Syracuse or UConn or Rutgers), the DC area, the Carolinas, Atlanta, and Florida. That is quite a stretch of real estate. Throw in a game against USC in California and you’ve got the West coast. Perhaps when home against USC, Notre Dame could schedule the Navy game for San Diego or play Stanford or Washington. They already have Texas on the OOC slate.
In the Big 10, Notre Dame would get its 6 or 7 home games, with perhaps only Penn State representing an opportunity to get East Coast viewership. The addition of Rutgers with Notre Dame would help. But that is still 9 or 10 games with a Midwest focus. I have to give the edge to the ACC.
Academically, both the Big 10 and ACC are excellent. The Big 10 is primarily state schools that focus on research. The Notre Dame philosophy is closer to Syracuse in that regard than Northwestern (who does several times more research than Notre Dame or Syracuse). Plus, an ACC with Notre Dame would have several private schools. The fit is there for Notre Dame.
Nobody knows if or when Notre Dame will join any conference, much less the ACC. But the ACC has a very real chance of landing Notre Dame someday…
The Confidential 
Notre Dame is definitely a Football King and could be the “End Game” for conference realignment.
Call me crazy, but I think that Villanova would be an ideal partner for the ACC: small, private school, high academics, elite basketball program, opportunity for competitive football. Plus, it would bring in a new TV market (Philadelphia) and new recruiting areas. The only downside is the small stadium (PPL park), but I think the ACC would be less discriminatory about this than the Big East was. Afterall, it really wasn’t the seating capacity that the Big East teams worried about, it was adding another FBS school to compete with for recruits in Southeastern PA and Southern NJ (cough**Rutgers**cough).
With a combination of Notre Dame/Virginia Tech/Miami/Florida St at the top of the ticket, you can afford to bring in a lesser football team if they can contribute value to the conference in several other areas.
Why not just add Temple? Already FBS. Has the stadium issue resolved. Unfortunately, they have already showed that they can play with Maryland….
I think Villanova’s academics are better than Temple, and as a school Villanova is probably more comparable to the ACC-model than Temple is.
Also, I really don’t think the PPL stadium was an issue; especially since the proposed expansion would have increased capacity to 30,000. The bigger problem was that some schools, Rutgers in particular, didn’t want to compete with yet another D-1A school for recruits.
Look at the On The Banks; they are now starting to focus their vitriol from Villanova to Temple for the exact same reason.