The Notre Dame football program is famously independent, and even as college football conferences expand and become ‘superconferences', the Irish are seemingly going to fight any effort to give up their independence.
For decades, the Big Ten has been the most logical landing spot for Notre Dame football if it ever was effectively forced to join a conference; many of the Irish's oldest rivals — Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern, and now, USC — are all in the Big Ten, and South Bend is smack-dab in the middle of the Big Ten footprint.
However, Notre Dame has remained content being one of the very few FBS football programs, banking on the national brand it built over the course of the 20th century, as well as the lucrative, longtime broadcasting deal it has with NBC. For those reasons, plus its built-in access to the College Football Playoff, ND apparently feels no need to join any conference, including the Big Ten, even if the conference expands to 20 teams.
The reason this is coming up now, in addition to general curiosity amid the ever-changing college football landscape, is because Maryland athletic director Jim Smith did not hesitate when asked how many teams the Big Ten will have by the end of the decade.
“Twenty,” Smith said on Inside Maryland Sports Radio earlier this week.
The Big Ten currently has 18 teams, thanks to the additions of Pac-12 stalwarts USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon before the 2024 season. Geographically, that unlocked a new frontier, so to speak, for the conference, which added its previously most Western school, Nebraska, in 2011. The Big Ten expanded eastward a few years later with the addition of Rutgers and Maryland in hopes of grabbing the New York-New Jersey and the DMV television markets.
Notre Dame, if it were to ever join the Big Ten, would be a unique case for expansion, considering it neither adds any major geographic advantage nor an untapped regional television market. However, ND is one of the biggest and most historic brands in college football, on par with the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, and USC, and with the existing and potentially new rivalries on the table, it makes perfect sense why the Big Ten would want the Irish officially a part of its superconference.
Whether Notre Dame joins or not, to reach 20 teams, the Big Ten would likely look south during expansion. As the ACC appears in danger of losing teams over the next five years, North Carolina, Virginia, Miami, and Georgia Tech would seem as plausible candidates to join the Big Ten — or the SEC, when it expands.
Notre Dame and Miami will meet this weekend on Sunday in the teams' respective season openers. The Irish play the first of two Big Ten opponents on Sept. 20, when they host Purdue. Notre Dame also hosts USC on Oct. 18.
