I think scheduling has changed to the point where Notre Dame's alternatives to a 5-game ACC deal just aren't all that good.

There's no doubt Notre Dame still has enough cache to schedule almost anyone it wants. For now, everyone is happy to see the Irish come to town. Most programs are happy to have the chance to play a game in South Bend, particularly if you're a program that isn't among the traditional elite.

But ND's problem is that the major conferences have pretty much blocked off October and November as reserved for conference games only. Conferences will allow for a non-conference rivalry game on the last Saturday of November (and the SEC will allow its schools to play the Little Sisters of the Poor the week prior). Otherwise, non-conference games nearly always have to be played during the first three or four weeks of the season, in September.

The Pac 12 has made an exception to allow USC and Stanford to play midseason games at Notre Dame, but that's one game per year (with the west coast game played during the final weekend most years). It wasn't that long ago that Notre Dame was playing home games against Western Michigan during the prime portion of the season. That's not good for season ticket holders or NBC.

Look at what BYU is doing. BYU has brutal early schedules against P5 opponents and then the rest of the season is a cluster of stuff. BYU and ND are not direct comparisons, but the problems are similar.

So while I understand why a die-hard Domer would rather have a more diverse schedule than play five games against ACC opponents, it really is better than the likely alternative under current scheduling norms.