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For everyone that can’t wait until the Notre Dame Fighting Irish finally plays the Wisconsin Badgers in football... you’re probably going to have to keep waiting. According to Nicole Auerbach from The Athletic, the Big 10 is expected to move to a “conference only” football schedule for 2020.
The Big Ten is expected to announce today that it will go with a conference-only football schedule for this fall, a person with direct knowledge situation tells @TheAthleticCFB.
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) July 9, 2020
While this is certainly bad news for Notre Dame, it does provide some hope for the rest of the country that there will be a college football season this fall — for now.
The topic of “conference only games” has been brought up many times during the coronavirus pandemic, and of course that means people are wondering what the Irish will do if other conferences move to this format.
I don’t have an exact answer, but I do believe the ACC games will still be in play as well as Navy. That’s 7 games. Add the BYU Cougars and that’s 8 games. Anything after 8 would be a blessing.
We will, of course, still have to wait and see what else happens around the country — but according to the guys on the Irish Illustrated Podcast, Notre Dame has been working on several scenarios.
I expect more details to be known sometime in the next two weeks.
UPDATES:
#ACC commissioner John Swofford has said that if league adopts an all-conference football schedule for 2020, Notre Dame likely will be in mix. Irish already have six ACC opponents on docket.
— David Teel (@ByDavidTeel) July 9, 2020
ACC football also expected to play conference-only games, sources told @Stadium. Last month, ACC commish John Swofford told @Stadium if Power 5 schools played conference-only schedules that ACC would assist Notre Dame with as many games as it needed
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 9, 2020