Notre Dame Football: Irish broke the ACC football cheat code

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish released its 2023 football schedule a few weeks ago, and we could finally see where all of the ACC games were slotted for the season. There were no big surprises — other than ND forcing itself to play during midterm week. The real surprise came on Monday when the ACC released its full conference schedule.

Twitter @ACCFootball

Notice something strange about all of that?

There isn’t a single bye week for any ACC team the week before they play Notre Dame. Over the last few years, it’s been a true comedic experience to watch the ACC unveil the schedule with all of those bye weeks right before the Irish. They were trying so hard — so hard — to find any edge they could get to beat Notre Dame in the regular season.

And who can really blame them Notre Dame’s dominance against the ACC in the regular season is well-known, and it even had Mark Richt pleading from the ACC network release show.

Mark Richt, after all, was the last ACC coach to beat Notre Dame when the Irish went down to Miami and in November of 2017 and got absolutely spanked in prime time. The Irish have mostly avenged themselves since then having gone 28-0 against the ACC in the regular season since 2018. The only ACC team to beat the Irish at all since 2018 was the Clemson Tigers in the 2018 CFB Playoff & 2020 ACC Championship Game. Notre Dame beat Clemson in the regular season matchups in 2020 and in 2022.

Even Clemson had the traditional Notre Dame bye last year, and then came up to South Bend to get their butts handed to them, 35-14 (and it wasn’t even that close).

So... Notre Dame beat the ACC cheat code, and now the ACC is going to try a good old-fashioned reverse jinx with no byes scheduled before Notre Dame. They still weren’t very creative. Notre Dame plays 6 ACC games this season, and instead of byes, the ACC scheduled the NC State Wolfpack to be the opponent before the ND game three times, UConn twice, and Wake Forest one time for good measure.

Well — best of luck to you ACC. I’m sure Pat Narduzzi is hoping pissed about something concerning Notre Dame. Maybe it’s the nonsense of Pitt playing Syracuse inside Yankee Stadium?

So here’s to 34-0 with the 2015 loss to Clemson finally avenged. let’s make it happen.