Paul Finebaum predicts Notre Dame will join a conference in next 5-10 years

College football, as a sport, is rapidly changing. That includes the College Football Playoff system and the structure of conferences. However, one thing that hasn’t changed is Notre Dame remaining Independent of a conference.

Despite that long-standing tradition, analyst Paul Finebaum predicted on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning that Notre Dame will join a conference in the next five to 10 years.

“But I ultimately believe that Notre Dame has gotten away with this for a long time,” Paul Finebaum said. “I can’t imagine, long term, that they will, and I’m talking five, six, seven years down the road. At some point, they’re going to have to make a decision.”

Independence is a major part of Notre Dame’s history and is a large part of how the program became one of the premier ones in college football history. Largely because Notre Dame wasn’t able to join the Big Ten and was, for a time, not able to play Big Ten teams, the Irish traveled nationally as an Independent and built a fanbase throughout the country. Today, that tradition is still very important to the program.

“I give them credit for being able to pull it off, and again, I think the ACC is really the loser of all this because Notre Dame joining the ACC like they did in everything but [football] was really how they were able to preserve their athletic department and remain Independent in football,” Finebaum said. “Can you imagine the SEC doing that? Saying, ‘Okay, Notre Dame. We’ll let you play everything but football.’ That’s just not even fathomable to me and I think it’s a problem for the ACC now that they weren’t able to get them in.”

Under Notre Dame’s deal with the ACC, the Irish compete in the ACC in all sports that the conference sponsors, except football. However, the Irish do play at least five ACC teams annually. The Irish are also supposed to join the ACC if they were to join a conference during the course of the deal, and in 2020 Notre Dame did spend one season in the ACC because of the pandemic.

“Five to 10 years from now, I’m not sure the exact number,” Finebaum said. “I strongly believe that Notre Dame will finally say, ‘Enough is enough. We’re getting into a conference.'”

To Paul Finebaum’s point, there isn’t necessarily anything imminent that’s going to change in regards to the Irish. However, changes in the Playoff and the Irish’s ability to compete for a national championship at the highest level could force the Irish to reevaluate.