I am indeed biased against people who make bad decisions on behalf of institutions that I support.

you are absolutely falling for the Swarbrick/Kelly shell game regarding football scheduling.

I'm not excited about seeing anyone from the ACC other than Clemson on our football schedule, but that five-game commitment leaves seven games on the schedule. While I do believe that, as an independent, Notre Dame needs to "over-schedule" to a degree if it's serious about having a resume that stands up to major conference champions in front of the playoff committee, but that is entirely possible, even with the five-game ACC commitment.

The problem is that Swarbrick has treated those games as a murderer's row, rather than the four breathers that they truly are. He sold the lemmings the line that, "We have BC and NC State and Wake Forest ... every year, so we need to schedule breathers from that by playing Marshall and Toledo and UNLV and Western Michigan and Ball State and Bowling Green ...."

It looks like you're one of the lemmings.

I'm just dealing with the reality of the situation, which is that the ACC package has been treated by ND as a de facto conference slate with the standard fare of lower league cupcakes (and now FCS teams, starting next year).

I agree, however, that the ACC football slate does not necessarily have to destroy the strength of schedule if supplemented with better opponents.
Five or six games is still far too many boring games with no buzz for my taste though and I'd rather see our other sports in a conference, or multiple conferences, that are a more natural fit for ND.

of ND fans favoring more aggressive football scheduling, but to me that doesn't mean a top 20 team 11 or 12 weeks out of the season.

Without the benefit of reviewing historical scores, I feel that I'm familiar enough with Notre Dame schedules over the years to assert that even in those seasons with the most challenging schedules, there are always uninteresting games that don't create much buzz. Start with Navy, until we entered the wilderness. Rice, Tulane, Pitt for many years until Johnny Majors arrived. Air Force, Purdue once Jack Mollenkopf retired in 1969, Northwestern, with very few exceptions, etc., etc.

We apparently disagree that relying on the ACC for the "no buzz" games is materially worse than Notre Dame's historical scheduling, and I think any difference is justified by the benefits to other sports, overall. Again, if I believed the ACC arrangement prevented Notre Dame from having an appropriate football schedule, my position would be 180 degrees different.

As for other possibilities to provide reasonable conference memberships for other sports (again, without significantly diminishing the football program), you have asserted here that such options existed.

Posters on both sides of that issue are left to argue the existence/non-existence of deals not pursued, not consummated or not possible.

I will note that I don't consider it a coincidence that we struck a deal with the weakest P5 football conference. I don't think the Pac-12 made sense due to geographic considerations, but I'm not convinced that they would have granted Notre Dame "partial membership" regardless. I'm among those who consider it laughable to think that the SEC or Big 10 would have considered such an arrangement. That leaves the Big 12, which is about to expire -- and I don't think they would have gone for it, either.

I'm still stuck on the point about other conferences, particularly the Big Ten, not offering ND a partial deal. We're already a member of the league for hockey. At this last round of realignment, it was widely reported that the Big Ten was done after adding USC or UCLA unless ND were to come calling, in which case they'd accept us in a heartbeat.

Why wouldn't the league add ND for hoops, baseball and soccer? I'm stipulating here and elsewhere in this thread that it would not be on the same terms (i.e., full access to the minor bowls).

today than it was when we joined the ACC or that Hockey is entirely different from the other sports?

Sounds stupid to say this but you have to give something to get something. What would the Big 10 gain from us agreeing to play a slate of conference games similar to what we did with the ACC. Keep in Mind at the time we joined we had been playing 3-4 Big 10 games a year for a long time. What do they gain in an ACC type deal 2 games and they give up bowl access when they already have 4 schools with long histories at the top of the sport?

I am sure they want us now because the NCAA is headed to a world of 4 conferences and you will need all the names you can get.

I'd like to get out of the ACC deal right now.

We're locked in until 2036, but if I had my way, we'd be actively negotiating out of it right now. With a 12 team playoff on the horizon, the notion of tying our decision to access to irrelevant bowls seems increasingly absurd. Who cares whether we get to be in the Cheez-It Bowl?

At least for basketball. It would be a step down for some of the other sports, admittedly, but a better fit overall and we would recapture full independence for football.

Down compared to last years but Big East has two ranked teams and ACC has three. As the NCAA evolves into super conferences you are going to need to be in one for football and for most other sports it is an inferior conference.

If independence is your goal a seat at the table through the ACC is probably the Best option. As said elsewhere Big 10 / SEC will be all or nothing. PAC 12 is dying if USC and UCLA leave and same with the Big 12.