Notre Dame will only play a harder schedule if somebody forces it to. This reported plan to add more SEC and Big Ten opponents is simply Notre Dame reading the fine print; treating it as some sudden change of heart means you haven't been paying attention.
The College Football Playoff is reportedly closing in on a deal to expand to 24 teams in 2027. In a 24-team world, the margin for error is enormous. You can lose a couple of games, play a parade of overmatched opponents, and still get a seat at the table. The four-team field that demanded a near-perfect resume is gone. Expansion subsidizes caution.
Notre Dame may be expected to book more games against the big conferences because the deal could require it. The SEC has been pushing a demand that power-conference teams play 10 power-conference opponents, and the Big Ten has been open to it. Notre Dame has no conference to hit that number for them. If that threshold becomes the price of admission, the Irish either load the schedule or lose their path in. Notre Dame is reading the entry form.
Which makes the cast of characters almost funny. Notre Dame has had a voice in the room as these rules take shape, helping craft the very structure that lets the program coast and might, as a condition, drag it into tougher matchups anyway. Nobody is better positioned to protect Notre Dame's independence and its cushy on-ramp at the same time.
The Irish do try to schedule marquee games, and sometimes it's the other side that says no. Programs with everything to lose and a conference slate already full have little reason to add a road trip to South Bend. That refusal is real. But it cuts the same way for everybody. The top of the SEC and Big Ten learned long ago that stacking non-conference risk doesn't reliably pay off, and a 24-team field only hardens that lesson. Everyone's incentive now points at the softest schedule they can defend.
Kirk Herbstreit once called Notre Dame's scheduling an "embarrassment." He had a point, but aiming it at one program misses the design. The sport built a bracket that rewards avoidance and handed the blueprint to the networks, then expects the same teams who've always protected their records to suddenly chase danger.
They won't. Notre Dame won't, and neither will anyone else, unless the rulebook strips the choice away. If the 24-team deal forces 10 power games, good. Make them all do it. Leave it optional and this "tougher schedule" talk disappears the moment the ink dries.
