Notre Dame joining a football conference? Marcus Freeman doesn't hold back

Notre Dame remains college football’s most famous independent program, but that could change in the future if joining a conference becomes more lucrative, head coach Marcus Freeman has said in recent comments.

“The future of college athletics is always uncertain,” Freeman told Bussin’ With the Boys.

“With private equity, with what’s going to happen with these conferences, if there’s a time that Notre Dame has to join a conference to ensure they can have the same opportunities to make the playoff as everybody else, then I’m sure our administration would do it.”

That doesn’t mean Notre Dame is making any moving plans right now.

“Currently, the administration and myself and all of us feel confident that if we win the game we’re supposed to win, we take care of the business we’re supposed to take care of, we have just as good of a chance to make the playoffs as anybody else,” Freeman added.

Freeman’s remarks echo those of Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who has also maintained that the school’s first preference is to stay independent in football, but that the program must also do what it must in order to stay in the national title race.

Notre Dame’s freedom

Without being tied to a conference, Notre Dame has more freedom to create its own schedule, even though under its current agreement with the ACC, it has to play five games against that conference’s teams every season.

Aside from those matchups, the Fighting Irish are able to create as difficult, or as easy, a schedule every football season as they like.

Games in 2025 against Miami and Texas A&M are examples of that freedom, even though the Irish lost both those matchups this season, followed by more winnable games, in which the team is 5-0 since that 0-2 start.

Being independent means Notre Dame is basically in an annual competition for the seven at-large bids in the College Football Playoff, with the other five awarded to conference champions in the Power Four and one from the Group of Six.

And it got easier for the Irish to move to the top of the rankings after the College Football Playoff made changes to its format starting this season.

Before, they weren’t eligible for a first-round bye because those places were reserved for conference champions only, but after a reform of the selection system, they could theoretically contend for one of those top-four spots while staying independent, good news for fans who want to remain that way.

Irish are in a good spot

Bevacqua has sounded confident that Notre Dame is playing in a way, and that the system is such, that should guarantee its independence in football going forward.

“No secret, the expansion of the CFP from four to 12 teams has helped enormously, because as an independent, as with other schools, we get better opportunities, better percentages of getting in the playoffs, and the more you knock on that national championship door, the better,” he said earlier this year.

“And we like the freedom, quite frankly, it gives us. The fact we were able to play Navy at MetLife and had the Shamrock Series against Army at Yankee Stadium, that we can continue that great rivalry with USC, we really get to move around the map and keep that very national presence.

“It’s a wonderful thing for our football program and, quite frankly, it’s a wonderful thing for the university.”