Notre Dame to join ACC in all sports except football

The scramble to find shelter in an ever-changing landscape continued Wednesday when it was announced Notre Dame would join the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football.

Notre Dame football will play five games each year against ACC opponents. The year of the move has yet to be determined. The current BCS contract expires after the 2013 season.

The move provides protection for Notre Dame’s other sports, which are currently competing in the Big East, a league undergoing drastic geographic reconstruction.

Next year, Pittsburgh and Syracuse will leave the Big East for the ACC, which already has former Big East members Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech. The Big East will expand by adding teams as far away as San Diego State.

“We have monitored the changing conference landscape for many months and have concluded that moving to the ACC is the best course of action,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said in a released statement. “We are able to maintain our historic independence in football, join in the ACC’s non-BCS bowl package, and provide a new and extremely competitive home for our other sports.”

Notre Dame this summer agreed to a football tie-in with the ACC-affiliated Orange Bowl on a rotating basis.

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