{"id":273945,"date":"2026-05-17T02:37:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273945\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T02:37:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:37:26","slug":"usa-today-predicts-notre-dame-football-refusing-to-play-miami-and-smu-forcing-neutral-site-games-on-the-acc-teams-it-will-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273945\/","title":{"rendered":"USA Today predicts Notre Dame football refusing to play Miami and SMU, forcing neutral-site games on the ACC teams it will play"},"content":{"rendered":"

USA Today predicts Notre Dame football refusing to play Miami and SMU, forcing neutral-site games on the ACC teams it will play<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish<\/a> have been painted as a tyrant in College Football. In many ways, the program is. The rules for the CFP were changed<\/a> after the Fighting Irish were snubbed from the 2025\/2026 field, after all.<\/p>\n

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USA Today\u2019s Matt Hayes<\/a> predicted a horrifying future for the ACC in the ongoing football partnership with Notre Dame, where the Fighting Irish get all the revenue from the five games the conference offers to the every-sport-but-football ACC member.<\/p>\n

Hayes believes it could get as bad as Notre Dame refusing to play the Miami Hurricanes<\/a> ever again in the regular season after this November\u2019s clash, or refusing to face off against the SMU Mustangs<\/a>. Beyond that, Hayes believes the Fighting Irish can force neutral-site games against the ACC programs they will play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ACC didn\u2019t fine Notre Dame \u2014 there\u2019s zero chance another conference school could claim \u2018permanent damage\u2019 and not get fined \u2014 for its insufferable insubordination in December,\u201d Hayes prefaced before saying, \u201cDidn\u2019t blink when Notre Dame \u2014 after it lost to Miami in the regular season and had the same record as Miami at the end of the 2025 season \u2014 believed it should\u2019ve been selected to the CFP, and blamed the ACC for a lack of support. Whatever that means \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHow disgustingly offensive and one-sided can this relationship get? What\u2019s next, Notre Dame demanding it doesn\u2019t have to play Miami after this season? Or it won\u2019t play SMU, the next program on the rise in the conference? Or worse, it chooses who it plays and where it plays \u2014 including a couple of neutral site road games (see: ACC home games) sold to Amazon or Netflix or Apple. If you don\u2019t think that\u2019s coming, you clearly haven\u2019t been following this submissive relationship. \u201c<\/p>\n

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The ACC supports expanding CFP, so it can\u2019t be against Notre Dame that much<\/p>\n

Notre Dame may not realize it, but forcing a rule change so that it\u2019d never get snubbed again was a major ACC concession. The ACC even wants to expand the CFP<\/a>, which would basically guarantee the Fighting Irish make it every year. Notre Dame can play a weak schedule, lose two or even three games, and probably still make the field.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t seem like the ACC hates the Fighting Irish within that context. It\u2019s too bad Notre Dame ever peddled that narrative on a national stage<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USA Today predicts Notre Dame football refusing to play Miami and SMU, forcing neutral-site games on the ACC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[117074,123,125,5079,124,10961,4699,117073],"class_list":["post-273945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-matt-hayes","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-hurricanes","tag-miami-news","tag-notre-dame","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-the-fighting-irish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}