The latest domino in the college football re-alignment process has fallen, as Notre Dame announced on Wednesday that it would move its non-football sports to the ACC and play five football games with ACC teams going forward.
↵The move strengthens the ACC considerably and likely ends any chances of either Clemson or FSU coming over to the Big 12, which had been widely rumored over the summer.
↵As a result, the Big 12 may be staying at ten schools indefinitely, as there aren't many other schools out there worth divvying up the media rights pie for. While many observers have thought that the conference will need to get back to 12 schools, in order to have a conference championship game, that may no longer be a necessity.
↵For SMU, which joins the Big East as an all-sports member in 2013, it's the latest sign that their new conference may not be the safe harbor they hoped it would be.
↵It's still a better deal than Conference USA, but with every school that leaves, the Big East is becoming more like the C-USA every day.
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