The college football season isn’t far away, but figuring out schedules and protocol in a COVID-19 world seems to be a total nightmare. You’ve got schools all across the country with different return-to-class procedures, with different conferences in difference states doing their own thing.

Some conferences are going the route of keeping things in house, which means they’ll only play within their own setups and punt their non-conference games. That’s all good and well unless you’re the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who play an independent schedule annually.

To the rescue comes the Atlantic Coast Conference, to offer the South Bend losers a lifeline by including them in their 2020 “conference only” football schedule:

Absolutely disgusting that the ACC would toss out this life preserver.

The bowl-game stealers should have been left to flounder, to pay for their “we’re above joining a conference” entitlement and self-placement on a pedestal that’s higher than your school. They’ve always thought themselves to be better than other programs despite going 6-8 in bowl games over the last 20 years while getting obliterated in the 2013 title game and 2018 playoff semifinal, which means that they’re not Clemson, not Bama, not LSU, and not Ohio State. They’re a second-tier team these days, whether they want to accept it or not.

Legions of Notre Dame “fans,” who didn’t go to Notre Dame and can’t point to South Bend on a map, will laud the move and say things like, “why wouldn’t the ACC invite us in?” They’ll talk about the history of the program and the national TV ratings and all of that stuff, ignorant to the fact that they can build their own schedule and qualify for the playoff without winning a conference and without winning a conference championship game. And then at 8-4 they’ll take the bowl game of a Big 10 team that went 9-3 and deserves to be there more than the Domers do.

That’s why people dislike Notre Dame. Because they think they’re above everybody else. They don’t need to join a conference. They want to do things their own way, and then when extenuating circumstances present themselves, the ACC comes to the rescue.

Of course outgoing commissioner John Swofford does not have the balls to say, “you need to join permanently.” He’ll gladly take on a year of higher ratings/cash and more eyeballs on his shitty product (outside of Clemson) and then let Notre Dame walk in 2021, because he has no backbone. This is the same guy who poached a bunch of Big East teams and started the nationwide conference realignment of 10 years ago.

Imagine being a loyal ACC supporter over the years, and Notre Dame plays in your conference in every sport other than football, because they’re pompous and haughty. They don’t want to play ACC football because they’re better than you. Then here comes Swofford to invite the Domers in for a season, a season in which THEY’RE ALLOWED TO COMPETE FOR THE TITLE. It’s outrageous, it’s unearned, and it’s a slap in the face to the 15 people who actually care about Wake Forest and Boston College football.

Notre Dame should have been left to flounder. If you want to be independent and do things your own way, then don’t go running to a conference only when it’s convenient for you. It’s always been a one-way street for the Domers because they think they’re special, which hasn’t been the case since 1993.