Has Notre Dame's hand been forced?

Some losers who lose 4+ games every year and have a coach who looks like a cabbage patch kid.

EDIT: Who WAS Notre Dame?

Fixed . . . . .

The baby seal we play every September to tune up for B1G play.  

Everything isn't always about ND. Who cares what they do?

Notre Dame is French for Our Lady which of course refers to Mary the Virgin Mother of God.  It's a Catholic thing.

Sounds like you're right... Pete Thamel, others on twitter reporting Big Ten staying at 8 conference games, Pac-12 still going to 9.

ND not forced, it seems.

Welcome to Philly, Coach Kelly.

And see if all of those schools really want to force ND's hand. It would add another element to all of the rivalries if they decide to go through with it too.

Take USC off the list. That's untouchable. It is the original and still lasting national rivalry. The only one of it's kind. It dates back to Rockne.

I mean what's next, the Rose Bowl breaking up the Big Ten v. Pac 10 matchup or Texas and Texas A & M no longer playing?   

Glad I won't live to see any of that ever happening.

The only one safe on this list is USC - neither side wants to drop that.

MSU, because of that historic 1966 game, is probably the next safest, but it could be dropped.

The Big East, they'd get destroyed by most of the SEC.

I doubt SEC teams are going to want to make their schedule more difficult by dropping a soft OOC opponent in favor of the Irish and put themselves at a potential disadvantage in the conference race.

I don't. They have a sweetheart deal to the BCS. They have absolutely no incentive to play a tougher schedule. As long as the BCS contract stuff holds for them, then just schedule a bunch of Big east/MWC teams and cruise into the BCS every year.

It's not that people don't want to see difficult non-conference games; it's that people don't like the SEC.

Big slam on  Michigan-Alabama game next year to argue that it is part of the strategy of an SEC team "not exactly thrilled about putting difficult non-conference teams onto their schedule..."

Doesn't really affect USC, as they've always scheduled very aggressively. The Big 10 game just replaces their annual game against a team from an AQ conference (past 10 years they've played auburn, nebraska, va tech, arkansas, OSU, in addition to ND)

Well Notre Dame used to be hot and sexy and never gave you the time of day.  Now they are looking like the prom queen that got fat, old and desperate.  In other words they might really want a date now.  

I think we're forcing them into the resurgent Big East Conference.  Along with Army, Navy, Rutgers and Louisville.

I don't know.  They have a sweetheart deal with the BCS.  The only thing that's going to force ND's hand is after the BCS is gone and the next system doesn't give them the same.  We may not need ND on our schedule, but MSU and Purdue aren't going to give that game up easily.  Those are big national games for them.  USC could care less about ND's conference alignments.  That game isn't going anywhere.  There are alot of other schools (Florida State, Big 12 teams, etc) that would love to have a series with ND.  Delaney isn't going force B1G schools to drop ND off the schedule because that would pretty much put an end to any future expansion with ND or potential relationship.

ND has no good options left. Even the ACC option has major problems, most notably the size of the conference. ND would be the 15th school and the ACC almost certainly will not stop with an odd number so that means someone else will join to make 16. Even if the ACC sticks with its current format of 9 conference games, ND will limited to three OOC games each year. Assuming they elect to keep the USC and Navy games, which are the two they always insist are non-negotiable, they will only have one game a year to schedule. Bye-bye to Michigan, MSU, Purdue and Stanford.

IMO the ACC is already too big geographically.  They go Big 12 or B1G.  The Frankenstein Big East will most likely be no more by 2017.