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Notre Dame St. John's Lacrosse
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ACC Accepts Notre Dame: AQ, Here We Come!

Notre Dame, long the school that sort of stood by itself, has officially been accepted to join the ACC as a full member. Every team, with the exception of football, will play a full ACC schedule.

Now that Syracuse AND Notre Dame are bolting the Big East for the ACC, an AQ, or Automatic Qualifier, bid will eventually pop up for the ACC in men’s lacrosse, and with Duke, UVA, UNC and Maryland already in the conference, the ACC will clearly be THE top dog when it comes to men’s lacrosse. Man, that is a super strong line up schools!

Notre Dame St. John's Lacrosse
Notre Dame joins the ACC!

What are some possible benefits of this move? And who are some of the biggest Winners?

1) Notre Dame certainly looks stronger for the move overall. That much is clear.

2) The ACC is now THE super conference for lacrosse. Maybe Hopkins will try to get in just for lacrosse. Ha. If they don’t, maybe OTHER ACC schools will add the sport, because they’ll start to feel left out. NC State, Virginia Tech, Boston College… I’m looking DIRECTLY at you.

3) Indiana Lacrosse at the youth and high school levels. Notre Dame is now bringing 2-3 ACC games to South Bend every year now. Add in a flexible OOC schedule and Indiana could see more great college lacrosse games in their backyard than ever before.

Usually, I’m not a huge fan of schools jumping conferences, but with Notre Dame, it seems like they were looking for a home that provided a better fit, and were tired of being in limbo in the struggling Big East to a certain extent. Ok, so maybe I’m coming around to conference jumping. Notre Dame joined a conference with excellent academic schools, and great lacrosse programs. I’m sure the move wasn’t done solely for lacrosse, but I don’t mind that it’s such a good fit.

For more, check out the release on ACC.com. Thanks ArtjomM for the comment. Can’t believe I thought they were in the ECAC. Thanks for keeping me honest!