There was never really a threat that FBS independent Notre Dame would ever join a football conference, but you can put the final nail in that coffin now.
On Thursday, the College Football Playoff officially adopted a resolution to move to a straight-seeding model, awarding first-round byes to the top four teams in the committee’s rankings. Under the previous 12-team format, which debuted last year, the four first-round byes were reserved for the four highest-ranked conference champions. Now, teams will no longer need to win a conference championship to earn a bye.
The change will most obviously help schools playing in the Big Ten or SEC. The country’s top two conferences will now have the opportunity to secure more than one first-round bye, rather than ceding two quarterfinal slots to the ACC, Big 12, or Group of 5.
But another byproduct of the move impacts Notre Dame, a school unsullied by conference affiliation.
Under the old seeding structure, Notre Dame had no path to receiving a first-round bye. While that may have been cool for ESPN, which got to air a Fighting Irish home game for the first time in decades due to their first-round seeding last season, it would not have been cool for Notre Dame fans if their team had finished ranked inside the top four.
The conference champion stipulation was one of the only plausible reasons Notre Dame, which partners with NBC for a lucrative media rights agreement to air its home games, would have ever decided to join a conference in football.
As the College Football Playoff eyes inevitable expansion to 14 or 16 teams for 2026 and beyond, first-round byes will reportedly remain a feature in either format. With conference affiliation no longer a prerequisite for a bye, so long as NBC (or other media entities) continue to value the Notre Dame brand enough to strike standalone media rights deals with the school, you can kiss the possibility of the Domers joining a conference goodbye.