The ACC announced Wednesday its plan to include Notre Dame as part of the conference for the 2020 football season.

Under the plan, all conference schools and Notre Dame will play 10 games against ACC teams plus a game against a nonconference opponent of their choice. Notre Dame will be eligible for the conference championship game and the ACC is eliminating divisions for this season only.

While Notre Dame football embraces its independence, straying from the tradition-in-the-making made the most sense, athletic director Jack Swarbrick told ESPN this morning and ESPN’s Heather Dinich reported. Put simply, he said, playing independently was too risky.

“Could we have constructed a schedule without this? Yes, but given the uncertainties that everybody faces, you couldn’t exactly be sure what you have,” Swarbrick said, per ESPN. “There was a greater level of control and certainty if we could do this with the ACC than if we had just constructed the schedule ourselves.

Notre Dame aligned with the ACC for every sport except for football in 2012. As part of the deal, the school agreed to play at least five football games against ACC teams each year. For that reason, joining the ACC was the likely outcome, as ESPN’s Andrea Adelson originally reported on July 24.

The decision to temporarily renew the partnership comes after the pandemic put Notre Dame’s schedule in jeopardy. With the Big Ten and Pac-12 implementing conference-only schedules, Notre Dame had its games against Stanford, USC and Wisconsin canceled. Joining the ACC allows Notre Dame more scheduling stability, considering now it only needs to find one nonconference opponent

Swarbrick told ESPN Notre Dame is evaluating its schedule to find a date and opponent for its one nonconference game.