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A scheduling alliance is an agreement between collegiate athletic conferences or independent college athletic teams to guarantee a set number of games to each member, or to create a competitive challenge between athletic conferences. Although it is not formally recognized by the governing body , it resembles a conference in many respects. The scheduling alliance may be very informal, only involving guaranteed games, or it may have awards, such as player of the week, MVP and a championship title. It can also involve a school agreeing to play a set number of games against members of a given conference in a particular sport, although not being a member of that league.
FBS College Football Scheduling Alliances
The most notable example of such an arrangement in FBS football involves the University of Notre Dame and the Atlantic Coast Conference. In 2013, Notre Dame joined the ACC as a full but non-football member, wishing to retain its status as an FBS independent in football. Notre Dame and the ACC agreed that in football, the Fighting Irish would play five games each season against other ACC schools, and also would play each ACC school at least once every three years. In 2020, however, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic causing the Power Five conferences to enforce restrictions on non-conference play, the Fighting Irish played a full ACC schedule with eligibility for the ACC Championship Game, for which they qualified, ultimately losing to the Clemson Tigers.
In future years, due to the formation of the PAC-12-ACC-Big Ten Alliance, it has been rumored that the PAC-12 and Big Ten conferences could move from a 9-game conference schedule to an 8-game conference schedule, in order to create a 8-2 scheduling method that would allow members of this alliance to play at least 2 other teams from the 2 other conferences in the PAC-12-ACC-Big Ten alliance every season. Moreover, this is not the first time the Big Ten and PAC-12 have tried to create a scheduling alliance in football. In 2011, the Big Ten and PAC-12 conferences announced a scheduling alliance that was set to fully become the first conference challenge in football by the year 2017. While notable matchups were played as scheduled, including Oregon-Michigan State, California-Ohio State, and Michigan-Utah, the planned scheduling alliance that was to start in 2017 never happened after the Big Ten announced a move to a 9-game conference schedule starting in 2016.