and made BYU an annual matchup, they could have maintained a similar solid core, without the 5-game ACC deal, similar to what they had the previous couple of decades:

• Navy
• USC
• Stanford
• BYU
• 1 or 2 of Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue
• 2 or 3 of Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Miami

Add a payday home game against a MAC teams or Temple, the occasional game against Army or Air Force, and then Notre Dame would only need 2 or 3 other opponents. And, that's where they could accomodate other Big Ten, SEC, ACC, B12, and PAC matchups. 

The September schedule would involve most of the B1G and other P5 matchups, plus the payday home game. The October schedule would involve USC or Stanford, most of the ACC matchups, and Air Force or Army. The annual November schedule would consist of BYU, Navy and the USC/Stanford road game. 

For BYU, with Notre Dame and USC/Stanford in November, that would give us a strong finish to the season every year. We could place Utah State and Boise State in October and Utah in September. That would have been pretty sweet.