We never thought we’d see the day when Notre Dame would join a conference.

Well OK, Notre Dame was already in the Big East Conference in all sports except football, and its move to the Atlantic Coast Conference is still exempt in football. But for the sake of argument, let’s just talk football, because we all know that’s what pays the bills.

As could have been deciphered from the previous stanzas, Notre Dame is leaving the Big East to join the Atlantic Coast in all sports except football and hockey. However, as part of its contract with its new conference, Notre Dame must play five Atlantic Coast teams in football each season beginning in 2014 (because the 2013 schedule is already set).

We have to ask: How is this good for college football?

In its years as an independent, Notre Dame developed many rivalries, most notably with teams such as USC, Michigan, Navy, Michigan State, Purdue and Stanford.

Although all six of those teams are on the Irish’s schedule for 2013, Michigan State is absent from the 2014 slate that will be filled with five Atlantic Coast opponents. In time, Notre Dame will have to omit other rivalry games from its future schedules in order to make room for its contractual requirement of playing five Atlantic Coast games.

Even though it’s just short of the typical eight-game conference slate, requiring Notre Dame to play more than half that is a little bit insulting to college football faithful.

Of course, some would argue Notre Dame eventually had to join a conference and that conference membership would be a necessary evil for college football’s most illustrious program with the cloud of 16-team “super conferences” looming overhead.

We’re not going to disagree with those who have that viewpoint, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have Notre Dame join the Big Ten instead of the Atlantic Coast?

Maybe geography still matters to a few of us who have had to see conference realignment cut up the college football landscape like Swiss cheese just so schools like Boise State and San Diego State could get a shot at a national title in a system that should have been amended years ago and is still in the process of being made more level.

To the Boise States and San Diego States, joining the Big East as a football-only member was probably worth the skyrocketing travel costs of facing conference foes thousands of miles away just to get to play in a big-time conference.

But it’s not worth it to Notre Dame, which will have access to the bowls affiliated with the Atlantic Coast — including the Orange Bowl — as an FBS independent, to join a conference when it already had the ability to go to a BCS bowl in the first place.

In an ideal world, Notre Dame would have joined the Big Ten — which we know would not happen — so it could keep its proximity to Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue as well as form new rivalries with the likes of Nebraska and Wisconsin.

The issue of automatic qualifiers is no longer on the forefront of fans’ minds with the new four-team playoff system that is set to take place in a couple years.

However, conference affiliations with bowls — like the Atlantic Coast’s tie to the Orange Bowl — sort of defeat the purpose of getting rid of automatic qualifiers in the first place.

On top of that, Notre Dame’s partial move to the Atlantic Coast just makes it that much more insulting to the teams from lesser conferences like the Mountain West and the soon-to-be defunct Western Athletic Conference that have had success in BCS bowls but have been denied the chance to play for a national championship.

Maybe it’s the ignorance of geography that even the Big 12 is guilty of with adding West Virginia this past year. Maybe it’s the inevitability of super conferences that amplifies the pressure for schools to find a new home. Maybe it’s the money (wait, of course it’s the money).

In men’s basketball, this move makes sense for Notre Dame. The Atlantic Coast and Big East have been continually competitive for a long time and jumping from one to the other doesn’t warrant any demerit in competition.

But for football, the Irish can’t really be considered a true independent anymore. At least in the Big East they were never contractually obligated to play five Big East opponents each year — people wouldn’t have watched without those marquee rivalry games on the schedule.

Maybe we’re making a big deal out of nothing, but as far as college football goes, we couldn’t help but cringe when we saw this.