I can not believe the coverage this bogus story, based on a speculation tweet by Tim Brando, is getting. There is absolutely no substance to this story. I for one, do not care if ND joins a conference or not. I can see advantages for full conference membership and can also see the downside. However, any decision to join will be solely Notre Dame's and not any outside forces compelling them to join.
There were only 2 reasons that could have forced Notre Dame's hand into full conference membership. One reason was finding a home for all their sports teams in a premier conference. The 2nd was quality Bowl access for the football team. The deal that Swarbrick struck with the ACC took care of both of those concerns.