Scheduling alliance

A scheduling alliance is agreement among independent college athletic teams to guarantee a set number of games to each member. Although it is not formally recognized by the governing body (usually the NCAA), 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.
The most notable current example of such an arrangement 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.
Another example is the New England Women's Hockey Alliance, which began in 2017 as a scheduling alliance between the six schools that then competed as independents at the National Collegiate level (in practice, NCAA Divisions I and II) in women's ice hockey. The NEWHA lost one member after its first season of 2017–18, but picked up a future sixth member in the form of a school that was set to launch a women's hockey program in 2019–20. Before the start of the 2018–19 season, the NEWHA formally organized as a conference and began the process of gaining official NCAA recognition. It operated with five members in 2018–19, and received NCAA recognition upon the arrival of the sixth member in 2019–20.