There is a long and proud tradition of independents in college football for over 100 years. As late as the early 90’s there was a large handful of college football powers that did just fine without a conference affiliation. Many of those teams like the Penn State Nittany Lions, Florida State Seminoles, Boston College Eagles, Miami-Florida Hurricanes, and of course the Notre Dame Fighting Irish managed just fine on their own and scheduled one another.
The Irish did so well, that they dropped its membership in the College Football Association, and signed its initial contract with NBC for the 1991 season.