Well I like to think that CFB will go to a full professional style, pro-standard revenue split, and will become, not a minor league sport, but a full on major league pro sport, which it always has been. The only way one could ever characterize it otherwise, is to cite the deliberate phony fiction of 'amateurism', which is bullshit, and is being legally and structurally dismantled, with the evil NCAA fighting it every step of the way, including this last ditch effort to get a antitrust exemption, I think, but maybe they've set theirs sights lower than that, I'm not a lawyer. An antitrust exception being a thing, a little legal creation where you get to break the law with the govt.'s special permission. Which the NCAA is quite okay with, being the criminal scumbags they are.
In any case, in that event, that of full professionalization, maybe it's not inevitable that ND will have to join a conference. There's so many unknowns, but all of those unknowns usually include super league scenarios. Especially considering the absolute shitshow of conference realignment, driven solely by economics. So it's not really the professionalization of players and their income considerations that will drive the change, it's the schools themselves, and their desire to make so much more, by having only like 40 teams, divvy up all the real money. But there's a lot of tradition in CFB so it's a touchy area. Who does and doesn't get to make that final cut. But ND certainly will, and finally they will be part of a football league, no longer unaffiliated and 'independent', and much to their chagrin!
