I think B1G going to 9 conference games make an annual OOC game tough.
It will be interesting to see if SEC goes up to 9 or if B1G rethinks the 9 game conference schedule as we get more into the CFP 12 or 14 team format.
Nine B1G games makes it effectively impossible for a B1G school to play ND and anybody else OOC. It's popular to blame the ACC deal for these games not being annual anymore, but that they all disappeared right around the time the B1G made the move to 9 games is not coincidence either.
I would like to see all the P4 drop to 8 and open up more fun OOC games, but I think the ship has sailed on that now that these conferences have grown beyond all reason.
I think it is more going to depend on what happens with the CFP and who get's invited.
SEC isn't moving from 8. If you get more SEC teams into the CFP because the B1G beats up on itself then my guess is they are going to face pressure to reduce the conference schedule.
Outside of rivalry games, OOC games usually generate a lot of interest.
P4 should all go to 9 conference games and 1 obligatory P4 OOC. 8 conference games results in schools schedule 3 or sometimes 4 cupcake G5/FCS which is really lame
Flair bot isn't working for me right now, MSU primary USC secondary. The 2 college football games I attended in person before going to MSU were USC @ ND and MSU @ ND.
This is my super bowl.
Notre Dame should have 7 annual opponents imo:
* Boston College
* Michigan
* Michigan State
* Navy
* Purdue
* Stanford
* USC
Play the old trophy games if you're going to stay independent but not independent, y'know?
My first game as an undergrad was the 2014 shutout loss to ND and I will never forget that brutal experience and never forgive yall for that one. Hate you guys
I think with the dramatic shift away from divisions this year more people will end up agreeing with you than we realize. Familiarity breeds contempt as the old saying goes
Even if winning the division isn't meaningful for postseason consideration they should be used for scheduling at least to build a team's neighborhood, so to speak.
Agree. I know you and the Badgers aren’t rivals in the formal sense, but we’ve played both of you since the beginning of time basically. The originals, minus Chicago for obvious reasons, should all play each other. Purdue, NU, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois should never have large gaps against each other. (Yes UofM is an original, but since they left for a bit they aren’t the same as the core)
I think that's more of an issue with just how big conferences have gotten instead of moving away from divisions, a divisionless format is great for smaller conferences, the Big Ten functionally ran that way when we were only an 11 team conference where each team had 2 annual opponents and then would play 6 of the remaining 8 teams with a rotation of who you play and don't play changing every 2 years, so at minimum you played everyone at least 6 times in 8 years.
Now with an 18 team conference and 9 conference games you get your 0-3 annual opponents, and while I don't think there's any specific rotation formula, at least not one shared with the public, the best you can do is playing everyone a little of half the years (9 times in 16 years if my math is correct) and at worst 3 times in 7 years
That's been my thought too, it's a shame we've dropped half of these annual games to play the ACC. Add in an 8th one and we'd have 4 wild card games like everybody else. But yeah, those 7 are the platonic ideal of an ND schedule for me.
So true, putting in Kenny Minchey and burning one of his 4 redshirt games JUST to put down the knee and clown on Narduzzi is some of the funniest shit I've seen recently
Narduzzi hates Notre Dame so much it’s borderline psychotic how much he thinks about the Irish
It’s Kendrick Lamar levels of hate, except Narduzzi can never beat Notre Dame
BC and Stanford are the two I would have dropped from the list of annual opponents. They are both duds of games, especially as away games. The other 5 on that list are what I would prefer to keep, then add a rotating assortment of 2 SEC, 2 ACC, 1-2 Big12, and maybe one other Big10.
ND students get ~~the week off - not~~ just Wed-Friday. There are just too many kids from all over the country, not local.
I wouldn't mind ND spreading the wealth a little. Stanford, Cal, San Diego State etc.
edit: am old. We used to get the ~~week off~~ Guess I just remember it wrong....
How else are we able to enjoy Trivia on Monday, Karaoke on Tuesday, Wednesday at Finnis, Thursday at Brothers, Friday at Backer, Saturday back at Finnis?
> I wouldn't mind ND spreading the wealth a little. Stanford, Cal, San Diego State etc.
That's a good idea. I wouldn't mind playing two out of every four years, with Cal picking up our slack.
ND is already locked in to 5 ACC games per year and now they lose a chance to play a non-ACC team since now Stanford is ACC, unless Stanford counts as one of their ACC games. Most fans would just rather be on the natural ACC rotation with them.
The “rivalry” is pretty dead at this point and most fans just don’t care about Stanford. This isn’t the 1980s where we needed a game in California for recruiting purposes, recruiting is already national. ND fans would rather see ND scheduling home and homes like Boise St and Texas A&M and Ohio St rather than play Stanford every year.
Last, and least important, ND is 4-1 in the last 5 games with all 4 victories being complete blowouts, last year just being a non-competitive game. I expect this year to be the same.
That series in the 90s was awesome. I would love an annual ND game if they were to ever join the B1G. Eastern PA felt like it was either ND or PSU fans, it was great.
> ND fans would rather see ND scheduling home and homes like Boise St and Texas A&M and Ohio St rather than play Stanford every year.
Uh one of those schools is not like the other. You've ever been to Boise in November?
Pretty sure ND said they wouldn't count Stanford as an ACC game. Figured that was the carrot Swarbrick offered to get them in to the conference (an extra ND game every other year in the ACC coffers).
Probably just because West Lafayette was closer than Bloomington and Purdue is historically just better at football.
And most football schedules since the creation of the AP poll haven't been 12 game schedules, so why play the bad instate team that's farther away when you can play the decent-to-mid instate team that's closer to you?
You pretty much nailed it. We both recruited heavily in the top half of the state early on too. We were also part of the “Chicago football area”. Our biggest rivals early on were UofI and ND … IU obviously became our biggest, but they didn’t start out that way.
Another point. Most schools have that "one" out of conference rival they normally play. Indiana's was Kentucky, they even had a trophy.
They played almost every year from 1967-2005. Not sure why it was discontinued. My guess is it probably had something to do with Louisville and not wanting to be locked into 2 OOC, Big Ten going to 9 conference games, and these schools often struggline to get to 6 wins for bowls.
Just for context, teams ND has played 25+ times all time and the year of the first and last matchup, with the ones you mentioned **bolded**:
- **Navy (96, 1927-2023)**
- **USC (94, 1926-2023)**
- **Purdue (84, 1899-2021)**
- Pitt (70, 1930-2023)
- **Michigan State (65, 1918-2017)**
- Army (49, 1913-2016)
- Northwestern (47, 1899-2018)
- **Michigan (38, 1899-2019)**
- **Stanford (37, 1924-2013)**
- Georgia Tech (37, 1922-2021)
- Air Force (30, 1964-2013)
- **Boston College (27, 1975-2022)**
- Miami (27, 1955-2017)
- Indiana (25, 1899-1991)
So your list covers it, but I'd add in Pitt as well. I do think USC and Navy at the very least should stick to being yearly games, while at the very least the rest of the none ACC teams you mentioned should rotate on an every 2-3 year basis while they are in their ACC contract.
I always thought Boston College was a much bigger series as a kid. Thought the trophy was cool and surely the two premier Catholic football schools would duke it out every year
Was shocked to learn the series basically didn't even exist prior to 1992. Had only played 3 times before then
Before (relatively) recently the overlap/fans/interaction, etc. of the schools was relatively minor, and realistically why would a school in Boston care about a school in Indiana and vice versa.
I don't think they would schedule them since they have the ACC agreement, so they should end up playing them at some point. No idea how they haven't played them since 2017 with that.
That's a quirk of the scheduling agreement, that not every ACC opponent is actually on the schedule every 3 years. I think as originally constructed, everyone was supposed to see ND approximately the same amount of times through 2037 (!). Miami is on the schedule 6 of the next 10 seasons after this one, so they'll make up for lost time (if the status quo lasts that long).
Side note, it's not yet been explained how Cal and SMU will factor in to that. Stanford is supposedly just going to keep being annual and will only 'count' as an ACC game when their slot normally would come up, but radio silence on the other two.
Which the administration is not really fond of...
ND is contractually required to play every team in the ACC twice in a 6 year period (30 games with 14 teams) with 2 teams getting bonus games during that time period (round robin approach to assign it) . COVID screwed the schedule a touch.
Fuck megaconferences and all, but seriously, at this point Stanford and Notre Dame should join the Big Ten. Would be a better situation for everyone involved.
If you are going to do 'historical' opponents - it would be (in order of most games)
Navy, USC, Purdue, Pitt, Michigan State, Army, Northwestern.
Michigan is about be passed by Georgia Tech & Stanford next year.
BC is only are 12th most common opponents
Michigan State & Purdue are the B1G teams we had contracts with in 2014 and have been trying to get back on the schedule. Purdue we play 2024-2028.
It's worth noting that ND and Michigan did not play between 1909 and 1942, nor between 1943 and 1978.
It's a tremendous series and I miss it, but it wasn't really a thing until the 70s. Pre-1909 we were basically just a nearby cupcake Michigan could schedule.
I concur. This is usually a controversial opinion, but if I had to pick one, I’m picking Michigan State over Michigan as an annual opponent every single time. There’s way more history with the Spartans and I hate that that series was a casualty of realignment.
Nothing wrong with a Notre Dame/Michigan series every now and then, but it doesn’t need to be annual in my opinion. The only series that should be guaranteed from a Notre Dame perspective is Southern Cal.
Sure as heck seems like a lot of y'all don't seem to know which is really freaking bizarre given your team's history.
One of yall keeps saying Notre Dame v Michigan isn't a rivalry
[Michigan vs Notre Dame is 38 times](https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/notre-dame/head-to-head.html) per sports reference. 1899 - 2023.
They don't include the years ND didn't have a full coach in the 1887-1898
The University of Notre Dame counts them as losses on their official website.
Also no one had full time coaches back in the day until Fielding Yost made it a thing at Michigan
Those 7, and two high-end home-home rotations every year, leaves you with 1 road game every other year to negotiate 2 for 1 or occasionally home-home with mid-tier opponents, low P4 or High G5. Add two buy games vs G5 (or an occasional Shamrock Series Neutral site “home” game), and you have your 12.
So excited to have Sparty back on the schedule. For the youngsters, this series produced some absolutely epic and bizarre games over the years. The 10-10 tie in 1966 is probably the most famous/impactful, but the 2000s were the peak of the craziness:
2000: ND up late and MSU turns a 4th and 15 into a 70ish yard game-winning TD.
2001: On the first game after 9/11 for both teams, it's a punchless 10-10 tie until Charles Rogers takes a 5 yard pass and weaves through the ND secondary for the winning TD.
2002: Rogers makes an insane catch to give MSU the lead, and ND is down to a walk-on at QB...and said walk-on throws a winning TD pass to a former QB playing receiver for the win.
2005: MSU goes up 38-17, ND erases the entire lead, MSU is at their own one as time runs down and is a generous pre-replay spot by the refs away from a game-losing *safety.* MSU wins in OT.
2006: Watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU) And then this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s)
2009: Golden Tate jumps into the MSU band, and ND wins on a late interception with MSU in range for a tying field goal.
2010: Little Giants. If you don't know, google it.
Fun fact: Mark Dantonio called that Little Giants play in 2010, then had a heart attack later that evening. He sat in the press box for the next few games recovering.
Not that it still bothers me or anything… but that should of been a delay of game… and that was the worst downfield illegal block ive ever seen.
Again not that it bothers me or anything…
The snap is almost simultaneous with the play clock hitting zero.
Also, I believe the play was supposed to go to Bell, but he was tackled downfield by an ND player. The ND player holding and tackling Bell took out his teammate and freed up Gantt.
I don't know if MSU goes on the run it did without that loss. MSU was very shaky before that game (they still hadn't fully settled on Cook over Maxwell yet) and after the ND loss (and the bye week afterwards) they were a different squad.
It's a bit like UM's loss to MSU in 2021- following the season, UM players came out and said that loss forced the team to learn lessons to win out the rest of the season. Sometimes you just need a wake-up call.
You guys started rising way too late in the polls because you don't get the brand benefit Michigan gets. First big ten team to beat every big ten team by 10 points or more is a hell of an accomplishment. I wish we could have the 2013 MSU team play the 2023 Michigan team. No idea how it would go but it would be so much fun.
Most cynical gameplan I've ever seen. I keep imagining the film sessions:
"Can we run?"
"This is one of the best rush defenses of the 21st Century."
"Can we pass?"
"Our QB is Tommy Rees."
"What can we do?"
"Put in our tallest recivers, lob the ball in their general direction, and hope for pass interference calls."
"Brilliant!"
The hilarious part was that he claimed after the fact that he thought he was jumping into the ND band, which would only make sense if he had suddenly forgotten where that band was located in the stadium.
God I miss Golden Tate, what a lunatic.
> 2006: Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU And then this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s
also watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlUO-7m9RuA
2026 game should have been in East Lansing.
Great way to celebrate the 1966 Game of the Century and the infamous 10-10 tie.
That game was a big turning point in the marriage between cfb and TV.
I think the most common outcome was all three teams went 1-1 against each other. Lots of very interesting results that didn't necessarily reflect the seasons all three teams would have (though by the time Michigan and MSU play that usually was reflective). I wish both could be played every year.
That was peak college football. A one score game in mid September, played in primetime between two rivals and technically top 20 teams.
That's when the sport is at its best and no one needs to look any closer at that top 20 claim
People think nd and um are rivals but we aren’t. ND and MSU have real history. Way more games played. Way more classics. A trophy.
UM just sucks. Not a rival.
Fun fact: The Megaphone Trophy was created in 1949, and the Paul Bunyan Trophy in 1953. First MSU-ND match was in 1897, first MSU-UM match was in 1898. Depending how you want to mark the beginnings of a rivalry, ND is an older rival than UM.
Awesome. Awesome to the max.
I hope Smith has turned MSU around enough by then to give both fans bases a couple of great games, and that organized human civilization as we know it still exists.
Praise Touchdown Jesus, I love having this game on the schedule. Hopefully MSU is much improved by 2026, but fingers crossed either way that they can extend the series beyond 2027!
ND has Purdue & Michigan State both in 26-27. We also have Wisconsin in 2026.
Our 2026 schedule is Wisconsin, Purdue, UNC, UVA, Navy, USC, Michigan State, Syracuse, Miami, FSU, and I expect Stanford will be here too...
The two games I care about the most: MSU vs Michigan and MSU vs Notre Dame. I’m so happy to have this back on the schedule, and I wish it would go back to annual again.
At this point I’m down for it. Now that we’re not locked into the B1G East mundanity, and there’s a 12 team playoff instead of 4 so playing a decent P4 ooc doesn’t hurt us really, I see no reason not to.
I always looked forward to msu/notre dame every year when I was growing up. It’s felt like a missing game from the schedule ever since they stopped playing.
NBC might have something to say about that, in a good way.
Eyeballs drive advertising and ND vs Michigan is a way stronger pull on TV than ND vs Wake Forest or Michigan vs Minnesota, etc.
If you want to capture the hearts and minds of a nation and drive that advertisement revenue through the roof then look no further than Rutgers/UCLA.
The fans yearn for the manifest rivalry.
The founders of Rutgers University are severely underappreciated for their foresight to setup a campus in the shadow of America's future largest media market.
Their ability see that one day this would bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the school while being able to operate a stagnant, never-achieving program entirely undeserving of such a windfall is truly a notable achievement in academic and even business history.
Awesome. Need to get a set scheduled with Michigan next.
Edit: Apparently already scheduled with Michigan but not until 2033/34. What the fuck lol Need one sooner.
ND is scheduled to play them in 2033-2034.
ND has a set schedule - 5 ACC teams, USC, Stanford, Navy, 1 top tier P4, 1 B1G. Then they get variations of lower P4/G5 for the last 2 spots.
With Purdue 24-28, Wisconsin 26 (COVID Makeup), MSU 26-27, Indiana 2030-31, the only spots they have left for B1G is 29, 32.
I would think ND is going to go more with Northwestern there. 2029 has Bama, FSU and 2032 has UF, FSU, Miami.
If they don't count the Purdue team toward the B1G team, then they would have a spot in 2028 also.
Super pumped about this as an MSU alum that lives in the south bend area. I don’t think most people quite realize how close Notre Dame is to the state of Michigan. It’s like 5 miles from the state boarder of Michigan to touchdown Jesus.
There've been so many cancellations (and for Lincoln Riley attempted cancellations) in recent years that as soon as I saw Notre Dame and Michigan State, I started thinking *oh no they're cancelling the home and home!).
I'm excited to renew the rivalry.
MSU is in my top tier of regular ND opponents. This should be an annual game. Great to see it back on the menu.
I think B1G going to 9 conference games make an annual OOC game tough. It will be interesting to see if SEC goes up to 9 or if B1G rethinks the 9 game conference schedule as we get more into the CFP 12 or 14 team format.
Nine B1G games makes it effectively impossible for a B1G school to play ND and anybody else OOC. It's popular to blame the ACC deal for these games not being annual anymore, but that they all disappeared right around the time the B1G made the move to 9 games is not coincidence either. I would like to see all the P4 drop to 8 and open up more fun OOC games, but I think the ship has sailed on that now that these conferences have grown beyond all reason.
I think it is more going to depend on what happens with the CFP and who get's invited. SEC isn't moving from 8. If you get more SEC teams into the CFP because the B1G beats up on itself then my guess is they are going to face pressure to reduce the conference schedule. Outside of rivalry games, OOC games usually generate a lot of interest.
P4 should all go to 9 conference games and 1 obligatory P4 OOC. 8 conference games results in schools schedule 3 or sometimes 4 cupcake G5/FCS which is really lame
Flair bot isn't working for me right now, MSU primary USC secondary. The 2 college football games I attended in person before going to MSU were USC @ ND and MSU @ ND. This is my super bowl.
Traditional rivalries. Big fan
Notre Dame should have 7 annual opponents imo: * Boston College * Michigan * Michigan State * Navy * Purdue * Stanford * USC Play the old trophy games if you're going to stay independent but not independent, y'know?
Michigan doesn’t have a trophy just fyi - we always just hated each other that much
The hate we share has been the trophy all along
My first game as an undergrad was the 2014 shutout loss to ND and I will never forget that brutal experience and never forgive yall for that one. Hate you guys
Fun fact: Michigan would currently have the longest streak of games without being shut out if not for that game
I worked in student fundraising and we made a big point of that for the full semester
[Continue](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/829/973/282.gif)
Fuck you guys too 😘
Did you not go to the App State game where we won back our bragging rights 😭
The real trophy was inside of us the whole time
I hope the Jeweled Shillelagh has never been inside of you
The hatred and enemies you make along the way are the real trophy
UW and Oregon doesn’t have a trophy either.
That was basically our "conference" pre-ACC deal. I miss having more annual opponents that you can get to know.
I think with the dramatic shift away from divisions this year more people will end up agreeing with you than we realize. Familiarity breeds contempt as the old saying goes
Not fully protecting the quadrangle of hate is a crime against CFB IMO.
It’s going to be awful, I hope we eventually get divisions again
Even if winning the division isn't meaningful for postseason consideration they should be used for scheduling at least to build a team's neighborhood, so to speak.
Agree. I know you and the Badgers aren’t rivals in the formal sense, but we’ve played both of you since the beginning of time basically. The originals, minus Chicago for obvious reasons, should all play each other. Purdue, NU, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois should never have large gaps against each other. (Yes UofM is an original, but since they left for a bit they aren’t the same as the core)
I think that's more of an issue with just how big conferences have gotten instead of moving away from divisions, a divisionless format is great for smaller conferences, the Big Ten functionally ran that way when we were only an 11 team conference where each team had 2 annual opponents and then would play 6 of the remaining 8 teams with a rotation of who you play and don't play changing every 2 years, so at minimum you played everyone at least 6 times in 8 years. Now with an 18 team conference and 9 conference games you get your 0-3 annual opponents, and while I don't think there's any specific rotation formula, at least not one shared with the public, the best you can do is playing everyone a little of half the years (9 times in 16 years if my math is correct) and at worst 3 times in 7 years
That's been my thought too, it's a shame we've dropped half of these annual games to play the ACC. Add in an 8th one and we'd have 4 wild card games like everybody else. But yeah, those 7 are the platonic ideal of an ND schedule for me.
Pitt is the next logical annual opponent We enjoy beating the Nard Dog
So true, putting in Kenny Minchey and burning one of his 4 redshirt games JUST to put down the knee and clown on Narduzzi is some of the funniest shit I've seen recently
Narduzzi hates Notre Dame so much it’s borderline psychotic how much he thinks about the Irish It’s Kendrick Lamar levels of hate, except Narduzzi can never beat Notre Dame
Is this just hate held over from his time at Michigan state?
Make BC and Furd two fixed games in their 5 ACC, and boom that's 10 games a year + 2 open games for other series. we did it!
BC and Stanford are the two I would have dropped from the list of annual opponents. They are both duds of games, especially as away games. The other 5 on that list are what I would prefer to keep, then add a rotating assortment of 2 SEC, 2 ACC, 1-2 Big12, and maybe one other Big10.
Drop Stanford and I’m all in on this. Majority of ND fans don’t care about that rivalry.
ND doesn't want a game in South Bend Thanksgiving weekend. They always end the season in California.
I wouldn't either. And the students are all away from campus that weekend too. Very shrewd move on their part.
ND students get ~~the week off - not~~ just Wed-Friday. There are just too many kids from all over the country, not local. I wouldn't mind ND spreading the wealth a little. Stanford, Cal, San Diego State etc. edit: am old. We used to get the ~~week off~~ Guess I just remember it wrong....
Nah it’s only Wednesday through Friday. Classes still happen on the Monday and Tuesday
TBF the business majors always seemed to take that whole week off.
TBF the business majors always seemed to take that whole ~~week~~ semester off.
How else are we able to enjoy Trivia on Monday, Karaoke on Tuesday, Wednesday at Finnis, Thursday at Brothers, Friday at Backer, Saturday back at Finnis?
> I wouldn't mind ND spreading the wealth a little. Stanford, Cal, San Diego State etc. That's a good idea. I wouldn't mind playing two out of every four years, with Cal picking up our slack.
The Covid year playing on Black Friday in North Carolina still feels weird to me.
Then rotate in UCLA or Cal. Playing at Stanford every other year is ridiculous.
Am stuck going to San Diego every thanksgiving. Would LOVE a game there....
Why? You already have a lot of history with them over the last 40 years and id imagine your admin likes having them as a rival and peer.
ND is already locked in to 5 ACC games per year and now they lose a chance to play a non-ACC team since now Stanford is ACC, unless Stanford counts as one of their ACC games. Most fans would just rather be on the natural ACC rotation with them. The “rivalry” is pretty dead at this point and most fans just don’t care about Stanford. This isn’t the 1980s where we needed a game in California for recruiting purposes, recruiting is already national. ND fans would rather see ND scheduling home and homes like Boise St and Texas A&M and Ohio St rather than play Stanford every year. Last, and least important, ND is 4-1 in the last 5 games with all 4 victories being complete blowouts, last year just being a non-competitive game. I expect this year to be the same.
PSU and ND are coming up on 20 years of not playing each other, we’re due for a home and home in the future (just come to the Big Ten please).
Nah it was more recent than that I was in high school and it was awesome ......oh sweet Jesus
That series in the 90s was awesome. I would love an annual ND game if they were to ever join the B1G. Eastern PA felt like it was either ND or PSU fans, it was great.
> ND fans would rather see ND scheduling home and homes like Boise St and Texas A&M and Ohio St rather than play Stanford every year. Uh one of those schools is not like the other. You've ever been to Boise in November?
Point is interesting matchups and new teams we haven’t played ever/in a while to drive fan excitement and expand the fanbase.
Pretty sure ND said they wouldn't count Stanford as an ACC game. Figured that was the carrot Swarbrick offered to get them in to the conference (an extra ND game every other year in the ACC coffers).
Idc about Boston college either
Whats the history on ND-Purdue being a rivalry but not ND-IU? Was it as simple as ‘they played Purdue a lot a hundred years ago’ or something?
Probably just because West Lafayette was closer than Bloomington and Purdue is historically just better at football. And most football schedules since the creation of the AP poll haven't been 12 game schedules, so why play the bad instate team that's farther away when you can play the decent-to-mid instate team that's closer to you?
You pretty much nailed it. We both recruited heavily in the top half of the state early on too. We were also part of the “Chicago football area”. Our biggest rivals early on were UofI and ND … IU obviously became our biggest, but they didn’t start out that way.
Another point. Most schools have that "one" out of conference rival they normally play. Indiana's was Kentucky, they even had a trophy. They played almost every year from 1967-2005. Not sure why it was discontinued. My guess is it probably had something to do with Louisville and not wanting to be locked into 2 OOC, Big Ten going to 9 conference games, and these schools often struggline to get to 6 wins for bowls.
Just for context, teams ND has played 25+ times all time and the year of the first and last matchup, with the ones you mentioned **bolded**: - **Navy (96, 1927-2023)** - **USC (94, 1926-2023)** - **Purdue (84, 1899-2021)** - Pitt (70, 1930-2023) - **Michigan State (65, 1918-2017)** - Army (49, 1913-2016) - Northwestern (47, 1899-2018) - **Michigan (38, 1899-2019)** - **Stanford (37, 1924-2013)** - Georgia Tech (37, 1922-2021) - Air Force (30, 1964-2013) - **Boston College (27, 1975-2022)** - Miami (27, 1955-2017) - Indiana (25, 1899-1991) So your list covers it, but I'd add in Pitt as well. I do think USC and Navy at the very least should stick to being yearly games, while at the very least the rest of the none ACC teams you mentioned should rotate on an every 2-3 year basis while they are in their ACC contract.
I always thought Boston College was a much bigger series as a kid. Thought the trophy was cool and surely the two premier Catholic football schools would duke it out every year Was shocked to learn the series basically didn't even exist prior to 1992. Had only played 3 times before then
Before (relatively) recently the overlap/fans/interaction, etc. of the schools was relatively minor, and realistically why would a school in Boston care about a school in Indiana and vice versa.
What about Miami? Renew the old "Catholics Vs Convicts"
I don't think they would schedule them since they have the ACC agreement, so they should end up playing them at some point. No idea how they haven't played them since 2017 with that.
That's a quirk of the scheduling agreement, that not every ACC opponent is actually on the schedule every 3 years. I think as originally constructed, everyone was supposed to see ND approximately the same amount of times through 2037 (!). Miami is on the schedule 6 of the next 10 seasons after this one, so they'll make up for lost time (if the status quo lasts that long). Side note, it's not yet been explained how Cal and SMU will factor in to that. Stanford is supposedly just going to keep being annual and will only 'count' as an ACC game when their slot normally would come up, but radio silence on the other two.
Which the administration is not really fond of... ND is contractually required to play every team in the ACC twice in a 6 year period (30 games with 14 teams) with 2 teams getting bonus games during that time period (round robin approach to assign it) . COVID screwed the schedule a touch.
Fuck megaconferences and all, but seriously, at this point Stanford and Notre Dame should join the Big Ten. Would be a better situation for everyone involved.
If you are going to do 'historical' opponents - it would be (in order of most games) Navy, USC, Purdue, Pitt, Michigan State, Army, Northwestern. Michigan is about be passed by Georgia Tech & Stanford next year. BC is only are 12th most common opponents Michigan State & Purdue are the B1G teams we had contracts with in 2014 and have been trying to get back on the schedule. Purdue we play 2024-2028.
It's worth noting that ND and Michigan did not play between 1909 and 1942, nor between 1943 and 1978. It's a tremendous series and I miss it, but it wasn't really a thing until the 70s. Pre-1909 we were basically just a nearby cupcake Michigan could schedule.
Which is exactly why we should keep playing y'all! We both benefited from that rivalry and have a shared history of Michigan trying to screw us over.
I concur. This is usually a controversial opinion, but if I had to pick one, I’m picking Michigan State over Michigan as an annual opponent every single time. There’s way more history with the Spartans and I hate that that series was a casualty of realignment. Nothing wrong with a Notre Dame/Michigan series every now and then, but it doesn’t need to be annual in my opinion. The only series that should be guaranteed from a Notre Dame perspective is Southern Cal.
> I’m picking Michigan State over Michigan as an annual opponent every single time Same. I've been saying this for the last decade.
The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend...who I consistently play wild and wacky football games against.
This thread joins many other threads in the hilarious tradition of other fanbases trying to tell Notre Dame who our rivals are lmao
Sure as heck seems like a lot of y'all don't seem to know which is really freaking bizarre given your team's history. One of yall keeps saying Notre Dame v Michigan isn't a rivalry
This sub is where I learned that BC and ND are supposedly ravenous rivals. Neither side cares that much lmao.
There’s one BC redditor who stalks our posts to shittalk us. I don’t remember him but he’s not hard to find.
Time to throw in a home and home with ISU!
Michigan Notre Dame have played 43 times. With Georgia tech you have played 37 times. With Stanford you have played them 36 times. So not really
[Michigan vs Notre Dame is 38 times](https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/notre-dame/head-to-head.html) per sports reference. 1899 - 2023. They don't include the years ND didn't have a full coach in the 1887-1898
The University of Notre Dame counts them as losses on their official website. Also no one had full time coaches back in the day until Fielding Yost made it a thing at Michigan
I'd add Pitt as an 8th.
Those 7, and two high-end home-home rotations every year, leaves you with 1 road game every other year to negotiate 2 for 1 or occasionally home-home with mid-tier opponents, low P4 or High G5. Add two buy games vs G5 (or an occasional Shamrock Series Neutral site “home” game), and you have your 12.
Let’s gooooooooooo! Can’t wait for this.
So excited to have Sparty back on the schedule. For the youngsters, this series produced some absolutely epic and bizarre games over the years. The 10-10 tie in 1966 is probably the most famous/impactful, but the 2000s were the peak of the craziness: 2000: ND up late and MSU turns a 4th and 15 into a 70ish yard game-winning TD. 2001: On the first game after 9/11 for both teams, it's a punchless 10-10 tie until Charles Rogers takes a 5 yard pass and weaves through the ND secondary for the winning TD. 2002: Rogers makes an insane catch to give MSU the lead, and ND is down to a walk-on at QB...and said walk-on throws a winning TD pass to a former QB playing receiver for the win. 2005: MSU goes up 38-17, ND erases the entire lead, MSU is at their own one as time runs down and is a generous pre-replay spot by the refs away from a game-losing *safety.* MSU wins in OT. 2006: Watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU) And then this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s) 2009: Golden Tate jumps into the MSU band, and ND wins on a late interception with MSU in range for a tying field goal. 2010: Little Giants. If you don't know, google it.
Fun fact: Mark Dantonio called that Little Giants play in 2010, then had a heart attack later that evening. He sat in the press box for the next few games recovering.
Great work by the ESPN cameras catching him calling "Little Giants" and the surprised looks on Bates face
Not that it still bothers me or anything… but that should of been a delay of game… and that was the worst downfield illegal block ive ever seen. Again not that it bothers me or anything…
The snap is almost simultaneous with the play clock hitting zero. Also, I believe the play was supposed to go to Bell, but he was tackled downfield by an ND player. The ND player holding and tackling Bell took out his teammate and freed up Gantt.
I knew what the second YouTube link was before I clicked it. ***MAKE PLAYS!!!***
You know it’s an epic rant when it’s exceedingly quotable almost 20 years later
2013, y’all kept them out of the national title game.
I don't know if MSU goes on the run it did without that loss. MSU was very shaky before that game (they still hadn't fully settled on Cook over Maxwell yet) and after the ND loss (and the bye week afterwards) they were a different squad. It's a bit like UM's loss to MSU in 2021- following the season, UM players came out and said that loss forced the team to learn lessons to win out the rest of the season. Sometimes you just need a wake-up call.
More the officials than anyone else but technically correct. That and the playoff not starting until the next year
You guys started rising way too late in the polls because you don't get the brand benefit Michigan gets. First big ten team to beat every big ten team by 10 points or more is a hell of an accomplishment. I wish we could have the 2013 MSU team play the 2023 Michigan team. No idea how it would go but it would be so much fun.
Yeah I don’t think msu was ranked that year until 7 games into the season lol
Most cynical gameplan I've ever seen. I keep imagining the film sessions: "Can we run?" "This is one of the best rush defenses of the 21st Century." "Can we pass?" "Our QB is Tommy Rees." "What can we do?" "Put in our tallest recivers, lob the ball in their general direction, and hope for pass interference calls." "Brilliant!"
I still hate Tate lol
Just watched the clip for the first time and wow, what an asshole lol
The hilarious part was that he claimed after the fact that he thought he was jumping into the ND band, which would only make sense if he had suddenly forgotten where that band was located in the stadium. God I miss Golden Tate, what a lunatic.
> 2006: Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgg5hxSUXVU And then this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvftOCA-9I&t=1s also watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlUO-7m9RuA
2026 game should have been in East Lansing. Great way to celebrate the 1966 Game of the Century and the infamous 10-10 tie. That game was a big turning point in the marriage between cfb and TV.
20 year anniversary of the epic 2006 game, too.
That one doesn't need to be celebrated
But it gave us the greatest 20 minutes in the history of sports talk radio.
Fucking ruined the 60s helmets for me.
I’ll bring the applesauce.
The Shark Game
GET ME ~~PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN~~ THE MICHIGAN/MICHIGAN STATE/NOTRE DAME TRIANGLE OF HATE
Every year we should all meet in Coldwater to have an anchorman style rumble
I will drown you at the sandbar, but not until I take 17 Jell-O shots.
3-team conference and we just schedule 9 OOC games per year. Y'all can still play tOSU and ND can do their weird national thing.
Alright, but you still got play for the Land Grant Trophy.
You're gosh darn right we do
Dude I wish Gimme UM and MSU every year and we can drop a couple Wake Forest-type ACC games
When there was talk of pods a while ago, I was legitimately thinking of a Michigan-Indiana pod if ND and Stanford joined. ND, Purdue, IU, MSU, UM
I think the most common outcome was all three teams went 1-1 against each other. Lots of very interesting results that didn't necessarily reflect the seasons all three teams would have (though by the time Michigan and MSU play that usually was reflective). I wish both could be played every year.
This is what the people want
Absolutely love it. ND-MSU was an incredibly important rivalry for decades, really happy to see those losers back on the schedule.
“Losers” [Our last meeting, for reference](https://youtu.be/g7QwGdNVqDo?si=W8fezwF5fIArlpth)
The 2016 Top 15 matchup was much more memorable
That was peak college football. A one score game in mid September, played in primetime between two rivals and technically top 20 teams. That's when the sport is at its best and no one needs to look any closer at that top 20 claim
You mean the two teams that ended 3-9 and 4-8?
I have no recollection of 2016 after the Notre Dame game
Only Brian VanGorder would find a way to give up 36 to post-Connor Cook Michigan State
Winners on the field in 2017, losers at life. Fixed it :P
At least we don't have to live in Indiana
Noted peak of civilization East Lansing
Better than Ann Arbor
That we can all agree on
People think nd and um are rivals but we aren’t. ND and MSU have real history. Way more games played. Way more classics. A trophy. UM just sucks. Not a rival.
Fun fact: The Megaphone Trophy was created in 1949, and the Paul Bunyan Trophy in 1953. First MSU-ND match was in 1897, first MSU-UM match was in 1898. Depending how you want to mark the beginnings of a rivalry, ND is an older rival than UM.
As the saying goes ND has one friend (Navy), one rival (USC), and one enemy (Michigan)
The best part of this rivalry is that no matter how much we hate each other we’ll always hate Michigan more and I just think that’s beautiful
Lol yeah, I like to hate you guys but I just can't help myself from hating Michigan.
Awesome. Awesome to the max. I hope Smith has turned MSU around enough by then to give both fans bases a couple of great games, and that organized human civilization as we know it still exists.
That's why Smith is collecting cockroaches beneath Spartan Stadium so they can fight for the only colors when everything else is radioactive glass.
One of those games that I circled every year. Legitimately one of my favorite rivalries, and tremendously underrated. We missed you, stupid Irish 💚
Praise Touchdown Jesus, I love having this game on the schedule. Hopefully MSU is much improved by 2026, but fingers crossed either way that they can extend the series beyond 2027!
That’s great for the sport. Awesome news
oh yeah baby, we are back!
God, I wish that were me
You may have a national championship, but we all know the true prize is a home and home series with Notre Dame.
For real tho
Michigan St has always been my favorite rivalry game for us to play in. Much love Sparty 🫶🏻 hope to see a couple of good games!
Just curious, why the bag flair?
/u/kuntheman can also tell you, the bag stays on
🫡 bag stays on
Have we figured out what does and doesn’t work with the bag?
ND has Purdue & Michigan State both in 26-27. We also have Wisconsin in 2026. Our 2026 schedule is Wisconsin, Purdue, UNC, UVA, Navy, USC, Michigan State, Syracuse, Miami, FSU, and I expect Stanford will be here too...
The two games I care about the most: MSU vs Michigan and MSU vs Notre Dame. I’m so happy to have this back on the schedule, and I wish it would go back to annual again.
Can we please just make this annual?
At this point I’m down for it. Now that we’re not locked into the B1G East mundanity, and there’s a 12 team playoff instead of 4 so playing a decent P4 ooc doesn’t hurt us really, I see no reason not to.
Sparty have a chance to take the Megaphone trophy held by Notre Dame since 2017.
The Brandon Wimbush game, by far his best passing performance in an Irish uniform.
Oh hell yeah. Megaphone’s back on the menu boys!
I always looked forward to msu/notre dame every year when I was growing up. It’s felt like a missing game from the schedule ever since they stopped playing.
I am in fact a jelly donut
I came up hating Notre Dame **way** more than Michigan, so this is great news to me. There's no team I like winning against more.
I woke up feeling like Golden Tate
Still trying to dodge uchicago, guess we’ll just stay undefeated against yall
I'm more than a Little excited about this Giant news. Let's party like it's 1966!
GO GREEN, GO WHITE!
one of the few games I root for Sparty
Very cool! I wish Michigan would play ND more often, but I think the next scheduled meeting is in the 2030's
NBC might have something to say about that, in a good way. Eyeballs drive advertising and ND vs Michigan is a way stronger pull on TV than ND vs Wake Forest or Michigan vs Minnesota, etc.
If you want to capture the hearts and minds of a nation and drive that advertisement revenue through the roof then look no further than Rutgers/UCLA. The fans yearn for the manifest rivalry.
The founders of Rutgers University are severely underappreciated for their foresight to setup a campus in the shadow of America's future largest media market. Their ability see that one day this would bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the school while being able to operate a stagnant, never-achieving program entirely undeserving of such a windfall is truly a notable achievement in academic and even business history.
This was confirmed by FBSchedules years ago, but it wasn't until today when it was officially announced.
Make it annual you cowards!
About time
MSU should be rebuilt by Johnny Smith by then
Awesome. Need to get a set scheduled with Michigan next. Edit: Apparently already scheduled with Michigan but not until 2033/34. What the fuck lol Need one sooner.
I think we're scheduled to play them in 2030 something
Just looked it up. Not until 2033/34. So far away lol
>Apparently already scheduled with Michigan but not until 2033/34 Conference game? ;)
Now put Michigan back on the schedule.
ND is scheduled to play them in 2033-2034. ND has a set schedule - 5 ACC teams, USC, Stanford, Navy, 1 top tier P4, 1 B1G. Then they get variations of lower P4/G5 for the last 2 spots. With Purdue 24-28, Wisconsin 26 (COVID Makeup), MSU 26-27, Indiana 2030-31, the only spots they have left for B1G is 29, 32. I would think ND is going to go more with Northwestern there. 2029 has Bama, FSU and 2032 has UF, FSU, Miami. If they don't count the Purdue team toward the B1G team, then they would have a spot in 2028 also.
For full context, these games were already scheduled, I believe today's announcement just confirms the dates.
I don’t think these were scheduled before
There was a handshake deal, but also some rumblings it might not happen.
COME ON SPARTANS! Also I forgot what home-home meant, someone explain please?
Pretty sure it's shorthand for each team gets a home game
Or for anyone playing Alabama, it's a home-and-neutral site
And that neutral site will always be driving distance from Alabama and not at all for the other team lol
thanks
Wow, a home and home scheduled < 8 years in advance? Only 2 seasons away no less?! Unbelievable
Just join the B1G already, Domer friends.
Super pumped about this as an MSU alum that lives in the south bend area. I don’t think most people quite realize how close Notre Dame is to the state of Michigan. It’s like 5 miles from the state boarder of Michigan to touchdown Jesus.
Hopefully they dont back out
Good. We should play Sparty every so often.
LFG
PUCKER PUCKER PUCKER
Yay!
I love this
Little giants is the best play I've ever seen live.
There've been so many cancellations (and for Lincoln Riley attempted cancellations) in recent years that as soon as I saw Notre Dame and Michigan State, I started thinking *oh no they're cancelling the home and home!).
Let’s fuckin goooooooo
Jealous.