Just like we all thought, the USC-Notre Dame rivalry will return. However, it appears the terms of the next installment of matchups are lopsidedly favorable to the Trojans.
Both teams will face off in a four-game home-and-home series starting in 2030, the first of which will be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Week 1. The next three games will take place between Weeks 1-3 from 2031-34, instead of the the typical late-season window that used to make the rivalry game tradition.
It's a significant concession made by Notre Dame to give in to USC's primary complaint about the game after it left the Pac-12 to play in the Midwest-based Big Ten. Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley and the school's athletic director both hated having to travel into the heartland of the country during cold-weather months where the Pacific Coast program was more likely to lose as a result of being unused to the harsh elements.
Notre Dame gave up an easy advantage just to maintain its rivalry with USC
On3's Pete Nakos reported Monday that Notre Dame is canceling its home-and-home series with reining national champions Indiana in 2030 and 2031 in order to fit USC back into its schedule. That's a high-quality, likely easy victory stripped from both future campaigns that will be replaced.
Notre Dame really shouldn't have given in to USC's requirement that the rivalry be played early in the year. The Trojans just want to avoid the perceived bias of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, which has a tendency to punish teams for late losses. The only reason USC hasn't made the playoff yet is because it has more than just the Irish in its loss column come December.
The Irish, as things stand, are poised to continue their hot streak against the Trojans. They've won 12 of the last 15 meetings since 2014 and should head coach Marcus Freeman continue the program's upward trajectory, that number in the win column is only going to go up. Notre Dame has proven it can play in all environments to great success; it's USC that has to develop a thicker skin and show up when the long hours on a flight take a toll.
"You got to go win the games," Riley told reporters at Big Ten media days of the program's necessity to qualify for the College Football Playoff. "We have the people to do it. We have more reasons why we should and could do it versus why maybe we can’t."
Getting Notre Dame back on the schedule for another four seasons will likely set up the Trojans to have potentially the best quality body of work it'll have compared to the four years prior to the rivalry's return. It'll be interesting to observe whether USC gets more shots at the CFP in this upcoming window compared to when the decade changes over.
The Irish will just have to continue showing up ready for business rather than assuming after a brief hiatus, USC will just be the same old losers as before. It'll be a new era in a rather new environment for the rivalry and if the Trojans take advantage and catch Notre Dame by surprise, even just once, the narrative will shift and we'll all return to this point when the playing field was altered in just the right way.
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