Notre Dame and USC are back on the board.
After a rare pause in one of college football’s most recognizable rivalries, the schools announced Monday that they have reached a four-year agreement that will bring the series back in Week 1 of 2030. The first game under the new deal is set for Aug. 31, 2030, in Los Angeles, with Notre Dame hosting on Aug. 30, 2031.
The timing is exactly what USC wanted. Athletic director Jen Cohen said in a statement, “USC’s historic rivalry with Notre Dame holds a special place in the history of college football, and we are happy to resume a series that means so much to the entire Trojan Family,” Cohen said. “It remains important for us to play this game early in the season, as it allows us to schedule competitively with our Big Ten peers and takes into account the health and best interests of our student-athletes and program.”
That early-season slot has real scheduling ripple effects for Notre Dame. The Irish will open against USC in 2030, then head to Tuscaloosa two weeks later to face Alabama.
Notre Dame was willing to live with that front-loaded setup after USC pushed back against the idea of more midseason cross-country travel layered on top of its Big Ten slate. This year, the Trojans’ conference road schedule includes Rutgers, Penn State, Indiana and Wisconsin.
For a series that began in 1926 and had been played every year since, outside of three seasons lost during World War II and the 2020 COVID-19 break, the split felt jarring. The original contract expired after 2025, and the schools never landed on a new extension before the deal broke down last December. Instead of ending 2026 in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving weekend, Notre Dame will finish that season at Syracuse.
The collapse grew out of a stretch of public friction, with USC leaders repeatedly questioning how the rivalry fit into the Big Ten era and the larger College Football Playoff chase. Lincoln Riley was the first to say the quiet part out loud two years ago at Big Ten media days in Indianapolis.
“I would love to (to keep playing),” Riley said. “I know it means a lot to a lot of people.
The purist in you, no doubt. Now if you get in a position where you got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship versus keeping that, shoot, then you got to look at it.”
From there, the back-and-forth only got louder. USC floated the idea of moving the game to Week 0 and even playing it in Mexico City. Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman was pulled into the public debate and made clear he wasn’t interested in reshaping the matchup just for the sake of it.
“I want to go and go play anytime, anywhere, but at the same token it’s important that I make decisions too that are best for the program,” Freeman said last summer. “To move a game that we were pretty sure was going to be Week 12 to Week 0 isn’t what’s best for our program.”
Notre Dame eventually patched the hole left by USC with a two-game series against BYU, heading to Provo this season and hosting the Cougars in 2027. That quick fix only sharpened the perception that the Irish could move on more easily than USC.
The Trojans have gone 11-7 over the past two seasons and still haven’t found their footing in the Big Ten. USC, which helped trigger the collapse of the Pac-12 by leaving with UCLA, has never reached the four-team CFP and has not yet made a serious push for the 12-team field. This season, the Trojans won’t play a Power 4 opponent in nonconference play, though their league schedule includes a trip to defending national champion Indiana on Nov. 14 and another to Penn State on Oct. 10, along with home games against Ohio State and Oregon.
Notre Dame’s recent scheduling profile has drawn its own scrutiny. The Irish played just eight Power 4 teams during their run to the College Football Playoff two years ago.
Last season, they faced only four opponents who finished in the AP Top 25, and losses to Miami and Texas A&M to open the year knocked them off course. Their schedule this season could be even lighter, with no opponent that finished last year with a winning record until the Oct. 17 trip to BYU.
Still, after months of tension and a contract standoff that seemed headed for a longer freeze, the rivalry is back where it belongs on the calendar. The only real question now is how the new arrangement fits the broader schedules around it.
In Other News...
Notre Dame Just Changed How Indiana's Future Schedule Will Be Judged
Indianas future nonconference slate took another hit when its planned home-and-home series with Notre Dame for 2030-31 was canceled, removing one of the more recognizable games from the Hoosiers schedule. The change comes as Notre Dame moved to renew its rivalry with USC in a four-game series, keeping one of college footballs marquee matchups on the calendar and leaving Indiana to keep reshaping its own future dates.
For Indiana, the timing only sharpens the conversation around how its schedules will be judged going forward. The Hoosiers currently do not have any Power Four non-conference opponents lined up, a detail that has already drawn criticism about the strength of their future slates. Losing Notre Dame adds another layer to that scrutiny, especially with so much attention now on how programs position themselves for selection committees and public perception alike. [Read more 🡒]
Lincoln Riley Just Added Real Heat To Notre Dame-USC Again
Lincoln Riley has put fresh attention back on one of college footballs most stubborn rivalries by revisiting the Notre Dame-USC scheduling issue. The USC coach pointed to the reality of the Trojans conference calendar as part of the reason the matchup has landed where it has, while also taking aim at Notre Dames choices along the way. It is the kind of public back-and-forth that keeps a long-running series from going stale, even when the games themselves are still years away.
For Notre Dame, the timing matters because the rivalry is officially set to restart in 2030, with the games scheduled early in the season. That only raises the stakes around every comment and countercomment between the two sides, especially when the conversation shifts from tradition to logistics. Rileys latest remarks do not change the calendar, but they do remind both fan bases that the tension around this series is already back in full view. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Is Still Waiting On The Indiana Matchup Fans Wanted
Indiana footballs future non-conference slate has been drawing attention, and not in the way Notre Dame fans had hoped. Under Curt Cignetti, the Hoosiers have mapped out a schedule through 2029 that stays away from any Power Four opponent outside the Big Ten, a sharp turn from the kind of game that can make an autumn calendar feel a little bigger.
Indiana had previously had games with Virginia and Louisville on the books before moving on to lighter opponents, and Cignetti has described the approach as SEC-style in its emphasis on conference play. For Notre Dame, though, the matchup people keep circling is still a ways off, with the first series between the programs now slated for 2030-31. [Read more 🡒]