Notre Dame Football, USC to continue football rivalry

The countdown to the 2026 college football continues on as Fall camps are opening up across the country. For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, they are one of the favorites to not only make the College Football Playoff but to win the title as well.

Coming off a disappointing season a year ago when they failed to make the playoff and then declined the bowl game, the focus is on this season for Marcus Freeman. And they want to prove everyone wrong.

But on Monday, there was some big news regarding a rival and a now future opponent that was a big story in college football.

Notre Dame and USC will continue football rivalry

Notre Dame and USC is one of college football’s biggest rivalries. The rivalry began in 1926 and has been played every year since then except 2020. But the two teams wont meet in 2026 or 2027 as they couldn’t find an agreement due to USC being in the 18-team Big Ten.

Typically, the two sides meet at the end of the season but USC feared that playing Notre Dame that late would impact the playoff chances. Up until Monday, the two sides couldn’t figure out a way to get it done. But fear no more. The schools announced the rivalry would be coming back starting in 2030 with a four-game series that will feature back-to-back openers.

The new agreement calls for the series to move to the Saturday of Labor Day weekend the first two years—in Los Angeles on Aug. 31, 2030, and in South Bend on Aug. 30, 2031. The ’32 and ’33 games will be played in the first three weeks of the season, before USC begins Big Ten Conference play. That change, from the traditional USC home game at the end of the season and Notre Dame home game in mid-October, was at the request of the Trojans, who did not want additional midseason travel after joining the Big Ten.

Both programs believed that this rivalry needed to continue as Notre Dame athletic direction Pete Bevacqua said.

“I think it’s great for Notre Dame, great for USC and great for college football,” Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua says of the series resumption.

“We want to play USC in Notre Dame Stadium and they want to play us in L.A. Memorial Coliseum,” Bevacqua says. “And frankly, that’s the way it should be.”

But it comes as a price for Notre Dame.

With USC now on the future schedule, the Fighting Irish announced a future series with Indiana is now off. The Hoosiers requested to pull the upcoming series with the Fighting Irish.

The good news is that the Trojans and Fighting Irish will be back on the field against each other in the near future.

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