Notre Dame Football: Losing Big Ten and Pac-12 opponents is devastating
The schedule of the Notre Dame football program has fallen victim to decisions made by certain power five conferences.
The dominoes are falling.
Recently, the Ivy League announced it wouldn’t have fall sports. They’re hoping to play those games in the spring of 2021. Similarly, the B1G 10 announced they wouldn’t be playing out of conference games, and the PAC-12 won’t be either.
This kills the neutral site game against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field. The athletic departments of both schools will be rescheduling the game at Lambeau Field, while the two will meet in 2021 at Soldier Field. Still, it’s disappointing to lose this game in 2020.
More importantly, rivals USC and Stanford won’t be on the schedule, if the 2020 season happens at all. Losing these two rivalry games is a devastating blow for the Irish.
Notre Dame and Stanford have been incredibly competitive over the past decade, and it was Notre Dame’s turn to host the series. They’ve met 34 total times, and every season since 1997. It’s a game that gets the Irish to California on the seasons when USC comes to South Bend.
Speaking of USC, this will be the first time Notre Dame and USC don’t meet since World War II. Traditionally, the Trojans are Notre Dame’s biggest rival and it’s sad to see the streak of meetings snapped. However, the reality of the world during the pandemic is that cross-country travel is too risky.
It’s safe to bet more conferences make this decision soon.
Assuming they do make this decision, Notre Dame will need to lean on its ACC affiliation for the season, and play as a conference member. This way they’ll be able to salvage the 2020 season at all.
Several intriguing match-ups in the ACC opened up with the B1G 10 cancelling its out of conference games in 2020. These include Boston College and Miami. Another option would be to add Independents, like BYU, who just lost four games against P5 teams.
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As with any team that far from home, though, you have to ask if the travel between Utah and Indiana would be worth it? Would travel from Indiana to ACC country be worth it, or should we just accept reality? That reality being that the season should be postponed. It should be delayed until spring, when we will have had more time to deal with the virus.