Notre Dame’s Future Even Cloudier After Cancelling USC Series

The future of Notre Dame football continues to look more uncertain as the program’s independent status is complicating its place in the sport.

Notre Dame and USC on Monday announced they will not play each other in 2026 or 2027, bringing at least a two-year pause to one of college football’s most historic rivalry games. Since first playing in 1926, the only season the two teams didn’t play each other was in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“USC and Notre Dame recognize how special our rivalry is to our fans, our teams, and college football, and our institutions will continue working towards bringing back The Battle for the Jeweled Shillelagh,” the two schools said in a joint statement. “The rivalry between our two schools is one of the best in all of sport, and we look forward to meeting again in the future.”

Notre Dame is replacing USC on its schedule with a home-and-home series against BYU the next two seasons. The Trojans have yet to announce who will take the Fighting Irish’s place on their schedule. As part of the Big Ten, USC plays nine conference opponents each season, and three non-conference games. 

Lights, Camera, Action

The decision to not play each other in 2026 or 2027 comes after USC reportedly explored moving an edition of its annual Notre Dame matchup to Las Vegas and bringing on Netflix to broadcast the game, according to Puck News. 

If Notre Dame and USC are looking to capitalize further on their rivalry game, it may be 2030 before they play again. NBC’s media rights deal for home Notre Dame games runs through 2029, as does the Big Ten’s current pacts with Fox, CBS, and NBC. After that, the schools could look to sell their annual matchup to a streamer like Netflix with less pushback from current partners.

Playoff Power

Notre Dame losing USC as an annual opponent comes just as the school’s longtime ACC partnership attracts scrutiny after it missed out on the College Football Playoff and boycotted Bowl Season altogether.

Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said the ACC caused “permanent damage” to their relationship by advocating for Miami, which received the CFP selection committee’s final at-large bid, over the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame plays five games per season against ACC opponents.

But starting next season, under the terms of a new CFP contract running from 2026 to 2031, Notre Dame will automatically earn an at-large playoff bid if it is ranked inside the top 12 of the season-ending standings. If that had been the case this year, No. 11 Notre Dame would have been included in the CFP over No. 10 Miami. 

That intricacy could theoretically be problematic for USC. The school could beat Notre Dame in a given season, and finish higher than them in the CFP rankings, but still be left out of the playoff. That structure could potentially change further, though, if the CFP expands to 16 teams or more, which will be determined in January.