Many people have felt for a while that the Michigan-Notre Dame series was on its last legs and that the rather tumultuous relationship these two storied teams have had over the past 100 or so years could be coming to end. Well, the first step before the two schools decide they have irreconcilable differences came Saturday in the form of a report from the Alabama Press Register:
White said the Fighting Irish will take a short break from their Big 10 rivals in the future, replacing Michigan with Oklahoma for a two-year period, then facing Arizona State instead of Michigan State for two years.
The article was about Notre Dame not being able to fit Alabama on the schedule in the coming years because of contractual obligations with the Big East and the long standing relationships with Big Ten Schools.
Anyway, it’s a shame that there will have to be a break in this series because it is one of the truly unique rivalries in college football. How many other rivalries involve a team (Michigan) which literally taught the other (Notre Dame) the game and then watched the team they taught ascend to the pinnacle of the college football world and win more national championships than them? (That was for you Michigan fans).
What is nice, however, is that we’ll get to see an Oklahoma-Notre Dame game in Notre Dame Stadium again. During Oklahoma’s last trip to South Bend, a young head coach named Bob Stoops was in his first season as the head coach for the Sooners:
“Notre Dame just basically whipped us in the second half. Their will to win was greater than ours,” Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said. “Jarious Jackson just did it all himself. He was a major factor and the difference in the game. He made us look foolish at times, missing tackles and giving up big runs.” (10/2/1999 – AP).
With out getting too off topic here, does anyone else find it disturbing that Bob Davie holds an undefeated coaching record against Pete Carroll AND Bob Stoops?
Yes, the 05 USC – ND game was ALMOST awesome. From an objective view, maybe one of the best games of the era.
HOWEVER, I cant think of any other recent USC ND games that have been exciting ..
You can check history though.. ND has not played michigan every year. Loyd Carr expressed his concern in a news conference regarding having to play ND before he starts his big 10 schedule and how brutal his schedule was(This press conference was immediately after ND scored on the “fantom” touchdown(with carlyle holiday), UM went on to blank the irish the following year along with FSU and damn near USC. I am more certain UM created the notion that we should see other teams. It takes two to tango.
;)
go irish.
There is no excuse for dropping Michigan, other than the fact that Notre Dame can’t handle the competition………………..this is a GUTLESS move by the AD who is simply trying to earn some W’s. Don’t be complaining when Notre Dame is bypassed for any future title games. USC schedules the best, for some reason Notre Dame doesn’t get that. It’s a crying shame.
Dropping Mich is not good at all. That game is what I anticipate every year to start the season. The same for Mich St. – now that the smoke has cleared in East Lansing – (thanks T. Lambert).
I’m pretty sure you can consider the 2005 Notre Dame – USC game exciting…
I can see why we drop UM, because we have had long breaks previously with UM even though they are the main reason ND is ND today. I cant believe that we are dropping our only intense rivalry game with MSU.
Lets face it, our rivalries with USC, Purdue, Stanford havent been very exciting in the recent years.