Bad Teams, Bad Weather, It Doesn't Matter: Notre Dame Fans Still Show Up

Notre Dame football opens the 2026 season on Sunday night at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers.

Even against the Wisconsin Badgers, who have limited expectations this fall, you can pretty much guarantee that more than 80,000 butts will be in the seats of Lambeau Field.

Next Saturday, Notre Dame will open the official home portion of the schedule against a lowly Rice team in a game that is expected to be a rout. Despite that, the game has already been announced as a sellout by Notre Dame, meaning that the crowd will be announced at 77,622.

That's an impressive amount of people to show up to watch a football game between a powerhouse program, and a not-so-great program, in what shouldn't be very competitive.

USC Draws Attention for Lackluster Crowd in Home Opener

Notre Dame rival USC opened its season this past weekend and became one of the major talking points of Week 0 in college football.

Sure, it disposed of mighty San Jose State like it was expected to do, but did so in front of just 51,144 fans.

If that sounds like a low number, that's because it is. It was low enough, in fact, that USC felt the need to release a statement on Monday, because of all the negative publicity the empty seats at the Coliseum generated.

"There is no way a human being at Southern Cal put out that pile of garbage. That had to be AI generated. Because no sane person at the University of Southern California would say that" – Paul Finebaum pic.twitter.com/7jii5bpQzg
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 31, 2026

A kind reminder for those who may have forgotten: San Jose State is who USC replaced Notre Dame with on its schedule this season.

I'm not always right, but I'd be willing to guess that keeping Notre Dame on the schedule would have put more people in the seats than 51,144 that "braved the elements" this past Saturday when - get this - it was HOT in Los Angeles.

In August.

Wild stuff, I know.

Notre Dame's Last Home Game with That Low of Attendance

With USC's attendance for this game being such a topic of conversation since Saturday, I couldn't help to dig into the history book a bit for Notre Dame.

What I found was rather fascinating.

Outside of the Covid-season of 2020 when rules were put in place to keep attendance extremely limited, Notre Dame hasn't played a game at Notre Dame Stadium in front of a crowd as small as USC's was on Saturday, since November 9, 1963.

Yes, you have to go back to nearly two weeks before John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated to find the last time a Notre Dame home crowd showed up as sparingly as the USC crowd did Saturday.

It's worth mentioning that Notre Dame team was awful. It entered that November 9 contest against No. 8 at just 2-4, and lost 27-7, en route to finishing the year just 2-7.

Not since then has Notre Dame Stadium seen a smaller crowd for a football game, and with sellouts already announced for each home game this year besides November contests against Boston College and SMU, it seems certain it won't happen this year, either.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway

Yeah, it's not breaking news that there is more to do in Los Angeles than South Bend. Nobody in the Midwest isn't aware there isn't an ocean just a few miles away from USC's campus, and that would be a great option on a hot summer day.

The Coliseum at kickoff of USC’s season opener with San Jose State pic.twitter.com/4bOhMY487b
— Ryan Kartje (@RyanKartje) August 29, 2026

However, USC fans can't show up in the heat when it plays in August, and it's team, for decades, refused to travel to South Bend any later than mid-October, because of the weather.

Yet, Notre Dame has had no issues drawing well more than 51,144 for those games for decades, even when some lowly competition was entered Notre Dame Stadium on some awful weather days.

But what do you know, another year and more excuses coming from the USC football program.

As much as the great sport of college football changes by the day, at least that one constant remains.

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