Historic College Football Powerhouses Make Decision on Legendary Rivalry Game

One of college football’s most recognizable traditions is coming back in the near future after a brief and controversial hiatus.

USC announced it has reached an agreement with Notre Dame to renew their longstanding football rivalry series, but we’ll have to wait a few more years to see it happen on the field.

The two rivals will reunite at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the season opening matchup of the 2030 campaign, the Trojans said.

The schools will also play each other in Week 1 of the 2031 season before meeting up again in either Week 1, 2, or 3 in the 2032 and 2033 seasons.

the rivalry, renewed. ⚔️

We will play Notre Dame in a four-game series beginning in the Coliseum in 2030. pic.twitter.com/4bj1jZW4NI
— USC Football ✌️ (@uscfb) August 3, 2026

How USC, Notre Dame got here

The announcement comes after several months of ambiguity around the future of the rivalry after the schools were unable to come to an agreement on future scheduling based on a dispute around when the game should be played going forward.

Notre Dame fans blame USC for backing out. USC blames the playoff.

USC’s argument was they should play the game earlier in the season, citing a belief that a potential later season loss would more negatively affect the school’s College Football Playoff ranking.

Notre Dame preferred to keep the game where it usually was, late in the season.

No agreement, no game.

Still, there was hope the rivalry would return

Historic College Football Powerhouses Make Decision on Legendary Rivalry Game — IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Without an agreement, their 2025 meeting – a 34-24 Fighting Irish victory in South Bend, ND’s third-straight over Southern Cal – looked like the last such game for the foreseeable future, bringing an unwanted end to another college football tradition.

Even so, there was hope that future games were possible, as reports indicated that at the same time they failed to renew the series, USC and Notre Dame had also reached a pact that they would revive the game as soon as 2030, a promise they appear to have kept.

Until then, a world war and a pandemic were the only events that kept Notre Dame and USC from playing every year, but this pause seemed to have been brought about by the structure of the sport itself and the perceived demands raised by the playoff system.

What USC said about the rivalry

“We felt like the best thing for our program was to play this game early in the season. “We’re part of a conference. We have a conference schedule to answer to. We don’t make our own schedule,” USC head coach Lincoln Riley said on Monday.

He added: “It made more sense for us to play this game in a traditional non-conference window. As I’ve always said, we want to play this game. That has never changed. That will never change. But we also want to stand up for USC and do what’s right for us.”

USC got its wish, and now a college football tradition is coming back.

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