USC-Notre Dame rivalry returns, and Indiana pays for it

One of college football's oldest rivalries is coming back from the dead. Pete Thamel broke the news that USC and Notre Dame will renew their series starting in 2030, with the Trojans hosting in LA that year and the Irish getting them back in South Bend the following season.

Pete Thamel

@PeteThamel

NEWS: USC and Notre Dame will renew their rivalry, with the series starting again in 2030. They’ll meet Week 1 in LA that year and play Week 1 in South Bend the next year.

It's not a one-off, either. Per Pete Nakos and confirmed by a CFB Kings graphic, this is a full 4-game series running through 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 — and unlike some recent scheduling gimmicks, it's not getting watered down onto neutral sites. Real home games, real stakes, the way it used to be before USC bailed on the series back in 2020.

CFB Kings

@CFBKings

BREAKING: USC and Notre Dame have officially renewed their rivalry, with games scheduled in 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033. Great to see a historic College Football rivalry continue to be played 🗡️☘️

The rivalry dates back 95 meetings, surviving World War II and COVID-era scheduling chaos. Its absence has been felt for years, especially as both programs jockey for College Football Playoff positioning without a marquee non-conference anchor. But bringing it back created a scheduling collision — and Indiana just became the odd program out.

Pete Nakos

@PeteNakos

Source confirms to @On3 that the Notre Dame-Indiana home-and-home scheduled for 2030/2031 is being canceled. t.co/665f8DYOyU

Notre Dame's home-and-home with Indiana, set for 2030 and 2031, is officially canceled to make room for the USC series. It's a real loss for the Hoosiers: reports have Curt Cignetti's program now sitting with zero scheduled Power Four non-conference opponents on the books, a scheduling void CFB Home and Brett McMurphy have been hammering all week.

Brett McMurphy

@Brett_McMurphy

Indiana’s future 🧁 non-conference schedules 🧁 after Notre Dame series canceled via @FBSchedules

That's where College Football Nerds picked up the thread — and connected it back to Notre Dame's own playoff outlook. With USC previously ducking the series and now Indiana off the board too, the Irish are staring at a thin slate of marquee opponents that's actively hurting their strength of schedule heading into a playoff format that leans on that metric.

College Football Nerds

@CFBNerds

Notre Dame has to beat one of these 3 teams to be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. ND's ACC tie-in is a disaster for their SOS.

CFBNerds didn't fully let Notre Dame off the hook, but framed the real issue as structural: the Irish get an independent's benefit of the doubt in playoff selection without playing a conference schedule or a title game to prove it, and a scheduling body like this only sharpens that complaint. USC-Notre Dame coming back is a win for tradition — Indiana losing its only real non-conference test, and Notre Dame's SOS problem staying unresolved, is the cost nobody flagged in the celebration.