If you have the guts
College football has seen sweeping changes over the past 15 years, and not all of it was for the betterment of the sport —quite the contrary. While I firmly believe NIL and other such things have been a massive improvement for the players and the sport itself, the bigger money that has forced a bunch of ridiculous conference realignment is the main cause for the large amount of bad upheaval we have seen over the last few years.
Regional rivalries, traditions, and other things that have been the backbone of the sport for well over a century have been tossed aside for cable markets, streaming rights, and a louder voice for the ever-expanding postseason. Despite Notre Dame remaining independent in football, they aren’t innocent in these matters, and bear as much guilt as the next program.
Thankfully, Notre Dame and the Clemson Tigers have come to a 12 year agreement which will help alleviate our collective bad vibes about the direction of the sport.
Notre Dame and Clemson Announce 12-Game Football Series
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Two storied programs with national success and a history of memorable matchups, Notre Dame and Clemson, have agreed to a 12-game home-and-home contract to meet on the gridiron each season between 2027 and 2038.
The two schools were already scheduled to meet in 2027 (at Clemson), 2028 (at Notre Dame), 2031 (at Clemson), 2034 (at Notre Dame) and 2037 (at Clemson) per the ACC’s schedule contract with Notre Dame.
The agreement marks Notre Dame’s first new series of at least 12 games the program has started since 2002.
“We strive to consistently create a football schedule that positions us for success in the College Football Playoff, and that goal requires us to form historic partnerships like this one with Clemson,” said Notre Dame Vice President and James E. Rohr Director of Athletics Pete Bevacqua. “This rivalry has already produced some of the most memorable moments in recent college football history, and our fans deserve these matchups to continue to make those indelible memories.”
The two programs have met on eight prior occasions, including twice in the postseason. One of these postseason meetings was the 2020 ACC Championship, the only time Notre Dame Football has played in a conference.
“Even in just the last decade, matchups between Clemson and Notre Dame have produced incredibly memorable moments and games,” said Clemson Director of Athletics Graham Neff. “We have immense excitement for the creation of this 12-year series between these two premier programs, as we know these will be must-see matchups for fans at Memorial Stadium and Notre Dame Stadium as well as television audiences nationwide.”
The all-time series has a 5-3 Clemson record. At least one of the teams has been ranked in the top 15 in the nation entering all eight previous meetings, and five times both teams have been ranked entering the game, including three meetings of top five teams between 2018-20. The two schools have met four times in the regular season since 2015. The schools are 2-2 in those meetings with the home team winning each.
The series began with a two-game home-and-home series in 1977 and 1979 that was executed by legendary athletic directors Moose Krause of Notre Dame and Frank Howard of Clemson.
Notre Dame enters the 12-game agreement following victories in the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl and appearance in the CFP National Championship. Both Notre Dame and Clemson earned a berth in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff in 2024, and both schools competed in the College Football Playoffs at the end of the 2018 and 2020 seasons.
Notre Dame and Clemson are two of the top college football programs historically and in recent years. Notre Dame is fourth in college football history in total victories with 962 and has 11 national championships, eight in the AP poll era (since 1936). Clemson is 13th in college football history with 808 wins and has three national championships. Both schools are in the top 15 in college football history in post-season bowl victories and final top 25 seasons.
Excellence on the field and in the classroom has also been a common denominator between the two institutions. Only three schools have won the National Championship on the field and won the AFCA Academic Achievement Award (graduation rate) in the same year: Notre Dame in 1988, Alabama in 2017 and Clemson in 2018.
Notre Dame and Clemson were two of the seven schools to win the AFCA Academic Achievement Award this year. It was the 11th time Notre Dame has been the recipient and the fourth time for Clemson. Notre Dame has the third-most Academic Achievement Awards and Clemson is eighth.
College football needs rivalries to be everything it can be — and everything it is supposed to be. Over the last 15 years we have witnessed a gradual (yet steady) dismantling of rivalries all over the nation. Notre Dame, for example, has nothing left but the USC Trojans on its yearly slate, and it’s just not enough.
Ending the annual rivalry games against the Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Wolverines left a void in the space of the heart that is specifically designed for college football hate (which is a very bad thing). And yes… Michigan is a rival. No stupid semantic trick about “respect” and “hate” can unmake what the football gods have created. In fact, the denial of this fact is ridiculously petty — and dumb pettiness is one of the things which makes the greatest of rivalry games.
The truth of the matter is that we have been searching for Michigan’s and Michigan State’s replacement for years. The “more interesting” Jack Swarbrick tried to make the schedule, the less engaging it actually became during his tenure. Over the years on this site and the Earned 5-Star Podcast we have often talked about Notre Dame’s “BIG R” and “little r” rivalries — and more importantly — the need for such rivalries. For a small moment, the Stanford Cardinal actually fit in those shoes, but that quickly evaporated as they became less and less irrelevant to… well, anyone.
Which finally brings us to the Clemson Tigers.
In 2015 we witnessed two incredible things in one night when Notre Dame went down to South Carolina in a hurricane and took on Clemson inside a wet and wild Death Valley. We saw one of the best games of the year (and the decade) and the ultimate rise of a program to become a national championship contender. What we didn’t know what we witnessed, was the rise of the potential for a real rivalry for the two programs.
Photo by Tyler Smith/Getty Images
Rivalries need annual games to feed the fire, but they also need real consequences. Notre Dame and Clemson have played 6 times since 2015 with the Irish winning just two of those games (2020 and 2022). All 6 games had major postseason implications — including the 2020 ACC Championship Game and the 2018 CFB Playoff Game.
Even though there was already an agreement with the ACC for the Irish to play at least two of the big brand three of Clemson, Florida State, and Miami; this 12 game deal should help cement this series as one of the top up and coming rivalries in college football as both programs show no sign of slipping out of their top ten status.
With all of the upheaval in college football and the uncertainty of what’s to come, Notre Dame and Clemson are helping to save the sport from itself by creating something that is rare to create — and yet somehow so easy to destroy. Here comes a good old-fashioned rivalry to help remind everyone what we as fans really want from the sport, and hopefully this provides guts to others to make more.