Notre Dame Fighting Irish schedule Rice Owls for 2026 home game

I like mine chicken-fried

Next year’s Notre Dame football schedule just got another opponent. On Thursday, Notre dame announced a home game in 2026 versus the Rice Owls.

Notre dame and Rice have met 5 times in the past with the Irish winning all 5 contests. Most recently, Notre Dame played Rice at home in 2014 (48-17) and 1988 (54-11).

Besides Rice, the Irish have 10 other games scheduled for next year:

• Wisconsin Badgers
• Michigan State Spartans
• Purdue Boilermakers
• North Carolina Tar Heels
• Navy Midshipmen
• USC Trojans
• Florida State Seminoles
• Miami Hurricanes
• SMU Mustangs
• Syracuse Orange

This leaves just one more slot to fill for Pete Bevacqua. The Stanford Cardinal are noticibly missing from the schedule, but I would put a fair amount of money on the table that The Legends Trophy will be on the table for 2026 when it’s all said and done.

It’s a weird non-mix of 4 Big Ten teams, 5 ACC teams, and 2 American teams.