Although nothing is official yet, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have made some changes to their 2026 football schedule, according to a report by Irish Illustrated Insider.
Before we dive into the changes, we’ll go over the portion of Notre Dame’s 2026 football schedule that hasn’t changed, beginning with the season-opener against the Wisconsin Badgers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc. The game, a Shamrock Series contest for the Irish, will be played on Sunday, Sept. 6, and it will be nationally televised by NBC.
Following the season-opener, Notre Dame is scheduled to open its home slate at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind., with consecutive games against the Rice Owls on Saturday, Sept. 12 and the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday, Sept. 19.
The Fighting Irish are then scheduled to make consecutive road trips to face the Purdue Boilermakers on Sept. 26 and the North Carolina Tar Heels on Oct. 3.
The only other Notre Dame game with a date next season is its annual contest against the Navy Midshipmen, which will be played on Saturday, Oct. 31 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
Other contests that were previously announced include ACC foes Miami and SMU making the trip to South Bend and Syracuse on the road. Those contests could change, however, as the ACC continues to adjust Notre Dame’s opponents following expansion of league membership. The podcast mentioned that a road ACC game would be dropped from the schedule, which would be either North Carolina or Syracuse.
New information revealed on the Irish Illustrated Insider podcast features a likely game against the USC Trojans, although the game will reportedly be played at a neutral site. This rumor has popped up previously, but is now gaining steam.
Also reported on the podcast is that Notre Dame will host the Boston College Eagles and Stanford Cardinal in 2026, with the game against Stanford not counting as one of Notre Dame’s ACC matchups.
Additionally, the Florida State Seminoles have reportedly been dropped from Notre Dame’s 2026 schedule. This news popped up a couple of months ago when the FSU-Notre Dame game was removed from FSU’s official website. We have attempted to confirm this with Florida State, but have been unsuccessful so far.
Here is what the 2026 Notre Dame football schedule looks like following the report from Irish Illustrated Insider:
2026 Notre Dame Football Schedule (Tentative)
09/06 – vs Wisconsin (in Green Bay, WI)
09/12 – Rice
09/19 – Michigan State
09/26 – at Purdue
10/03 – at North Carolina
10/10 – HOME GAME TBA
10/17 – HOME GAME TBA
10/24 – TBA
10/31 – vs Navy (in Foxborough, MA)
11/07 – HOME GAME TBA
11/14 – TBA
11/21 – HOME GAME TBA
11/28 – TBA
TBA Games
Home – Boston College
Home – Miami (FL)
Home – SMU
Home – Stanford
Away – Syracuse
Neutral – USC
Wow! Only 3 true road games!! You can tell that ND is looking to lighten their schedule in order to make the playoffs. Their overall 2026 schedule is VERY EASY. Only two teams of any real quality … Miami, FL and USC and neither will be on the road. The USC game will be moved to Las Vegas.
The ND doesn’t play a bunch of high school level teams like the SECupcakes do…
“Lighten” insinuates a change from normal when the Domers have played a 6-3-3 schedule before.
Also, SMU made the playoffs last year and have a shot at the ACC title (and playoffs) this year.
I’ll always brag about beating SMU last year.
ND playing their big ten rival USC at a neutral site……and college football gets worse again. hopefully its in Vegas so they can really make a mockery of the sport #trash
That is at the behest of USC, and NO, nobody knows why except USC folks.
Vegas would make a fantastic neutral site for Notre Dame-USC so they can have half of Fighting Irish Fans & half of Trojans Fans.
I’ve seen harder high school football schedules than ND’s fluff schedules
I push back, 6 ACC Teams, 4 Big Ten and 2 from the American is as many or more Power opponents that almost any teams have. 3 of those teams are ranked the 2nd poll of November which is lower than some others but higher than a few as well.
Goob, your point works for UConn, go post there.
Tom I support your suggestion for Notre Dame opponents.
Pardon me for using Fan as a Michigan Wolverines Fan I want to see Michigan-Notre Dame to resurrect its long-standing rivalry again.
I am a true diehard IRISH fan but this schedule is a joke. Im sorry but I would rather have atleast 2 or 3 more top tier games besides sc and miami. If we want to be take seriously then we have to play a tougher schedule. If we are doing this to give us a better chance to make the CFP this will slowly effect recruiting. Real dawgs want to play other real dawgs not cats. If its because we want to stay independant and are having trouble getting games then maybe its time for a change! GO IRISH!@
Everybody on here overlooks SMU for some reason. SMU made the playoffs last year and is in the hunt for the ACC title this year. And did you miss that they beat “top tier” Miami?
I get that they don’t have the name brand of the Trojans or the Canes but that doesn’t mean they won’t be a very good team.
Everyone complains about people no longer playing rivals and playing easy teams. Notre Dame plays all of their rivals and no FCS team, so naturally there’s still something to complain about. They should schedule Mercer and ULM like those really good southern teams.
“All their rivals”
LOL, I had to laugh at that.
I’d been defending the Domers on here but they dropped series with Michigan, MSU, and PU (with whom they’ve had decades-long rivalry series).
Also, ND has played FCS schools before.
They aren’t playing Grambling State and Ohio University. That’s what it takes to be #1 this year.
Maybe you’d prefer they play Louisiana-Monroe and Eastern Illinois like the team sitting in the #4 spot in the CFP right now.
There is nothing wrong with Notre Dame’s schedule except that most of the teams in college football wouldn’t dare to play the same. They are 18th in SOS this year and this looks right around the same as that.
Notre Dame gets to curate a schedule that allows for a max of 2 losses a year and a guaranteed playoff birth. And saying ‘well at least they don’t play UL Monroe’ as if most top big ten and sec schools wouldn’t consider most of ND’s schedule JUCO matchups is asinine. Also ND is 42nd in SOS, so good try. Next year they play 3 mid BIG10 teams (being generous with mid), a bottom BIG10 team, 2 G5 teams, 3 bottom ACC teams, 1 mid ACC team, and 2 real ACC teams (once again being generous). The top SEC and BIG10 teams trying to get into the CFP would consider probably 8-9 of these teams as cupcake schedule add-ons.
It is likely both Stanford and USC games will be October.
Which means 4 ACC games in November.
Note that all but 2 opponents are considered Power 4 which should mean something,
even though several of them are having a lousy 2025.
Could Rice be their typical “Marshall/NIU” upset? Doubt it.
Gotta say tho, 10-2 against this bunch doesn’t look CFP worthy. Hope I’m wrong.
USC should be at the Coliseum like it always is in even years. Wouldn’t be the same in a neutral site.
Z-Man CFB Fans can be violent.
USC Fans can dump Budweiser on You.
Neutral site games are very important, so they be split between Notre Dame & USC Fans & Las Vegas would be a fantastic Neutral site.
Furthermore, I did not mean to hurt you buddy however I just want to get your attention because there some cuckoo fans out there & I do not want to see anybody including you Z-Man get clobbered & I really care about you very much.
Dan, do you have a safe place for you hide at? Fans can be violent? Those two teams been playing dang near every year for 100 years and all of a sudden you’re talking about violence! Soft.
Illininoles07 Dan favors P4 OOC games at neutral sites so they can have fan bases from both teams.
Campus games are made for conference & cupcake games.
I want CFB fans be treated fairly.
USC will be out of the Coliseum for the entire 2028 season because the Coliseum is being drastically changed for the summer olympics, so if there is a 2028 USC-ND game it will also be at a neutral site, likely either SoFi or Vegas.
First time Ive heard that. Summer Olympics will be over before football season starts
This is also the ideal schedule formula I’ve come up with for Notre Dame:
5 games against ACC schools – Stanford every year, the other 4 on a rotating basis on an 8-year schedule.
Annual games against Navy and USC.
One additional Big Ten opponent.
One game each against a team from the Big 12 and SEC.
Two additional games against non-P4 opposition, almost always at home.
The ACC rotation for non-Stanford opponents would look like this:
Year 1: Duke, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest
Year 2: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia
Year 3: Boston College, Miami, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech
Year 4: California, Louisville, SMU, Syracuse
The 16 non-Stanford schools would be sorted into groups of 4 based more or less on when the schools joined the ACC.
Here’s Notre Dame’s last regular season game against each P4 school that isn’t in the ACC or USC:
Big Ten:
Minnesota – 1938
Illinois – 1968
Iowa – 1968
Oregon – 1982 (Oregon was Pac-10 then)
Indiana – 1991
Nebraska – 2001 (Nebraska was Big 12 then)
Rutgers – 2002 (Rutgers was Big East then)
Penn State – 2007
UCLA – 2007 (UCLA was Pac-10 then)
Washington – 2009 (Washington was Pac-10 then)
Maryland – 2011 (Maryland was ACC then)
Michigan State – 2017
Northwestern – 2018
Michigan – 2019
Wisconsin – 2021
Ohio State – 2023
Purdue – 2025
Big 12 (includes Big Eight history):
Kansas State – never met
Texas Tech – never met
UCF – never met
Houston – never met in regular season, only in bowls
Iowa State – never met in regular season, only in bowls
Oklahoma State – never met in regular season, only in bowls
TCU – 1972 (TCU was SWC then)
Arizona – 1982 (Arizona was Pac-10 then)
Colorado – 1984
Baylor – 1998
Kansas – 1999
West Virginia – 2001 (West Virginia was Big East then)
Utah – 2010 (Utah was MW then)
Arizona State – 2014 (Arizona State was Pac-12 then)
Cincinnati – 2021 (Cincinnati was American then)
BYU – 2022 (BYU was independent then)
SEC:
Auburn – never met
Kentucky – never met
Mississippi State – never met
Florida – never met in regular season, only in bowls
Missouri – 1984 (Missouri was Big Eight then)
South Carolina – 1984 (South Carolina was independent then)
Ole Miss – 1985
Alabama – 1987
LSU – 1998
Tennessee – 2005
Oklahoma – 2013 (Oklahoma was Big 12 then)
Texas – 2016
Vanderbilt – 2018
Georgia – 2019
Arkansas – 2025
Texas A&M – 2025
As part of my proposed scheduling formula, ND should make every effort to rotate all of these teams on and off their schedule
Z-Man Notre Dame needs more ACC opponents, Michigan needs more Big Ten opponents, Georgia needs more SEC opponents & Oklahoma State needs more Big 12 opponents.
If you do not like it Z-Man that tough cookie CFB really wants conference games more & more.
One thing I forgot to mention was that when ND played Texas in 2016 the Longhorns were in the Big 12.
Z-Man I would not care less if Texas Longhorns were in Dallas Cowgirls conference.
Do not be concerned women I am having fun with it & I am not offending you.
Stick to your geographical traditional opponents.The way it should be notre dame should never have had a special deal even though i’m a lifelong notre dame fan. The supposedly higher learning institutions have let the horse out of the barn. It’s never coming back. And the only reason they haven’t destroyed the sport totally is because college football is so exciting in and of itself. But you want to talk about chasing money, and every other ridiculous reason to throw tradition out the window? I don’t get it.
Excellent Post!!! Dennis Kirk.
another very weak schedule…but i don’t blame them since the committee rewards weak schedules.
Another weak schedule for Notre Lame. Just wait until Jesper starts telling you how hard of teams they play
Thanks for the call out, Illininoles97.
I agree the schedule looks light at present but am inclined to withhold judgment until it’s finalized and then until we see what everybody has during the ‘26 season. Miami, SMU and USC certainly could shape up to be ranked opponents, perhaps a couple highly-ranked.
I will note that when the Wisconsin and Michigan State series were booked, those were formidable opponents. It’s beyond ND’s control that both programs are in a secular decline. It’s also beyond ND’s control that the Wisconsin game wasn’t able to be played in 2020, as originally scheduled, due to the pandemic. Furthermore, it’s beyond ND’s control that Purdue, BC and Stanford all presently seem weaker than their long-term historic averages. As I think you’re aware, most of these games have been on the schedule for close to a decade.
Net-net, let’s see how SOS shakes out during the 2026 season. I’ll be interested to see how far up or down the tree it proves to be in comparison to P4 schedules. Possibly by rote, you’ve criticized ND’s schedule this year; yet the quantitative rankings regard it as reasonably difficult (I saw a recent ranking as high as 13th).
Half of it is ACC cupcakes and Navy. What a shameful schedule.
Colin Notre Dane do not need a blockbuster schedule they will be excellent the way they are.
Hear me out: ND should join the B1G:
1. Makes it easier to continue rivalries such as USC, Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue.
2. Geographically speaking, ND is in the right region (Midwest).
3. ND can still continue to be aired on NBC and have ND Football.
4. Better competition vs the ACC
Notre Dame is excellent where they are plus, I prefer seeing Boston College at Notre Dame 3:30PM followed by Ohio State at Iowa 7:30PM on NBC.
Both Big Ten & SEC would too much competition for Notre Dame.
Furthermore Pardon me for using fan on this one.
I am a fan of Big Ten on CBS & have zero issues competing with Notre Dame home games on NBC during the 3:30PM time slot for example CBS shows Michigan State at Michigan & NBC shows Boston College at Notre Dame & speaking of Notre Dame-Boston College Holy War is a fantastic rivalry & so is Michigan-Michigan State.
On second thought four big ten opponents would be excellent for Notre Dame & remain it’s principal scheduling alliance with ACC having six opponents & two from American.
This is just a suggestion.
Why don’t they play LSU first year under Lane Kiffin and Oklahoma or Texas, ride down and play the SEC Two games every year. Put Georgia & Alabama on the Schedule for 2027 then Florida and Vandy 2028. How bout then Auburn and Ole Miss 2029 and then we will see how many playoffs you will be in. That goes for Ohio State and Michigan play both Texas A& M and Texas each year for next two years and we will see how many times you will be #1 and undefeated. Amen