The Michigan State Spartans and Notre Dame Fighting Irish have scheduled a home-and-home series for 2026 and 2027, the schools announced Thursday.
In the first game of the series, the Figbting Irish will host the Spartans at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind., on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. The back half of the series will take place the following season at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Mich., on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2027.
The battle for the Megaphone Trophy has taken place 79 times on the gridiron. Notre Dame has won 49 of the 79 prior meetings. The pair have not squared off since the 2016 and 2017 seasons, when each school secured a road victory.
“The Michigan State-Notre Dame rivalry is not only one of the oldest rivalries in all of college football, it’s a series that is meaningful to Spartan players and fans alike,” Michigan State Vice President and Director of Athletics Alan Haller said. “It’s fitting that the battle for the Megaphone Trophy renews in the 60th anniversary season of the 1966 Game of the Century.”
The 2026 contest with the Fighting Irish rounds out Michigan State’s 2026 slate. The Spartans will welcome Toledo on Saturday, Sept. 5, and Eastern Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 12. The 2027 campaign now has its second home date for the Spartans, with Central Michigan visiting on Saturday, Sept. 11.
Notre Dame will do battle with Wisconsin in Green Bay on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026. The Irish will host games with Virginia (Oct. 17), Syracuse (TBD), and Miami (FL) (TBD) in that year, with trips slated to Purdue (Sept. 26), North Carolina (Oct. 3), Navy (Oct. 31), USC (Nov. 28), and Florida State (TBD). 2027 will see Purdue (Sept. 4), Georgia Tech (Oct. 2), Virginia Tech (Nov. 6), and Navy (Nov. 20) take the field at Notre Dame, with to-be-determined dates at Clemson, Duke, and Wake Forest completing the slate.
Football Schedules
You fbschedules.com guys should give yourselves more credit on this one.
You’ve had these games listed for 2026 and 2027 for years (three or more, I would guess), including the correct sequencing of South Bend then East Lansing.
The headline here should be “Michigan St, Notre Dame announce dates for 2026, 2027”.
The reason so many of us like your site is your years ahead of the formal release of some of this news!
It was reported by MLive 10 years ago, not by us.
https://fbschedules.com/michigan-state-notre-dame-neutral-site-game-series/
This two game series was announced a while ago. Today’s announcement was just the specific dates that the games will be played.
The series was never announced by the schools. It was originally reported by MLive back in 2014:
https://fbschedules.com/michigan-state-notre-dame-neutral-site-game-series/
Notre Dame-USC should start playing in September.
Why would either school want to play the game in LA in September? Surely not so USC can play a secondary rival on rivalry weekend.
To Notre Dame-USC I am A Fan of Big Ten playing OOC games in September & Notre Dame-USC SHOULD be included plus USC will have to honor Big Ten playing OOC games in September plus I really like to see USC-UCLA play EVERY Thanksgiving weekend also I am Fan of Big Ten conference rival games being played on last weekend of CFB regular season especially Northwestern-Illinois & Michigan-Ohio State & USC-UCLA is a MUST,MUST.