The Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Texas Longhorns have scheduled a home-and-home football series for the 2028 and 2029 seasons, both schools announced Tuesday.
In the first game of the series, Notre Dame will host Texas at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind., on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2028. The series will conclude the following season with the Fighting Irish traveling to face the Longhorns at Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2029.
Notre Dame and Texas haven’t squared off on the gridiron since a 50-47 Longhorns victory in 2016 in Austin. The two schools have met 12 times overall with Notre Dame leading the series 9-3.
Notre Dame, a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Independent, now has nine games scheduled for both the 2028 and 2029 seasons. In 2028, Notre Dame is scheduled to host Arkansas, Clemson, Boston College, and Miami (FL) and travel to Purdue, Virginia Tech, Navy, and Pitt.
In 2029, the Fighting Irish have games slated at home against Alabama, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, and Navy and on the road against USF, NC State, Florida State, and Syracuse.
Notre Dame is the third scheduled non-conference opponent for Texas for both the 2028 and 2029 seasons. The Longhorns are slated to host the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs and UTSA Roadrunners in 2028 before welcoming the ULM Warhawks and UTEP Miners to Austin in 2029.
Football Schedules
Kevin, does Texas have an out if the SEC goes to a nine-game conference schedule?
Don’t know, it was just announced and we don’t have the contract.
Why would they need one? Texas will still want 1 marquee OOC matchup no matter what. They did that with a 9 game Big 12 slate and will continue that with a 9 game SEC slate, just like many other SEC teams.
As of right now, they only have 4 OOC games on the slate this and next year (the years that the SEC has said will be “bridge” years for scheduling and therefore will stay 8 games).
After that they have their 1 marquee matchup per season with Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Notre Dame… along with 2 group of 5 opponents in each of those seasons. 3 non-conference games per season plus 9 conference games equals 12.
I’m betting that Texas is still pushing for the 9-game conference slate and that…
[1 marquee game] + [UTEP or UTSA] + [other group of 6 opponent]
… is their intended format moving forward.
Not sure if you thought they had 4 games scheduled with Notre Dame, or if your implication is that they don’t want to play Notre Dame if they have to play 9 SEC opponents? But if you mean the latter, that doesn’t seem likely at this point. They want an extra big game and things would have to get pretty bad for that to change.
Jeff, the reason I asked is that there have been several SEC v other Power Conference series cancellations announced this year, seemingly presaging the move to nine conference games and an aversion by at least some of your conference mates to play nine plus a real non-conf power game.
But I’m pleased to read your confidence that Texas will want to hook ’em regardless.
I’d say “never say never”… I could see an assessment a few years into the expanded playoff era. We know that ultimately money can be a factor in college football at this point, and the second factor would be if the playoff committee ultimately ends up showing there’s a significant disadvantage to playing big non-conference game.
But right now, the Texas athletic director seems set on expanding the already big Texas brand, and improving fan experience, and part of that damn experience has generally been including big games that everyone is excited to attend. And probably the biggest clue is that it was announced NOW at a point where other schools in the conference do seem like they might be preparing for a 9-game slate. Texas is in the same meetings and conversations. If that’s where things seem to be headed, they know it and announced ND anyway.
I’d need to go through and look at the other cancelations you’re referring to, but if they’re teams that have more than 3 games after 2025, it may be out of necessity? And if they’re teams that had 2 (or even 3?) big non-conference games on the slate, I wouldn’t completely blame them. While I feel confident in them wanting a big game in the OOC slate, and while I’m pro-9-game conference slate, I’ll admit that it will also likely limit who Texas will schedule. And that would be even more complicated if you were deciding who to schedule if, like Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kentucky, you may have some inflexibility with what you can and choose when it comes to your OOC slate…?
If Texas is scheduling one marquee matchup a year going forward, and given how far in advance big series are scheduled, I imagine it’s less likely to be a “trending up,” “new blood,” type team. It’s probably going to be a blue blood program with history, whether they’re having a good season at the time or not. I’ll be interested to see if any ACC or Big 12 teams make the cut (since there are some teams with history in both, particularly FSU and Clemson, but hard to say how they’ll take the new tiered status quo of conferences into consideration… fwiw, I think both Clemson and FSU would be cool opponents, particularly since Texas has never played either! But I’d want FSU to right the ship first, and I could understand if Texas’ AD wants to go with more “sure thing” picks). There’s a possibility that this spot would only go to ND and a handful of Big 10 schools like Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, USC… mayyybe Washington and Wisconsin? Even without the “maybe” teams that could play out as a 12 year rotation before you would start repeating, so yeah, until there’s a sign something should change, I could see them potentially keeping the list pretty short?
It’ll be interesting to see if anything changes with the Arizona State series. It’s currently the outlier, and I think it was scheduled before some major realignment decisions were made. Not sure if it will “count” as the marquee that year, if it will be an unusual second “power” team, or if it will be canceled. (Or, let’s be fair, if the conferences or scheduling format will go through more major changes before 2032!)
And then the other 2 games seem like they’d be from the AAC, Conf USA, the Sunbelt Conf, or the MWC (and/or maybe the new Pac 12? though I don’t foresee them pushing it with teams like Washington State, Oregon State, or Boise Stare). Which of course means that first ever meetings with teams like Duke or Michigan State, avenging a final loss to Oklahoma State, renewing longtime series with Baylor, Tech, TCU, or SMU, etc, or playing the random occasional game against Cal, Iowa, Colorado, or N.C. State feels pretty unlikely unless it’s a year Texas misses the playoffs and they get them in a bowl game.
Great that these two schools have scheduled this series. We need more like this.
I wonder what all will count as a “marquee matchup” for Texas from now on. Obviously they have 2 games with Ohio State coming up, a game with Michigan left, and now 2 with Notre Dame. 3 games against the other super conference’s star programs, 2 against the big name Indy school… and then those 2 random games against Arizona State that were probably booked a long time ago…? Obviously the future games with SEC opponents went away when realignment happened. But who else still “counts” as a big name opponent?
Oregon and Penn State, also from the Big 10. Mayyyybe Washington, USC, Nebraska, or Wisconsin who aren’t looking the part this year but definitely have brands and periods of success.
But will they still consider teams from the ACC or Big 12 to fill those marquee matchup slots? Do FSU, Clemson, Utah, KSU, or any of the old conference opponents carry enough weight at this point? Or will Texas stick with Big 10 teams + Notre Dame?
Maaaaybe FSU and/or Clemson make the cut? Otherwise, I see Texas sticking solely to B10 teams + ND.
Probably ND 2 out of every 6 years and then a mix of UMich, OSU, PSU, UO, USC, FSU, and Clemson for the other seasons.
Yeah, even without FSU and Clemson (or my other “mayyybe” teams) that gives you a 12 year rotation before you would need to consider repeating unless you wanted to. And by then, who knows how schedules, the playoff, or conference realignment might look. By then FSU and Clemson might be in the same conference as Texas, or in the Big 10. Or there might be new rules for how schedules have to work. Or the Big 10 and SEC might be doing their own thing with the playoff. Not saying I’m in favor of any of that or not. Just that it certainly isn’t impossible to imagine.
There is no reason to think Texas will cancel the Notre Dame series if the SEC goes to a nine-game schedule. If you look at the 15-year period starting in 2025, based on their current schedule and using the pre-COVID 2020 schedule, Texas has marquee non-conference games in 14 of them (four against Notre Dame and two against each of USC, LSU, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State). The only season they didn’t have such a game was 2021, when they were filling the backend of commitment with Arkansas. Texas expects the SEC to go to a nine-game schedule and still went ahead and scheduled this series.
If you look at that 15-year period, Texas has had two distinct scheduling approaches. They started by scheduling a marquee home-and-home with concurrent lower-tier Power Five home-and homes:
2015: at Notre Dame, California
2016: Notre Dame, at California
2017: at USC, Maryland
2018: USC, at Maryland
Those were all during the Big 12 years with a nine-game conference schedule, so they ended with six home games, five true road games, and the neutral site game with Oklahoma. In an era when all the big stadium schools were insisting on seven home games, they seemed content with six (although OU game in Dallas may produce a similar amount of revenue).
In 2019, rather than scheduling a road game vs. a lower-tier Power Five (they played LSU at home that season), they scheduled a game vs. Rice at the NFL stadium in Houston, which kept them at six home games but with two neutral site games and only four true road games. And from that point onward, they have stuck with one marquee home-and-home and filling the other non-conference games with G5 home games.
The annual RRR game against OU in the Cotton Bowl nets Texas far more revenue than an average home game because Texas gets a much smaller number of tickets to that game than they have seats at DKR. So evidently, you have to donate thousands/year to UT to just get a seat on the Texas side of the RRR game at the Cotton Bowl.
This is why Texas is keen to keep playing the RRR game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas instead of turning it in to a HaH. OU seems less enthused/more indifferent about keeping it neutral site. Probably because, with a smaller fan base, they can’t demand thousands/year in donations from its fans in order to go to the RRR game.
Great Scheduling. I think Notre Dame might need it more than Texas!