Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Under the Dome Note: The meeting with Louisville will be the first between the two football programs. Other tentatively scheduled games are at home against Purdue and Michigan (the last until at least 2020), Stanford and Northwestern, and road games versus Temple, Navy (Nov. 1 at FedEx Field in Landover, Md.), Arizona State and USC (Nov. 29). That's 13 games — and the Irish can play only 12. That explains why there is extensive conversation about the game at Arizona State getting cancelled. 2015 Notre Dame Schedule ACC Home Games: Boston College and Georgia Tech. ACC Road Games: Clemson, Pitt and Virginia. Notes: The visit to Clemson will be the first since 1977, a thrilling 21-17 Irish victory that was a huge hurdle in their march to the national title. The only other meeting with Virginia was the 1989 Kickoff Classic in the New Jersey Meadowlands, a 36-13 victory by the defending national champion Notre Dame team. The home games outside the ACC, for now, include Texas, Temple, UMass, Navy and USC, while the road trips feature Purdue and Stanford (Nov. 28). 2016 Notre Dame Schedule ACC Home Games: Duke, Miami and Virginia Tech. ACC Road Games: North Carolina State and Syracuse. Notes: The meeting with Virginia Tech will be the first between the two football programs. The only other time Notre Dame played North Carolina State was in the 2003 Gator Bowl, a 28-6 victory by the Wolfpack. This season would include the return match at Texas (tentatively for Sept. 3) and closing at USC (Nov. 26), plus a home game against Stanford and a site to be determined against Navy. How it will shake out from there is to be determined. FieldTurf Can Wait Last summer, Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly predicted that "FieldTurf is coming to Notre Dame." The school's administration quickly put the kibosh on such future declarations. It could still occur down the road, but definitely not for the 2013 campaign, according to Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick. He was pleased with how well the sod held up during the 2012 football season. "I was pretty clear with my disappointment the season before [2011]," Swarbrick said of the poor field conditions as the season progressed. "A lot of people worked very hard to provide a better service for our team, and I thought it showed. That was encouraging and we'll hopefully be able to repeat that success this year." Swarbrick also clarified how the installation of sod is replaced, and how often. "We do partial replacements, we do full replacements, it's not every three years or every five years," he explained. "This year will be a partial replacement. … I see nothing in the near term that would move us away from [natural grass]." Swarbrick said Notre Dame has no current plans to add a JumboTron to the stadium in the near future either.