Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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84 PRESEASON 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED C aveats shouldn't exist in college football ri- valries. My team plays your team every year until the end of time. Full stop. Logistics can get in the way and cause temporary hiccups, but the best rival- ries exist symbiotically. Even bitter rivals understand the chaotic blend of hatred and respect for each other never dies. It's incumbent on those who inherit the rivalry to keep it going in honor of those who came before them. Somehow the reality of ri- valries continues to be lost in a sport overrun by money mongers. The Notre Dame- USC football rivalry might be up next for detonation. The Trojans seem to have their hands on the plunger. USC head coach Lincoln Riley con- tinues to be the mouthpiece for the pro- gram and its timid point of view. His latest display of weakness came at Big Ten media days in late July where he used the Notre Dame rivalry as a bar- gaining chip in his conference's push for additional automatic qualifiers in pro- posed College Football Playoff models. "Do I want to play the game?" Ri- ley said. "Hell yeah, I want to play the game. Absolutely. It's one of the reasons I came here. But also, my allegiance and my loyalty is not to Notre Dame, and it's not to anybody else. "I'm the head football coach at USC, and I'm going to back USC, and I'm go- ing to do everything possible that I can in my power to make USC as good as it can be. I'm not going to let anything stand in between that." Riley went on to say additional auto- matic qualifiers for the playoff should be considered to preserve other non- conference rivalry games across the country, which only made his expressed feelings about Notre Dame appear more disingenuous. It's unfair to pin this all on Riley because he's likely just parroting the company line. But his comments don't sound like someone who truly embraces competitive rivalry. Certainly USC's path to the Col- lege Football Playoff under its current format becomes easier without Notre Dame on its schedule. But does that really improve USC's chances to actu- ally win a national championship? If a national title is USC's ultimate goal, shouldn't it want a rival like Notre Dame to push it to become better on the field? Gone are the days when a Big Ten pro- gram like USC needs an undefeated record to win a national championship. Ohio State just won the title in January with a two-loss record, including a loss to rival Michigan, which won the national cham- pionship the previous season. We're living in an era when rivals like Ohio State and Michigan are proving how they can drive each other to become better teams. Just look at last year's College Football Playoff field. It's littered with programs who have maintained longstanding ri- valries. Oregon has Washington. Clem- son has South Carolina. Georgia has Florida. SMU has TCU. The list goes on. Or look to the past. All 11 of the na- tional championships USC recognizes for its football program came in seasons with games played against Notre Dame. The two programs first met in 1926, two years after the Irish claimed their first national championship. Two more years later, USC claimed the 1928 national title following a 27- 14 win over Notre Dame. Maybe USC thinks that h i s to r y i s c o i n c i d e n ta l . Maybe the Trojans believe the future of college football will look drastically differ- ent than its past and even its present. Maybe the Big Ten, and all the money that comes with it, means more to the Trojans than the ri- valry with the Irish. Notre Dame's messag- ing couldn't make USC look much worse. Head coach Marcus Freeman continues to repeat a similar message. "You want my opinion? I want to play them every single year," Freeman said in May. "When? I don't care. I don't care when we play them. Start of the season, middle of the sea- son, end of season — I don't care. I want to play USC every year because I think it's great for college football." Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua backed that up again in July. "We want to play USC every year," Bevacqua said. "As I've said in the past, I just think that would be a horrible thing if we don't. I think it would be bad for us. I think it would be bad for college football." Currently, the Notre Dame home game this October is the last remaining on the agreement between the two schools. Reportedly, USC has offered a one-year extension of the rivalry to host a 2026 matchup, and Notre Dame is holding out for a long-term agreement. Notre Dame should begrudgingly agree to the one-year extension. It will only make the Trojans look more cow- ardly if they back out after that. Perhaps USC can't stand knowing the Irish have positioned themselves better in the chase for a national champion- ship. A true rival would fight back. Will the Trojans choose to run? Flight on. ✦ USC head coach Lincoln Riley is showing more allegiance to the Big Ten Conference than the Trojans' long history with Notre Dame in the ongoing rivalry discourse. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER USC Loses Grip On Rivalry Reality Tyler James has been covering Notre Dame athletics since 2011. He can be reached on X @ TJamesND FIRST AND LAST TYLER JAMES