Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM PRESEASON 2026 13 UNDER THE DOME Notre Dame-Southern Cal Renew Longtime Football Rivalry The blamefest is over. The Notre Dame-Southern Cal football rivalry is back on. The two schools tweeted out that the longtime intersectional series will resume with a clash at the Los Angeles Memo- rial Coliseum in Week 1 of 2030. The new contract calls for four games, home and home, from 2030-33. Notre Dame will travel to Los Angeles to take on Southern Cal on Aug. 31, 2030, and the Trojans will pay a visit to Notre Dame Stadium on Aug. 30, 2031. The meetings in 2032 and 2033 will each be played in the first three weeks of the season. And suddenly, a scheduled two-game series with Indiana — in 2030 and 2031 — has been erased from those future Irish schedules. The first game was to have taken place Aug. 31, 2030, at Notre Dame Stadium. The two teams would have then met again Sept. 27, 2031, with Indiana hosting in Bloomington, Ind. A source told Blue & Gold Illustrated that Indiana was the party who asked to cancel the ND-IU series. So now maybe that's the new online blame game? If so, it replaces the months of social media snark and blame games that followed what was an indefinite pause in the on-field portion of the intersectional rivalry with Southern Cal, which would have celebrated its 100th anniversary in late November with a matchup in Los Angeles. Instead, the Irish will close their 2026 regular season Thanksgiving Saturday in a dome in Syracuse, N.Y., against former Irish backup quarterback Steve Angeli and Syracuse. The Irish obliterated the Orange without an injured Angeli, 70-7, last November. Southern Cal that weekend will mosey down to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., to play Big Ten rival UCLA. In May, the Los Angeles Times reported that talks had resumed in the fairly new cold war. Notre Dame sources, however, indicated they had never stopped. What both sides did agree upon was that the earliest the series could be resumed would be 2030. It could be a result of the expectation that the College Football Playoff will eventually adopt a 24- team format, expanding from its current 12-team setup. Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua recently threw his weight behind the 24-team concept, which theoretically incentivizes Power Four teams to be more aggressive in their nonconference scheduling. Because there's more margin for error when it comes to inclusion in a larger field than the current 12-team format, a November loss might not hurt so bad, from Southern Cal's standpoint. Or playing the game early in the season might be more palatable to Notre Dame, from that lens, which is when all four games are scheduled. The Irish have won seven of the last eight meetings in a series that started in 1926 and had been played ev- ery season since then except for 1943-45 (because of WWII) and 2020 (because of the COVID-19 pandemic). And that 1-7 record in recent years for the Trojans is why Notre Dame fans fairly ponder the main reason for Southern Cal finding a contractual trapdoor out. But the Trojans don't just have a Notre Dame problem. They have a jet-lag issue, or some travel-related reverse mojo when they cross the Rocky Mountains. Southern Cal is just 2-13 in its last 15 trips into the Eastern or Central time zones, something that occurs far more frequently since leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024. That includes a 34-24 nonconference loss to the Irish in South Bend on Oct. 18, 2025. The Trojans have four such cross-country road trips in 2026, including a matchup against defending national champion Indiana in Bloomington, Ind. The Trojans have never made the CFP in either its four-team format (2014-23) or its 12-team iteration (2024-25). The Irish qualified for the four-team party in 2018 and 2020, and for the first 12-team playoff in 2024. In the Notre Dame-Southern Cal series, the Irish hold a 53-38-5 edge, including 3-1 in the coach Marcus Freeman years. — Eric Hansen Notre Dame uniforms will be adding a new logo starting this fall. The university and SoFi Technolo- gies announced July 28 a multi-year deal that makes SoFi the official financial services partner of Notre Dame athletics. The partnership will be reflected with a SoFi jersey patch on all Notre Dame uniforms. As a result, the school will establish an annual fund to "further Notre Dame's '4 for Forever' promise," per a release from the athletics department. That fund will "support all Notre Dame student-athletes through scholarships, financial education, career development and exclu- sive opportunities." Earlier this year, the NCAA voted in favor of allowing Division I athletic programs starting Aug. 1 to place up to two patches, in addition to uniform manufacturer logos, of no more than 4 square inches on uniforms for regular-season games. High-profile athletic pro- grams, such as Notre Dame, LSU and Ohio State, have started to reveal their jersey patch partnerships. Earlier July 28, Ohio State announced its partnership with JPMorgan Chase. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Ohio State's deal was expected to yield $17 million per year for the Buckeyes. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports first reported Notre Dame's deal with SoFi is for six years and is worth an average of $18-20 million annu- ally. On3's Pete Nakos later confirmed those figures. The Notre Dame-SoFi partnership will also introduce the SoFi Champions Scholarship, which Notre Dame described as "a comprehensive scholarship program dedicated to walk-on student-athletes, annually rec- ognizing one men's and one women's student-athlete who exemplify ambition, resilience, leadership and service." Each recipient of the SoFi Champions Schol- arship will receive a one-year full tuition scholarship. Notre Dame and SoFi will also create a "student- athlete services hub," which will give access to fi- nancial education, planning tools and personalized guidance and products to student-athletes. "Our '4 for Forever' promise at Notre Dame is para- mount to providing the best student-athlete experience in the country," Irish athletics director Pete Bevacqua said in the release. "SoFi shares in this commitment to developing strong, ambitious leaders who are set up for success at Notre Dame and beyond. Together, our relationship will create lasting value for our student- athletes and their families for generations to come." — Tyler James The Fighting Irish and Trojans agreed to a deal to play for four straight years, starting with a game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Week 1 of the 2030 season. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER NOTRE DAME PARTNERS WITH SOFI IN JERSEY PATCH DEAL Notre Dame signed a six-year deal worth an aver- age of $18 million to $20 million per year with SoFi Technologies, which is believed to be the richest in college athletics history. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER