Notre Dame leaders are cowards for backing out of USC rivalry

The world of college football may be awash in uncertainty, but the past few weeks have proven one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Nobody works like Notre-Dame.

When the Irish were drafted by the College Football Playoff committee and incredibly shut out of the CFP, they refused to play another game this season.

Notre Dame ran away from the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Then came the announcement Monday that Notre Dame would no longer play regularly at USC, essentially ending a 100-year-old rivalry because the Irish didn’t want to change the game dates.

Notre-Dame fled the Trojans.

Call them the Fightin’ Chickens, a once-proud Irish program that demands acquiescence or it will take its ball and go home.

The Irish could have played USC early in the season, but they declined. The Irish could have kept the rivalry alive with a schedule adjustment that would have helped both teams, but they refused.

Many people will blame USC and coach Lincoln Riley for butchering a tradition born in Knute Rockne that stood for 78 consecutive games, not including 2020, the year of COVID-19. This is false. No one has been more critical of Riley than this space, but he’s not the bad guy here.

Anyone who felt the buzz around the CFP first-round games last weekend will attest: This is where USC needs to play. If the Trojans truly want to return to greatness, the goal is to be selected for the CFP. I’m not beating Notre Dame. Not even beating UCLA. It’s all about the tournament.

USC needs to put itself in the best possible position to play on a mid-December weekend, which means no longer being the only Big Ten school playing a major non-conference game in the middle of the season or later.

The schedule has become tough enough already. The Trojans don’t need to make things more difficult with the kind of game no one else in their conference plays.

They need Notre Dame in August, not late October or mid-November.

But it turns out Notre Dame feels it doesn’t need USC at all.

The Irish signed an agreement with the CFP that states that starting next year, if they are ranked in the top 12, they will be guaranteed a playoff spot. They can make the playoffs without risking losing to the Trojans. They can play safe and plan easily and come right back.

USC doesn’t have that luxury. USC is not a guaranteed squat. USC has a 2026 schedule that, even without Notre Dame, is a nightmare.

USC and Notre Dame are preparing to play in a packed Notre Dame Stadium in October 2023.

(Michael Caterina / Associated Press)

Home games against Ohio State and Oregon. Road games at Indiana and Penn State.

USC doesn’t need a midseason game against Notre Dame, which makes that path even more difficult.

USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen said as much in a recently released open letter to the Trojans community.

“USC is the only Big Ten team to play a non-conference road game after Week 4 in either of the last two seasons,” she wrote. “USC is also the only team to play a non-conference game after Week 4 in both seasons.”

Trojans fans love the rivalry. The college football world loves a rivalry. He’s Anthony Davis, he’s Carson Palmer, he’s Bush Push, he’s won Heismans and cemented championships.

But times have changed. The landscape is changing. Everything that college football once stood for is up for debate. Even the most venerable traditions are subject to adjustment.

This is what the Trojans wanted to do. Do not eliminate, but adjust. But Notre Dame football doesn’t adapt to anyone.

It was indeed a travesty that the Irish, winners of their last 10 games by double digits, did not secure a berth in the national tournament. By the end of the season, they were arguably one of the four best teams in the country. They could have easily captured the crown.

Tulan? James Madison? Are you kidding me? As the opening games revealed – both AAA teams were outscored 92-44 – there is no place for Cinderella in the CFP.

But that was no reason for Notre Dame to pull out of bowls altogether, sacrificing the final game of the careers of Irish players who won’t go to the NFL just to make a point of complaint that resonated with no one.

And besides, Notre Dame could have been a playoff lock in another way.

Join a conference, stupid!

By keeping the football team out of the otherwise Irish-infected Atlantic Coast Conference, Notre Dame is raking in large sums of television money that it doesn’t have to share. But it does mean that the Irish are subject to the whims of a committee that could have and did impermissibly leave them out.

Notre Dame always wants to have it both ways. He wants his independence, but also wants to dictate a schedule full of conference-affiliated teams.

By demanding that their game be played in August or not at all, USC ultimately called Notre Dame’s bluff.

And the Irish did what they have done best recently.

They ran.

The team that will initially replace USC on Notre Dame’s schedule?

It’s Brigham Young, the same team Notre Dame snubbed in the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Put it in your toaster and cook it.