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INSIDE THE LINES USC not playing Notre Dame is despicable The rivalry will be put on pause for several years, sparking heated discourse. The rivalry will be put on pause for several years, sparking heated discourse. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. Real Madrid C.F. and F.C. Barcelona. Not only are these eight teams household names, but they are also involved in arguably the biggest rivalries in their respective sports. For college football, you could argue Ohio State and Michigan are the most well-known rivalry. Or maybe Auburn and Alabama. But perhaps the most storied and fantastic college football rivalry is USC and Notre Dame. No matter where you rank USC and Notre Dame on your top rivalries list, it’s probably in the top five. However, it may drop over the next couple of years, since the two programs will not face each other until Week 1 in 2030. Yes, that’s right — 2030. By 2030, who knows what the world will look like? The Olympics will have come and gone through the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum two years prior. By the way, the Olympics are still two years away. So, why does it matter, you may ask? Well, the historic USC and Notre Dame game has been beloved by students, alumni and the world of sports for a hundred years. The fact that the Class of 2030 will not see a single game between the two schools while they are in school is flat-out wrong. The Class of 2031 will be in their final year of college the next time USC plays Notre Dame, and the majority of those students are still in high school. It truly is unfair to the students who look forward to that game. The students currently enrolled in these two universities will not get to see the two programs play each other until after they have graduated. Not only are the students impacted, but the alumni are as well. Both schools have vast, well-connected alumni networks that live and breathe their alma maters. While four years might not sound like a long time, the millions of dollars poured into these football programs tell a completely different story. Even if you’re not a fan of USC or Notre Dame, these two schools owe it to college football and the sports world to play this game. Since 1926, these schools have played each other 95 times — the only exceptions came during World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no reason to call off the rivalry for four years just because the schools don’t agree on its exact conditions. If you’re not sure who to blame, let me help you: The blame lies with both schools. USC revealed they wanted the game to be played before Big Ten conference play during negotiations in fall 2025. They refused to budge on that stance. Athletic Director Jennifer Cohen even went so far as to say in the November State of Troy newsletter that football would play at least one Power Four school during the first three weeks of the 2026 season, which didn’t happen either. They failed to schedule Notre Dame during the upcoming seasons and failed to secure a Power Four opponent. Meanwhile, Notre Dame said it did not want to play earlier in the season against the Trojans, despite being an independent team and thus free from any conference restrictions. They wanted to keep the same timeline as previous years and play the game during October or November. After another round of failed discussions in December, the Fighting Irish instantly pivoted and added a two-game series against BYU for the upcoming two seasons, breaking off the historic rivalry. Despite all of this, both head coaches, USC’s Lincoln Riley and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, said how badly they wanted to play the game over the past couple of years. Yet neither coach nor program took enough action, effectively postponing the series. They can say all they want about the “anytime, anywhere” idea of playing each other, but the fact is that it is a blatant lie, and both programs know it. If it was an “anytime, anywhere” deal, college football would have the Fighting Irish taking on the Trojans at the Coliseum this year after Thanksgiving. Nonetheless, a four-year deal is something to look forward to … in 2030. What was once ranked as a top-15 rivalry in all of sports, the Jeweled Shillelagh series will have to wait for quite some time to crown a new champion. Gird your loins, everyone. It’s going to be a long four years. Dillon Zamperin is a sophomore writing about USC sports and the bigger picture of it all in his column, “Inside the Lines.” He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan. We are the only independent newspaper here at USC, run at every level by students. 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