Notre Dame-Wisconsin Series Trying To Find Right Timing
For most of the 20th century and through the first five years of the current Brian Kelly era, Notre Dame playing anywhere from three to as many as five Big Ten opponents was a regular staple of the school's football schedule.
In 2015, however, the Fighting Irish did not play an original member of the Big Ten conference for the first time since 1907. The reasons were mainly two-fold.
One, Notre Dame became a partial football member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which generally entails playing five ACC members per year in addition to the “untouchable” rivalries with USC, Navy and Stanford.
Two, the Big Ten went from an eight- to nine-game conference format, giving it fewer non-conference home-and-home options outside the league.
Notre Dame vice president/director of athletics Jack Swarbrick nevertheless has made efforts to have consistent Big Ten representation on the Irish slate in the years to come. The next addition is expected to be the Wisconsin Badgers, per numerous reports and first revealed by the Chicago Tribune. Green Bay Packers President Mark Murphy at a shareholders meeting earlier this week confirmed that he expects an announcement to be forthcoming about Notre Dame and Wisconsin playing a two-game series at Lambeau Field and Soldier Field.
"We've been working on that for a while, and I would hope very soon we'd be able to announce something soon," Murphy said.
Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez was Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator during the school-record 23-game winning streak that included the 1988 national title, while Badgers head coach Paul Chryst’s brother Rick is a 1983 Notre Dame graduate and former commissioner of the Mid-American Conference.
The meeting would likely occur in the early 2020s. So far, Wisconsin has only one non-conference game scheduled in 2020-21 (home and home with Syracuse), after filling up both 2018-19.
The tricky aspect for Notre Dame is in 2020 it already has 11 games scheduled, but only five are at home: Duke, Clemson and Louisville from the ACC, plus Arkansas and Stanford. Meanwhile, the Fighting Irish have six on the road with Wake Forest, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Navy (at East Rutherford) and USC. A game versus Wisconsin also would be on the road either in Chicago or Green Bay. Seven travel dates for a Power 5 Conference team would be deemed ridiculous.
Notre Dame does at least already have six home games scheduled for 2021 (Toledo, Purdue, Georgia Tech, USC, Navy and North Carolina), so a game with Wisconsin at a neutral site would seem more tenable. From there, it's finding the right timing for a second game, if indeed the first is played in 2021.
Since last season, Notre Dame has scheduled at least one Big Ten member of the conference through 2027:
2016: Michigan State
2017: at Michigan State (Sept. 23)
2018: Michigan (Sept. 1), at Northwestern (Nov. 3)
2019: at Michigan (Oct. 26)
2020: at Purdue (Sept. 19)
2021: Purdue (Sept. 18)
2022: at Ohio State (Sept. 3)
2023: Ohio State (Sept. 23)
2024: at Purdue (Sept. 14)
2025: Purdue (Sept. 13)
2026-27: Michigan State (dates, times and sites to be determined)
Among the 14 current Big Ten members, Wisconsin has the second-longest gap of playing Notre Dame. The two most recently met in the 1964 opener at Madison in head coach Ara Parseghian’s debut for the Fighting Irish, a 31-7 Notre Dame victory.
The University of Minnesota easily has the longest hiatus among Big Ten schools on the Notre Dame schedule, with their most recent meeting occurring in 1938.
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