8/20/2020 football Edit

Report: Notre Dame Adds South Florida To 2020 Schedule

Lou Somogyi • InsideNDSports

Senior Editor

The University of South Florida Bulls have been added as Notre Dame’s lone non-conference game for the 2020 football season, per a report by Irish Illustrated’s Tim Prister.

The Bulls are slated to visit Notre Dame Stadium Sept. 19, although the Fighting Irish have yet to officially declare the meeting. That Sept. 19 date had been originally filled by Western Michigan before its league, Mid-American Conference, opted to postpone its football season until the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Notre Dame Fighting Irish players coming out of the tunnel before a game — Notre Dame reportedly added a sixth home game this season with South Florida Sept. 19. (Andris Visockis)

The Fighting Irish themselves had canceled Wednesday’s practice, after the school announced this Tuesday that it was going exclusively to online classes the next two weeks to help determine the future of the fall semester after a recent spike on campus in positive COVID-19 tests.

South Florida is a member of the American Athletic Conference (AAC) and now under first-year head coach Jeff Scott, who had been with the Clemson Tigers since 2008, the last five as co-offensive coordinator while winning two national titles and finishing runner-up two other times, including 2019.

Meanwhile, his newly hired Bulls offensive coordinator is 27-year-old Charlie Weis Jr., son of former Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis (2005-09). Weis Jr. had held the same position the past two years at Florida Atlantic under head coach Lane Kiffin, who is now at Ole Miss. Last year the Florida Atlantic Owls finished 11-3 with an offense that ranked in the top 20 in scoring and total offense.

South Florida fired third-year head coach Charlie Strong — a Notre Dame assistant in the late 1990s — after a 4-8 finish last season.

This would be the second meeting between the two schools. The first was one of the most infamous games in Notre Dame history, a 23-20 defeat in the 2011 season opener in which Notre Dame Stadium was evacuated twice because of lightning threats and heavy storms, causing a total delay of game action of two hours and 53 minutes.

No. 16-ranked Notre Dame committed five turnovers in that game while South Florida, coached by Fighting Irish alumnus Skip Holtz, son of 1986-96 Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz, had zero. The Bulls finished 5-7 that year while the Irish under second-year head coach Brian Kelly were 8-5.

If the deal gets sealed for 2020, the schedule would be as follows: