Take Two On Notre Dame’s 2020 Schedule Announced, Navy Not On It
Take two of Notre Dame’s 2020 schedule contained specific dates for 10 known ACC games and revealed the one non-conference opponent.
Most of all, though, it contained one big absence.
The Irish will not play Navy this season, marking the end of 93 consecutive seasons in which the two have met in what has been dubbed the “longest continuous intersectional rivalry in college football.” This year’s game was scheduled to be in Annapolis, Md., for the first time in the series’ history.
But when Notre Dame became an ACC team for this season, it had to follow some guidelines for setting a non-conference opponent as part of the ACC’s 10 conference game, one non-league opponent schedule format. The ACC said all non-conference games must be played in the ACC team’s home state. To play Navy, the game would have needed to move. In the end, it turns out that was not desirable.
“To comply, Notre Dame has elected to play Western Michigan at home on Sept. 19 as its lone non-conference opponent,” wrote Bill Wagner of The Annapolis Capital Gazette. “That meant the Navy game, scheduled to be held over Labor Day weekend in Annapolis, had to be scrapped.”
Notre Dame is instead playing Western Michigan at home for its non-conference game. The Broncos were part of the original schedule. The game will take place Sept. 19, its initial date, and Notre Dame will pay $1.175 million as part of the contract between the two.
Here is Notre Dame’s full schedule:
Sept. 12 vs. Duke
Sept. 19 vs. Western Michigan
Sept. 26 vs. Wake Forest (at Charlotte, N.C.)
Oct. 3 Open
Oct. 10 vs. Florida State
Oct. 17 vs. Louisville
Oct. 24 at Pitt
Oct. 31 at Georgia Tech
Nov. 7 vs. Clemson
Nov. 14 at Boston College
Nov. 21 Open
Nov. 27 at North Carolina (Friday)
Dec. 5 vs. Syracuse
The ACC championship game will be Dec. 12 or Dec. 19 in Charlotte, N.C., between the two teams with the highest ACC win percentages.
The games against Western Michigan, Wake Forest and Clemson are on their original dates.
All told, Notre Dame had original games against USC, Stanford, Wisconsin and Arkansas canceled when their respective conferences chose to play league-only schedules. This season will be the first since 1945 that does not contain a game between the Irish and Trojans. Notre Dame and Stanford had played each of the last 23 years.
Notre Dame and Wisconsin are scheduled to play in 2021 at Soldier Field in Chicago. Irish director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said in a statement last month he hopes they can reschedule this year’s game, which would have been played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. Arkansas and Notre Dame were set to play their first-ever matchup Sept. 12. They are scheduled to meet again in 2025 in Fayetteville, Ark.
The schedule additions were Florida State, Syracuse, North Carolina and Boston College.
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