It’s hard not to make note of the timing of this announcement from Notre Dame on Thursday: The Irish will play Ohio State in a home-and-home series in 2022 and 2023.
That’s Ohio State, Michigan’s biggest rival. Arguably Michigan’s second-biggest rival (hear me out, Michigan State fans) is Notre Dame. Michigan and Notre Dame play their final scheduled game this Saturday in South Bend.
Notre Dame and Ohio State will play in Columbus on Sept. 3, 2022 and in South Bend on Sept. 23, 2023. The two storied programs have met five times, with the last meeting a 34-20 Ohio State win in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl. The Buckeyes and Irish played a home-and-home series in 1995 and 1996, too, and their first meeting was one an early iteration of the “game of the century” back in 1935.
“I am excited we are able once again to bring these two programs together on the football field,” Notre Dame vice president and athletics director Jack Swarbrick said. “Football games between Notre Dame and Ohio State make great sense from a strength-of-schedule standpoint. In addition, with (Ohio State athletics director) Gene Smith having both played and coached football at Notre Dame — and with (Ohio State head coach) Urban Meyer having served as an assistant football coach at Notre Dame — there are some obvious, high-profile connections between our two institutions.”
Ohio State will have a monster non-conference schedule in 2022 and 2023. In addition to Notre Dame, the Buckeyes play against Texas in Austin in 2022 and welcome the Longhorns to Columbus in 2023, and also will play Boston College at home in 2023. Ohio State has done an excellent job scheduling tough non-conference opponents in the future, too: The Buckeyes play a home-and-home against Oklahoma in 2016 and 2017, play Oregon State in 2018 and have a home-and-home with Oregon in 2020 and 2021.
In terms of Big Ten opponents, after playing Michigan State in East Lansing in 2017 Notre Dame plays Northwestern in 2018 and re-starts the Purdue series in 2020 and 2021. The Boilermakers are not on Notre Dame’s schedule in 2022 and 2023, but return in 2024 and 2025, so Notre Dame will get back to playing annual Big Ten opponents for at least the first half of the next decade.
For the first time in over 100 years, Notre Dame will not play a Big Ten team in 2015. The Irish play a home-and-home series with Texas in 2015 and 2016 and have a home-and-home with Georgia in 2017 and 2019.
