Notre Dame Signs Two-Game Series With Northwestern For 2014, 2018

by Matt Grecco • Apr 14, 2011 8:59 AM EDT

There isn't a much more fitting place to make an announcement involving Notre Dame and Northwestern than ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning, with Mike Greenberg, a NU alum, and Mike Golic, an ND alum. They had on both Fighting Irish Head Coach Brian Kelly and Wildcat Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald to make the announcement of a two-game series between the two schools, starting in 2014.

The first game will be played on November 15, 2014 at Notre Dame Stadium, and the second game will be played at Ryan Field in 2018, the first time the Irish will play on campus at Northwestern since 1976. The two schools played 4 times from 1992-'95, three of which were at ND, and the fourth was played at Soldier Field in Chicago. According to the official release from Northwestern, the Irish are the most popular non-conference opponent in Wildcat history, 47 times.

This announcement opens the door for Notre Dame to start playing other Big Ten teams other than before their conference season starts, something the conference basically forced teams not to do by not allowing Big Ten teams to play out-of-conference games once the conference schedule had begun. This edict lasted until 2006, when it became commonplace across college football to play 12 games. With the Big Ten having 11 teams, one team obviously didn't have a conference game, so they started playing out-of-conference games during the Big Ten season.

It's a widely held belief in ND circles that the Big Ten made this rule initially so that a game with Notre Dame against a Big Ten school would not upstage a Big Ten Conference game, going all the way back to the '60s and the famous 10-10 tie between ND and Michigan State in 1966, played the same day as the Michigan-Ohio State game. The Fighting Irish often struggle to get BCS Conference teams to play them in November, so this is a great step towards leveling out the Irish schedule.

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