Some games get scheduled. Others get circled. Nebraska and Notre Dame announced this week a home-and-home football series for 2032 and 2033, the first meetings between the programs in more than three decades and a pairing that belongs on any list of the sport’s classic intersection of history, pageantry and travel.
The Fighting Irish will visit Memorial Stadium on Oct. 30, 2032. The Huskers will return the trip to Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 29, 2033. “The series with Notre Dame is the type of matchup that college football fans circle on their calendars years in advance,” Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen said. “Our fans have a tremendous appreciation for the history of college football and iconic venues. We are excited to welcome Notre Dame and their fans to Lincoln in 2032, and I know our fans will travel to South Bend in full force in 2033.” That last line is not throwaway language in this state. Anyone who was in South Bend on Sept. 9, 2000, already knows what “full force” looks like.
Nebraska holds a slim 8-7-1 edge in 16 previous meetings. The programs played 11 straight seasons from 1915 to 1925 and split those games 5-5-1. Notre Dame won in 1947 and 1948. Then the series went quiet until the 1973 Orange Bowl, when the Huskers beat the Irish. Nebraska has won the three most recent meetings.
The last home-and-home came in 2000 and 2001. In South Bend, No. 1 Nebraska survived a 27-24 overtime thriller in front of a crowd that included an estimated 30,000 Husker fans who turned Notre Dame Stadium into a borrowed home game. Eric Crouch scored three times, including the seven-yard winner in overtime after the Irish had rallied on special teams. The next year, Nebraska won 27-10.
The Huskers now have nine scheduled games against Power Four opponents between 2028 and 2035: Arizona (home in 2028, road in 2031), Oklahoma (road in 2029, home in 2030), Notre Dame (home in 2032, road in 2033), Cincinnati at home in 2033, and Oklahoma State (home in 2034, road in 2035). That is the kind of schedule construction athletic departments talk about when they say they want September and October to mean something again: games that fill the stadium, travel well on television, and give recruits a reason to picture themselves playing for them.
Six years is a long time in college football. Rosters will turn over several times. Coaches may change. The playoff will keep evolving. None of that makes Oct. 30, 2032, any less of a Saturday people in this state will plan around. Memorial Stadium will be loud that afternoon. A year later, the same fans who painted South Bend red in 2000 will try to do it again. That is the promise Dannen made, and it is the part of this announcement that will sell tickets, fill buses, and start arguments from now until kickoff.
