Notre Dame and Texas have agreed to cancel a pair of games to be played in 2019 and 2020. The timing of this news is rather ironic with Notre Dame and Texas A&M announcing a future series in 2024 and 2025, but the two scheduling adjustments appear to be nothing more than a coincidence.
As first reported by FBSchedules.com, the ultimate resource for college football scheduling news, Notre Dame owes Texas a cancellation fee of $150,000. Notre Dame and Texas are still scheduled to play games scheduled for 2015 and 2016 as part of the original four-year scheduling agreement. Next season’s meeting will be played September 5, 2015 in South Bend, Indiana. Texas will host Notre Dame on September 3, 2016.
In June, after rumors and suspected negotiations taking place, Notre Dame announced a home-and-home series with Georgia for the 2017 and 2019 seasons. The series with the Longhorns was immediately thought to be on thin ice as a result, and now we see why. The schedule started to fill up for Notre Dame with little flexibility to keep another road game at Texas on the schedule due to a five-game agreement with the ACC and games against Georgia, Navy, USC and Stanford booked. Notre Dame attempted to move the game with Texas, but the two sides apparently could not get on the same field.
This is not the first time Notre Dame has bought out of a series, of course. The Irish also backed out of future games with Michigan last fall. This season’s meeting in South Bend was the last game between the Wolverines and Irish on future schedules.