For the first time since 2001, Michigan and Notre Dame will not meet on the gridiron. The two Midwestern powers have no plans to meet anytime soon, either. The Wolverines have non-conference games scheduled all the way out through 2027, but Notre Dame is not one of them.
Irish head coach Brian Kelly, though, thinks that’s about to change.
“I think we’re going to see it happen,” Kelly said on NFL Network’s Rich Eisen Show Wednesday, via The Sporting News.
Unnatural as it may seem to those of us weaned on college football within the last two decades, Notre Dame-Michigan not playing is actually more of the norm than the opposite. Though the series dates all the way back to 1887, the clubs have met a scant 42 times in the 128 years since (Michigan holds a 24-17-1 lead). But for a brief pre-World War II home-and-home, the programs did not meet at all between 1910 and ’77.
But, still, college football is more interesting when its two winningest programs meet on a semi-regular basis. Notre Dame’s head coach is on board and, considering how in-tune with his program’s history he is, Michigan’s probably is, too.
“I think it’s trending up. It’s something that we need to get in line to get that going,” said. “I think that’s something that everybody wants to get going and get Michigan back on the schedule. … I think that sentiment is coming back to the forefront of where college football needs to be and some of those classic rivalries coming back together. I know we’re going to be working hard to see if we can get that done.”
Are you listening, Texas and Texas A&M?