Notre Dame reveals replacement matchup for USC on 2026 schedule

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In college football, an even year on the calendar means Notre Dame visiting USC at the Coliseum during the traditional Thanksgiving rivalry week. With the Trojans and Irish sadly not facing each other in 2026, however, that suddenly left both schools with an opening during the best week of the season.

USC will be filling that slot with the Crosstown Showdown at the Rose Bowl against UCLA. Outside of the COVID-impacted years, it will mark the first time that the Trojans end the regular season on the road since 2010.

As for Notre Dame, the Irish revealed their full 2026 schedule this past week, and they will wrap up their regular season (and possibly their entire season, given their recent history with bowl games) with a road game at Syracuse. Hence, instead of traveling to beautiful Southern California, Notre Dame will get to spend Thanksgiving in Upstate New York.

Overall, both schools come out as losers as a result of this. Instead of facing off in a marquee matchup during college football’s premier weekend of the year, USC and Notre Dame will both spend rivalry weekend playing road games against teams that went 3-9 last year and regularly struggle to draw crowds.

On a weekend that will also feature Ohio State-Michigan, the Iron Bowl, Texas-Texas A&M, and many more iconic rivalry matchups, both USC and Notre Dame’s games are likely to get buried, with few other than fans of the involved teams watching. That is incredibly sad to see, especially given how avoidable all of this was.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Notre Dame reveals replacement matchup for USC on 2026 schedule

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