Notre Dame vs USC will never be the same again
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
The Notre Dame vs USC Rivalry, or comminly known as the Jeweled Shillelagh Rivalry, has survived a world war and a global pandemic — but it still might not survive Lincoln Riley and this new age of college football.
Well… at least in the way most of us have come to enjoy it as fans of either school or as college football fans in general.
The announcement on Tuesday that Notre Dame and USC will resume the rivalry in 2030 fell a little short of the mark (even by today’s standards). The announcement only included 4 season’s worth of games and is still 4 seasons away. That’s not a schedule of a rivalry — it’s a schedule agreement with a team you’re familiar with to one degree or another.
A four year pause is much too long of a timetable to be able to return to a place that this historic rivalry belongs. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and they also say that time heals all wounds. As a 48 year old that has lived a full life, both of those sayings are absolute bullshit. As it pertains to college football, however, the absence of rivalry creates a two-folded issue. For fans, the return can definitely amp up the game, but for the players… that yearly ball of hate and desire just isn’t there — which leads to a flatter performance of the rivalry by both squads.
We all know Lincoln Riley and Jen Cohen are the main drivers for the series ending after last season. He had been talking about getting out of that game for a couple of years, and we don’t need to relitigate it. Riley is a phenomenal coward and had a real Notre Dame problem — so he ran and cried to momma (Jen).
But that’s not the point now. Why wait until 2030 to renew the series? Why not in 2028?
Notre Dame already capitualated in regards to moving the game to the first few weeks of the season despite there being ABSOLUTELY NO REASON the game had to be moved other than USC crying about it. Is this Notre Dame standing on its ground here? Is Lincoln Riley just trying to buy time before he gets out of LA so he doesn’t have to face the big bad monster — his daddy, Marcus Freeman? Or, is it because everyone is waiting on the possibility of a 24 team playoff to make the regular season pretty much worthless?
The answer is likely a combination of all three, but with a heavy emphasis on the last point.
This rivalry will NEVER be the same.
The lingering hate and spite and consequence of playing every year but one since 1946 will be gone, and the high stakes of national championship implications late in the season is gone.
The greatest intersectional rivalry in all of sports (not just college football) is gone. If the two teams don’t find a way to play in 2028 and 2029, the 2030 game will have all of the hype and pageantry of the past, but so much of it will be hollow — especially if there is a 24 team playoff.
The rivalry is basically dead, and it was murdered by the same man that once murdered a brisket and try to pass its zombie flesh on to his family and friends. Lincoln Riley is a war criminal, and probably deserves 50 years of multiple hornet stings on his eyeballs as a consequence.
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos