Lincoln Riley blasts Notre Dame for end of Irish-Trojans rivalry

The ironic thing about dying college football rivalries is that they get hottest just as they begin to go cold.

We saw it happen with Texas-Texas A&M, and we're seeing it now with USC-Notre Dame. The absences of football games brings about a new competition: the blame game.

"It's pretty simple," Riley said at a pre-Alamo Bowl press conference on Monday. "We both worked for months to try to find a solution. Notre Dame was very vocal about playing us any time anywhere, and obviously them not having a conference affiliation gives them the ability to be pretty flexible with their scheduling. Jen Cohen, our AD, went back to Notre Dame roughly a couple of weeks ago with a proposal that would extend the series for the next two years. 

"We took Notre Dame at their word that they would play us any time, anywhere. That proposal was rejected. Not only was it rejected, five minutes after it was rejected it was announced they had scheduled an opponent. I'll give them credit, that might be the fastest scheduling act in college football history."

Riley is referring to Notre Dame's announcement last week of 2026 and 2027 games with BYU, which doubled as a breakup letter to USC. Sources told FootballScoop back in October that USC was optimistic about the series continuing because the Irish "had shown a willingness to play us much earlier in the season." 

"This can all be settled very quickly. Had Notre Dame lived up to their word and played us any time, anywhere, we would be playing in the next two years."

"We would love to play them every single year. It doesn't matter when we play them," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman told FootballScoop back in May. "I would love to continue the rivalry as long as I'm the head coach here."

The irony here is that Notre Dame needs this rivalry more than USC. We saw this year that the ACC is not strong enough to carry a non-perfect Irish team into the College Football Playoff; even a win over USC wasn't enough to get Notre Dame into the Playoff at 10-2. USC also has an opportunity to add a 13th data point against a strong opponent via the Big Ten Championship that Notre Dame does not. And the previously-unreported clause in the upcoming CFP contract that grants Notre Dame an automatic bid if they are ranked 12th or higher gives USC even less of a reason to play ball: can you imagine if a 12th-ranked Irish squad grabbed the last spot over a No. 10-ranked USC team with head-to-head? 

But we've seen this act before. USC now has less reason to trust Notre Dame's leadership, and so the Trojans will be less willing to budge if and when USC counters with a proposal at some point in the future. It's the type of thing that might require a change in leadership on one or both sides of the proverbial table to force a reset of negotiations, considering the lost trust and hurt feelings involved. 

Or, as we saw in the case of Texas and A&M, a forced renewal because one of the schools joins the other's conference.