The road to resuming the historic rivalry between USC and Notre Dame football was not quick or easy, but after over two long years of discussions and negotiations, the two schools came together Aug. 3 to announce that the rivalry will return on Aug. 31, 2030, during Week 1 of the college football season.

The highly touted Jeweled Shillelagh series will resume in a little over four years with a four-year deal agreed upon, spanning 2030 to 2033. 

The deal states that during the first two years, the two schools will play each other in Week 1, while in the final two years of the deal, the games will be played within the first three weeks of the season. The 2030 and 2032 games will be played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, while the 2031 and 2033 games will be played in South Bend, Indiana, at Notre Dame Stadium.

Two years of failed proposals and discussions

USC’s decision to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten in June 2022 prompted concerns about the rivalry’s continuation. By the time the Trojans officially joined the Big Ten in August 2024, USC was already struggling to find room to play the Fighting Irish due to its new and more demanding conference schedule.

From 2024 to the end of 2025, USC was set on not playing non-conference games from late September through the rest of its season to instead focus on the Big Ten schedule. In fact, the Trojans went so far as to propose playing the game during Week 0 since their conference schedule takes up nine games every season.

This significantly limited Notre Dame, which instead wanted to keep the tradition of playing either on the third Saturday of October in South Bend or on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Los Angeles.

With Notre Dame being an independent team and free from any conference restrictions, the program has to sign deals to play with every team. Limiting the game against USC to only the first few weeks of the season was another reason for the Fighting Irish to reject USC’s many proposals.

Despite USC Head Coach Lincoln Riley’s and Athletic Director Jennifer Cohen’s unwavering willingness to play, the new conference brought a much harder schedule for the Trojans and ultimately a desire to change tradition. Riley, Cohen and others in the program believed that a potential loss late in the season, such as to Notre Dame, could risk USC falling out of College Football Playoff voters’ minds.

Along these lines, the CFP selection committee had already guaranteed an automatic playoff spot to Notre Dame if it finished inside the top 12 during the 2026 season as an independent team. USC officials reportedly did not know of the guarantee, but once they were made aware, they felt it was a “material advantage” for Notre Dame, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Throughout the process, both teams stated their desire to play each other, including Notre Dame Head Coach Marcus Freeman, who discussed extending the series as early as May 2025.

“It’s pretty black and white for me. … I want to play them every single year,” Freeman said to reporters last year. “When? I don’t care. I don’t care when we play them: Start of the season, middle of the season, end of the season. I don’t care.”

By the time December 2025 rolled around, the two schools still could not come together. Less than a few hours after the Fighting Irish rejected the final proposal, Notre Dame agreed to a two-year deal to play BYU in 2026 and 2027, postponing the series against USC indefinitely at the time.

“We took Notre Dame at their word that they would play us anytime and anywhere. That proposal was rejected,” Riley said in an interview before the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29.

USC gets its wish to play early

Negotiations would not restart until partway through 2026 and eventually come to fruition in early August, with USC getting its wish of playing Notre Dame in the first few weeks of the season, prior to any conference play.

Although Notre Dame is not a Power Four school, it is still treated as so, and the return of the game in 2030 will guarantee a more competitive game before the Big Ten season starts. 

Despite Cohen’s desire for USC to secure a Power Four team for a pre-conference matchup coming up short in 2026, a school with a similar stature guaranteed across four years will likely be a commodity for the Trojans.

USC will kick off its 2026 campaign at home on Aug. 29 at noon against San Jose State University in a rare Week 0 game.