Full disclosure: I hate talking about conference realignment. College football to me has always been more about the product on the field and the endless pontificating about realignment bores me to tears. The Notre Dame fan inside me reflexively hates anything conference related so I mostly treat these discussions with disdain.

However, I’m making an exception on the because it appear that USC is about to jettison the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. And this isn’t a Texas-Texas A&M or even a Notre Dame-Michigan situation where a dysfunctional relationship prevents future matchups, this is USC walking away from a healthy partnership essentially for reasons of cowardice. No hyperbole, no exaggeration, they’re just tired of having another tough game on their schedule and they don’t seem very bashful about admitting it.

Notre Dame fans should rightfully be pissed about this. Our biggest rival is about to stop playing us for incredibly stupid reasons and it’s going to hurt both schools. I have some thoughts.

This is not another conference realignment casaulty

The biggest smoking gun that the Trojans seem dead-set on killing the rivalry are the leaked negotiation details. Whereas ND is asking for a long-term extension (because duh), USC is only offering a one-game deal which predictably ends right after the last game in Los Angeles. Could they be any more transparent about wanting out?

It’s the cowardice that really does it for me. I’ve seen the comment that this is just another example of realignment screwing up rivalries and this is not one of those situations. Go back to the last round of realignment when a handful of schools found themselves in new conferences. Nebraska immediately stopped playing Oklahoma and Missouri, there was no carve out for those games in the B1G. Pitt immediately stopped playing West Virginia and Texas A&M famously stopped playing Texas. It sucks that those rivalries ended, but those were the circumstances. People seemed to understand that WVU or Pitt weren’t playing because of conference BS and not because one of those schools was scared of losing to the other.

USC just played in their first season in a new conference and now suddenly realized they have to get rid of this game. Isn’t it just amazing how they had that epiphany after a 6-6 year and their 10th loss to ND since 2010?* Forget the fact that Riley had been not-so-subtlely hinting at wanting out of this game even before the 2024 season. And you can’t forget about the travel concerns! Oh won’t anyone think about the poor boosters footing the bill for Southern Cal’s cross country team to make the trip to Piscataway? If only they’d had a heads up that they’d have to travel more.

Notre Dame did not force USC along with its hapless accomplice UCLA to shoot the Pac-12 in the head (metaphorically speaking) before jumping ship. Notre Dame did not force USC to join a conference where they would have to travel to the opposite end of the country. Notre Dame did not force USC to hire a coach who is quickly becoming one of the biggest weiners in college football. Don’t listen to those morons claiming ND is to blame. There’s only one school trying to weasel out of this game.

*Fun Fact: Notre Dame has scored as many non-offensive touchdowns against USC the last two games of the series than USC has wins against Notre Dame since 2010.

USC is Self-Immolating

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: there is no way this arrangement works out long-term for USC. They are screwing their fans, their players, and ironically enough their championship hopes by walking away from this matchup. This is a once-proud program accepting their place as a mid-level B1G team while saying loud and clear, “We’re nothing special!” They’re not even the best West Coast program in the conference.

It honestly boggles my mind that some Southern Cal fans are legitimately happy that the rivalry is ending. They seem to be making the same mistake as every other conference fan who believes conference play is somehow inherently more difficult than non-conference games. As if the simple act of playing in a conference raises your opponent ratings by 5 points on CFB 25. It’s the silliest reasoning for conference affiliation and yet it’s always the go-to argument for Notre Dame haters.

The B1G has become so bloated with way too many teams that you would be lucky to play two of Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State/Oregon a year. The reality is that most B1G schedules will look like IU’s last year with one game against Ohio State and eight matchups against .500 competition. USC fans who think getting rid of ND = more games against the best of the B1G are living in a fantasy world. You aren’t replacing ND with an annual game against Ohio State, you’re replacing them with Fresno State and Tulsa. Nothing else is changing.

USC has basically decided that their identity as a proud athletic institution matters less than TV money. They’re willing to lose ticket sales, economic growth, and (hopefully) fan support because that Big Noon kickoff cash flow is too important. Whereas ND has always used independence as a North Star to inform the direction of the program, Southern Cal has outsourced their future to a conference which will never truly accept them. Our biggest rival is choosing to die a slow death and frankly, it’s frightening to watch.

This Reeks of another Big Ten Vendetta

It’s probably cesspool of social media speaking but the reaction of a certain sebsect of fans to this news seems to be… happy? All because this move hurts Notre Dame and anything that hurts Notre Dame must be good. For most of these people, USC ending the series seems like a surefire way to finally force the Irish into the B1G. My response to that line of thinking:

Notre Dame joining the B1G in football or being forced into the conference would probably go the same way as the countries which were forced into Imperial Japan’s economic sphere in 1939. For all the talk about shared identity and brotherhood, ND will likely be treated like absolute garbage every step of the way. Call me paranoid but the B1G is a league of Machiavellian schemers. The conference leadership had no problem trying to strangle the Big 12 in 2010 and just kicked the Pac-12’s corpse into a pit, do you really think they would have ND’s best interests at heart over the likes of Michigan and Ohio State?

I understand if you’re reading this and saying “that’s a load of crap, why would the B1G do that?” It seems hard to believe that one of the two premier conferences in America would treat arguably the most valuable brand in the sport badly. But please remember that we are not dealing with rational people. Notre Dame’s independence has broken a lot of brains and unfortunately some of those broke brain people have power within the B1G.

The Irish would be walking into a conference that is run by schools who are actively hostile to the University of Notre Dame. And I’m not talking about things that happened 100 years ago. Bo Schembechler and Joe Paterno both made it very clear in 1990 that ND was not welcome and the current league coaches still won’t shut up about it. Don’t you guys think it’s weird that they want Notre Dame to join so badly but also despise everything the university stands for?

Please keep this in mind: The B1G does not, and has never seen Notre Dame as a partner. To them, Notre Dame is another scalp to collect. It is the last remaining shiny object that Jim Delany never got his hands on. They don’t seek partnership, they seek our submission. This isn’t about playoff slots or extra data points or financial measures. This is about putting Notre Dame in its place. It’s about flexing the power to end that pesky run of independence. They don’t want what’s best for us just like they don’t want what’s best for USC.

Throwing away 100 years of history for what, exactly?

I don’t need to go into all the reasons why the Notre Dame-USC rivalry is special. You’ll get to read all of that in the dozens of post-mortem articles that’ll come out when Southern Cal pulls the plug. Instead, I just want to summarize how insane this decision is and how much it sucks for Notre Dame.

I mentioned earlier that there is no way this works out for USC and that’s because it doesn’t solve their biggest problem. USC’s biggest problem as a football program is that they’ve forgotten how to win. Aside from a handful of seasons with Sam Darnold and Caleb Williams, USC has been a 7-5 team from 2010-present. They haven’t been nearly as bad as Notre Dame from 1997-2009 but they’ve definitely been more disappointing considering the players who have cycled through that program.

SC’s leaders seem to have fallen into a fallacy that less hard games = more wins yet that only works if you’re already a winning program. Dropping Notre Dame from the schedule is not going to help you beat Maryland or Minnesota. Getting better players and coaching them up will, though! Hell, that might even be enough to challenge Ohio State. Consider this hypothetical: if Notre Dame had dropped the USC series in 2009 would that have helped the Irish beat UConn or Navy? Get a better team and you won’t have to stress as much about playing good programs.

I’m not going to sugar coat it: losing this game would be a blow to Notre Dame. Jack Swarbrick could’ve canceled this series in 2012 when the Trojans had won 9 of the last 10 games and the Irish were entering a FWB relationship with the ACC. But that was obviously never on the table and we have been rewarded by turning the tide of the rivalry. Losing this matchup is losing a barameter matchup and an important tentpole game for Notre Dame’s schedule. The Clemson deal is fine, but it can’t replace the Jeweled Shillelagh.

This rivalry survived the Great Depression, a World War and a global pandemic. It probably would survive the coming AI wars and the heat death of the universe. But it can’t survive one side losing the will to fight on.