The new 2020 schedule is out. The ACC announced this morning the dates for its truncated slate, Notre Dame included.
Time to Rally! ☘️
First up? #BeatDuke #GoIrish pic.twitter.com/WKefvHUy0u
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) August 6, 2020
The three big takeaways from a schedule we mostly already knew:
No Navy
We already knew Notre Dame’s 10-game ACC slate, but there’s something especially jarring about seeing an actual list of games and dates that doesn’t include any of the triumvirate (USC/Navy/Stanford) that the Irish have traded 3 annual ACC dates for in normal seasons.
The Irish, who will compete in the ACC for this season, were allowed by conference rule (man, that’s weird to say) to play one non-league game, which had to be in Indiana. It’s not clear to what, if any, extent ND tried to save the Navy game, which had been played annually since 1927. What we do know is that they decided not to and opted to keep the already scheduled home game with Western Michigan instead.
Personally, I would like to have seen the Navy game stay, in part because of tradition but also because it would’ve made the schedule more challenging and interesting. But I suppose in this wild season, one can’t assume a more difficult non-league game means much of anything, since none of the Power 5 conferences will be playing games against each other anyway.
(The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported today that ND and Navy have extended their annual series through 2032, so they’re not going anywhere.)
The schedule distribution is…helpful to ND?
As Pete Sampson wrote today, it’s become something of a running joke that the ACC schedules as many bye weeks as humanly possible for its schools the week before they face Notre Dame. In a normal year, that was slated to again be the case, but with this new schedule, things changed.
First of all, the Clemson game — and let’s be real, that’s pretty much the only one that truly matters when examining this — didn’t move from its original date of Nov. 7. It wouldn’t have been surprising had the ACC moved that one to an earlier date. It might have even been smart if your thinking is that the later games might get wiped out by COVID-19 outbreaks. However, it stayed in the cold-weather month of November, and presuming it remains a night game, will give ND its only possible hint of home-field advantage because of it (assuming no fans are permitted).
In addition, the Tigers, who originally were supposed to be off before Notre Dame, play a game, against Boston College at home. (ND was originally scheduled to host Duke on Oct. 31, but will now travel to Georgia Tech.)
Notre Dame’s own bye week was originally set for Oct. 24, the week in between Pittsburgh and Duke. Now, the Irish will have two bye weeks, both helpfully placed; ND has the week off before hosting Florida State on Oct. 10 and also will take a week off before the North Carolina game on Nov. 27. Besides Clemson, those project as likely two of the toughest remaining three games, depending on how you feel about Louisville or Pittsburgh.
I guess it can pay to be a full conference member, even if temporarily.
Black Friday in Chapel Hill, and a home game in December
One very interesting schedule nugget comes on Thanksgiving weekend, when the ACC scheduled Notre Dame to play in Chapel Hill against North Carolina — but not on Saturday. Instead, the teams will meet on Black Friday. The Irish haven’t played on a Friday since 1981, Gerry Faust’s first season, when they lost at Miami, also on Nov. 27.
ND fans have had to acquaint themselves with non-Saturday games already under the ACC arrangement, with last year’s Labor Day opener at Louisville. ND is set to play on Labor Day again next fall, at Florida State. (Here’s to a completely unchanged 2021 schedule, huh?) While Black Friday has been part of college football for a long while now, it will still be a little different to have the Irish playing on that date and not its traditional Saturday slot against USC or Stanford.
Also, ND will finish the scheduled season at home Dec. 5 against Syracuse. A home game in December. That’s where we are in our brave new world.
Let’s hope these games get played so we can see just how weird this season can get.
I assumed ND had never played a December home game before, but it turns out we are 3-0 in December home games! Beat SMU in 1953, Great Lakes Navy in 1944, and Harvard Prep in 1888 (the only game played that year).
Absolutely dominate December home games.
And if you like UCF’s spurious national title claim, try this one out, keeping in mind Harvard Prep was essentially a high school:
Great breakdown!
Is there any word on whether the NCAA or ACC are going to allow ND to keep 90 players this year, or will there be a handful of last minute transfers / medical decisions?
So this is what it feels like to be Wisconsin. I don’t ever remember beginning a season with three/four games that look like guaranteed wins. It’s always been some kinda combo of Navy (in Ireland), GT, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Nebraska, Texas A&M with an easy one. Yeah, conference schedules, they’re killer man. This set up and out of conference games against The Citadel, and Texas State. So tough!
Yawn. This may be the first season in my life that I don’t care enough to watch a single ND game. The stats on healthy men in their late teens or early 20’s having any significant consequences from COVID are near zero, yet bureaucrats will destroy the season because “ science”.
these players have a greater chance of a life altering physical football injury, of which there are many every college football season, than anything this virus will do to them. So stop pretending otherwise. Play our traditional schedule or cancel the season.
Not sure the science or global stats support “near zero” kiwifan, and there are certainly very grave effects including for younger persons of this quite tricky virus. But I suppose that’s not a good discussion to start, especially from an ocean away. Just let me say at any rate, I for one would love to see our players play. Their results to date on staying virus free free are really impressive to me, and Jack Swarbrick on the webinar yesterday was very properly rendering due hommage to the team’s self-accountability.
The stats absolutely support it, Noise. As for the science, Fauci et all have been all over the map contradicting themselves every other week. Are you wearing goggles yet?
thanks for the Bengal history, I’m not sure I ever heard that before. I was probably incurious at that tender, long ago age.
I logged in just to like this comment.
You have no idea what long-term damage COVID-19 might cause, because none of us do. I’m sorry you’ll have to be bored for a couple months to keep young people safe.
This comment is ignorant.
Off topic, but More Noise, if you’re still reading this blog, do you remember the Bengal Bouts? I loved them, great winter distraction. My roommate fought in them, but has passed. Do you remember why they were called Bengal Bouts? For some reason I’ve been thinking about them and am stuck.
any guesses?
Well, I am indeed still reading, and even providing comments. I am still looking for someone on the staff to do a rundown on the 1918 team, 3-1-2 during a pandemic, followed by one of the greatest decades in US sports history.
Bengal Bouts, yes indeed (and I also had a roommate who boxed in them, he won the middleweight title in fact). They were named that because of the Holy Cross priests’ and brothers’ missionary work in Bengal (now Bangladesh). The priest who baptized me (St Joseph in downtown SB) used to tell us exciting stories about missionary work there.
I mean, of course, the decade of the 1920’s and the ND football team…