Recently I was going through some old Notre Dame football games and came across the first visit to Neyland Stadium back in 1979. During that game, the Vols had come in having lost 3 out of their last 4 and beat the #13 Irish 40-18. Johnny Majors, only 3 years removed from a National Championship at Pitt, was carried off the damn field.
That got me thinking about the Power 5 stadiums Notre Dame either hasn’t visited yet or hasn’t been back to in a while. From 2009-17 the Irish played 40 games against Power 5 opponents on the road and in only 17 different campus stadiums. Out of that group, 25 games came in just 7 different stadiums.
Notre Dame has a rich history of crossing the country for games but the true road game scheduling could use some work. If you’re interested in more variety like me by the end of this maybe you’ll agree that the Irish shouldn’t be wasting annual games with Stanford and Navy, especially with the ACC commitment that is going to flood Notre Dame’s schedule with the same eastern coast stadiums for years to come.
Still Waiting to Play!
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Alabama
Razorback Stadium, Arkansas
Jordan Hare Stadium, Auburn
McLane Stadium, Baylor
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Florida
Sanford Stadium, Georgia
Jack Trice Stadium, Iowa State
Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium, Kansas State
Kroger Field, Kentucky
Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, Louisville
Maryland Stadium, Maryland
TCF Bank Stadium, Minnesota
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Mississippi
Davis Wade Stadium, Mississippi State
Boone Pickens Stadium, Oklahoma State
Reser Stadium, Oregon State
Amon G. Carter Stadium, TCU
Jones AT&T Stadium, Texas Tech
Lane Stadium, Virginia Tech
Martin Stadium, Washington State
This list is egregiously too long. Notre Dame hasn’t played in almost a third of the Power 5 conference stadiums! They have played several of these teams above at home or neutral sites, including: Alabama, Baylor, Georgia, Louisville, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Oregon State, TCU, Virginia Tech, and Washington State.
Road games were played at Alabama in 1980 and 1986 but that was in Birmingham’s Legion Field. Another road game was played at Minnesota in 1937 at their old Memorial Stadium–that’s two home fields ago for the Gophers. The Irish also played a road game against Ole Miss in Jackson at the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium during the 1977 season–that team’s only loss on their way to a National Championship.
Soon, we’ll be checking off some of these stadiums with Lane Stadium coming up this fall, Papa John’s and Sanford Stadiums coming in 2019, with Razorback Stadium (2025) and Bryant-Denny Stadium (2029) on the distant horizon.
One thing is crystal clear: Notre Dame has largely avoided campuses in the Big 12 and SEC. Auburn, Florida, and Ole Miss are the obvious major stadiums that should be targeted in the future.
How many decades need to pass before anyone feels comfortable scheduling a game on Baylor’s campus?
Waiting on a Return
Memorial Stadium, Kansas, 1932
Memorial Stadium, Indiana, 1950
Wallace Wade Stadium, Duke, 1961
Camp Randall Stadium, Wisconsin, 1964
Memorial Stadium, Cal, 1965
Memorial Stadium, Illinois, 1968
Kinnick Stadium, Iowa, 1968
Ryan Field, Northwestern, 1976
Arizona Stadium, Arizona, 1980
Autzen Stadium, Oregon, 1982
Folsom Field, Colorado, 1983
Williams-Brice Stadium, South Carolina, 1983
Memorial Stadium, Missouri, 1984
Ohio Stadium, Ohio State, 1995
Vanderbilt Stadium, Vanderbilt, 1996
Tiger Stadium, LSU, 1997
High Point Solutions Stadium, Rutgers, 2000
Milan Puskar Stadium, West Virginia, 2000
Memorial Stadium, Nebraska, 2001
Kyle Field, Texas A&M, 2001
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, 2003
Neyland Stadium, Tennessee, 2004
Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia Tech, 2006
Beaver Stadium, Penn State, 2007
Rose Bowl, UCLA, 2007
Husky Stadium, Washington, 2008
Here’s a list of the Power 5 stadiums that Notre Dame hasn’t visited in a while, in some cases a real long while. A return to Northwestern is coming this fall while a long gap in between visits to Duke ends in 2019. For 2020, a return to Atlanta and Bobby Dodd is scheduled.
A little further down the road, Notre Dame will be in Columbus, Ohio in 2022 as well as inside what will be a newly-renovated Carrier Dome in Upstate New York. A couple years later in 2024 the Irish will be in College Station for the first time since Bob Davie was coach.
It’s crazy to me how many Midwestern campuses Notre Dame hasn’t played in decades. What have we been doing all these years? Oh yeah, that’s right playing Purdue and the Michigan schools far too much.
Wisconsin, California, Iowa, Oregon, LSU, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Washington are the places I’d return to as soon as possible. We already know a game in Madison was nixed in favor of Lambeau Field which was a small bummer.
Under what circumstances would Notre Dame play at Rutgers? We’d probably need to see a 300% increase in New Jersey recruits to sell some sort of homecoming for their parents.
I wouldn’t drop Stanford quite yet. 10 years ago, I’d be with you but I really think they help us a LOT right now. They have a big national perception even when they’re down so beating them carries weight. They’re not an auto loss like USC used to be for us and their players seem to treat it like just another big game instead of circling ND on the calendar and giving everything they have to beat us. They still really only care about beating Cal and SC. Navy though, yes, we should drop them. Put up a big rotating door in that spot and start knocking some of these sites off.
Did I see that we’re very close with getting an agreement with Baylor or is that just speculation? That place looks gorgeous from the outside and I’d love an excuse to go see a game there. Never been inside but I drive by it occasionally. TCU is an interesting place. So much wasted real estate at that place and there is literally no parking there. Never been there on a game day so I have no idea how they handle the crowds. Not a big campus so I guess most people park offsite and walk? Tx Tech…ugh. Freaking Lubbock. Looks much nicer since they renovated it but it’s still freaking Lubbock.
I’d put Stanford on a rotation no different than Purdue or Michigan State.
I’ve heard no rumors about Baylor and find it highly, highly unlikely.