Notre Dame and USC Canceling their Rivalry is Everything Wrong About College Football

Notre Dame and BYU announced a home-and-home series between the two schools starting in 2026. The announcement of this series filled Notre Dame’s final open spot on their 2026 schedule, meaning they have officially ended their rivalry series with USC, which has taken place each season, aside from real-world cancellations such as World War II and COVID-19.

USC is catching a lot of flak for this move, as they are the leading force in ending this rivalry. They believed the CFP Committee put too much significance on late-season losses, and no longer wanted to play Notre Dame late in the year, where they wouldn’t be able to rebound off a loss. They also did not wish to add extra travel to their schedule, as they had already logged significant travel miles since joining the Big Ten.

From a surface-level point of view, this is a lame move by USC. They ended one of the most historic rivalries in college football because they were scared to lose. That should be the main takeaway; however, in the current college football landscape, how can you blame USC for removing a ranked out-of-conference game from their schedule?

In the Big Ten, you’re likely to play one of Ohio State, Oregon, or Indiana every year. Outside of those three teams, there usually are 2-3 other ranked matchups on the docket each season as well. Why should USC be tied down to a difficult road matchup every other year? Notre Dame won’t join a conference, so they need to find challenging matchups to fill their schedule; it’s not the same issue for USC.

However, this shouldn’t even be an issue, and that’s the entire problem with the current state of college football.

The sport should go back to being more regionalized. USC shouldn’t be traveling to the East Coast every other week to play Big Ten schools. They should be playing their regular Pac-10 schedule and also playing their rivalry game against Notre Dame.

I don’t believe we got close to having our 12 best teams in the playoffs this year because of mega conferences. You should be playing most of your conference every year, and if you miss playing one of the bigger teams, you'd better be prepared to face them in the conference championship.

A team like Texas A&M played one team in the top half of the SEC, and they got smoked. Texas, on the other hand, ran through a gauntlet and had a trip to Columbus on their schedule. In no way were the Aggies one of the best seven teams in the country this year; they were the beneficiaries of an easy conference schedule. They aren’t the first team, and they certainly won’t be the last to benefit from the mega conferences scheduling them lightly.

Just last year, Indiana was blown out in their only meaningful regular-season game, and then they were blown out in their playoff game as well. A smaller conference slate would fix many of these issues, so we can see which teams from a given region are the best.

I hate to be the old man who yells at clouds, because we’re never going back to how things were. It’s just a shame to see how college football will continue to change for the worse just so these universities can chase another dollar.