Dome director sets sked; Big East toplines twofers | by Jay
Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune has a story Sunday morning on our ever-evolving future schedule(s), and he passes on some solid confirmation from White & Heisler on a few scheduling rumors that have been circulating over the last months. The entire article is well worth a read. Here's the nitty-gritty:
• In 2006 and 2007, ND will add a home game in each year to get up to the NCAA's new universal limit of 12 regular-season games. That will give Notre Dame seven home games and five away games both yearsThere are a couple of projected schedules here and here, although I think neither of them are reflecting the new information from above just yet.
• Notre Dame's 2008 schedule was already ticketed for 12 games under the old NCAA stipulations, and its six-home-games and six-road-games breakdown will stay intact, but there already has been some opponent shifting.• A home game against Pittsburgh, for example, was added on Nov. 1 of that year to kick off an eight-year, home-and-home series. And the previously scheduled '08 season opener with Virginia on Sept. 6 has been deleted.
• Beginning in 2009, Notre Dame aims to play seven home games each season along with four road games and a neutral site game that will move around the country and count as a home game as far a gate receipts and TV rights and revenue are concerned. "We'd go to different parts of the country," White said. "Places that don't get to see Notre Dame. Places that tie into bowl games. Places that tie into recruiting. We're really excited about it."
• Beginning in 2011 -- if not earlier -- Notre Dame has committed to playing three Big East teams each season. One of those games will be played in the New York City market, specifically Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where the Irish are 11-0 all-time.
• In the bigger picture, this commitment along with ND's lingering ones means fewer home-and-home series than in the past. As many as three teams each year in the next decade will come to ND Stadium with no return date.
• The Boston College series, set to resume in 2007 after a two-year hiatus, will likely truncate before the next decade rolls around.
• The penciled-in 2009-10 series with North Carolina State has been erased.
• But home-and-homes with Oklahoma and Arizona State in the 2010s have been preserved.
• "With the commitments we have to USC and Stanford, the Big Ten teams, the Big East and to Navy, you can do that math," Heisler said. "There's almost more than you can deal with if you're going to play seven home games every year. We may be Johnny-come-latelies on the seven-home game thing, but I think we just want to be more strategic in what we're doing."
On a slightly different note, something I had missed before: when we announced our 3-game deal with the Big East, apparently we agreed to play every team in the Big East in a home-and-home over the course of the series:
The Irish will play three Big East teams each football season on a home-and-home basis. All eight conference teams will face the Irish.Note that although the SBT says the Big East series starts in "2011 - if not earlier", the Pittsburgh paper says it will start in 2009. The latter seems more likely in light of the sheer number of games we've agreed to play with the BE. We're already signed with Pitt through 2015, so the other 14 games (home-and-home with seven teams) will be spread over seven years, and 2009 looks like earliest year where we've got some wiggle room left.
And finally, there are several rumors that our 12th game for 2006 will be Army. There's a thread on IE from a guy who apparently heard Army's AD talking about it; another thread on the subject on the Army site on Scout.com; and even some speculation from an article on the Army sports homepage (scroll down).
So here's a stab at how where we stand, relying on the new info from the SBT, and cribbing heavily from the two sites mentioned above.
| 2006 | __ | 2007 | __ | 2008 | |||||||||
| 1 | 9/2 | @ Georgia Tech | ACC | 1 | 9/1 | Georgia Tech | ACC | 1 | 9/13 | Michigan | B10 | ||
| 2 | 9/9 | Penn State | B10 | 2 | 9/8 | @ Penn State | B10 | 2 | 9/20 | @ Michigan State | B10 | ||
| 3 | 9/16 | Michigan | B10 | 3 | 9/15 | @ Michigan | B10 | 3 | 9/27 | Purdue | B10 | ||
| 4 | 9/23 | @ Michigan State | B10 | 4 | 9/22 | Michigan State | B10 | 4 | 10/4 | Stanford | Pac10 | ||
| 5 | 9/30 | Purdue | B10 | 5 | 9/29 | @ Purdue | B10 | 5 | 10/18 | @ North Carolina | ACC | ||
| 6 | 10/7 | Stanford | Pac10 | 6 | 10/6 | @ UCLA | Pac10 | 6 | 11/1 | Pittsburgh | BE | ||
| 7 | 10/21 | UCLA | Pac10 | 7 | 10/13 | Boston College | ACC | 7 | 11/29 | @ Southern Cal | Pac10 | ||
| 8 | 10/28 | Navy | Ind | 8 | 10/20 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | 8 | Syracuse | BE | |||
| 9 | 11/4 | North Carolina | ACC | 9 | 11/3 | Navy | Ind | 9 | San Diego State | MWC | |||
| 10 | 11/11 | @ Air Force | MWC | 10 | 11/10 | Air Force | MWC | 10 | @ Boston College | ACC | |||
| 11 | 11/25 | @ Southern Cal | Pac10 | 11 | 11/24 | @ Stanford | Pac10 | 11 | Navy | Ind | |||
| 12th game - Army? | 12th game - Army? | 12th game? | |||||||||||
| _ | |||||||||||||
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | |||||||||||
| 1 | 9/12 | Michigan | B10 | 1 | 9/18 | Michigan State | B10 | 1 | 9/24 | Pittsburgh | BE | ||
| 2 | 9/19 | Michigan State | B10 | 2 | 10/8 | Pittsburgh | BE | 2 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | |||
| 3 | 9/26 | Purdue | B10 | 3 | Michigan | B10 | 3 | Navy | Ind | ||||
| 4 | 10/3 | Washington | Pac10 | 4 | Purdue | B10 | 4 | Michigan State | B10 | ||||
| 5 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | 5 | Stanford | Pac10 | 5 | @ Michigan | B10 | |||||
| 6 | Navy | Ind | 6 | Brigham Young | MWC | 6 | @ Purdue | B10 | |||||
| 7 | Boston College | ACC | 7 | @ Navy | Ind | 7 | @ Brigham Young | MWC | |||||
| 8 | San Diego State | MWC | 8 | 11/27 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | ||||||
| 9 | Pittsburgh | BE | 9 | ? Nevada | MWC | ||||||||
| 10 | 11/28 | @ Stanford | Pac10 | 10 | ? Washington State | Pac10 | |||||||
| +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | ||||||||||||
| _ | |||||||||||||
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |||||||||||
| 1 | Purdue | B10 | 1 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | 1 | Purdue | B10 | |||||
| 2 | Brigham Young | MWC | 2 | Navy | Ind | 2 | Pittsburgh | BE | |||||
| 3 | Pittsburgh | BE | 3 | Boston College | ACC | 3 | @ Southern Cal | Pac10 | |||||
| 4 | @ Boston College | ACC | 4 | 10/5 | Arizona State | Pac10 | 4 | @ Navy | Ind | ||||
| 5 | @ Southern Cal | Pac10 | 5 | @ Pittsburgh | BE | 5 | 10/25 | @ Arizona State | Pac10 | ||||
| 6 | @ Navy | Ind | 6 | @ Brigham Young | MWC | +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | |||||||
| +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | 7 | @ Purdue | B10 | ||||||||||
| 8 | Oklahoma | B12 | |||||||||||
| +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | |||||||||||||
| _ | |||||||||||||
| 2015 | 2016 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Southern Cal | Pac10 | 1 | Purdue | B10 | ||||||||
| 2 | Navy | Ind | 2 | @ Southern Cal | Pac10 | ||||||||
| 3 | @ Pittsburgh | BE | 3 | @ Navy | Ind | ||||||||
| 4 | @ Purdue | B10 | |||||||||||
| 5 | Oklahoma | B12 | |||||||||||
| +2 BE games, 1 in NYC | |||||||||||||
(Oh, and for those of you not familiar with Variety slanguage, take a look here.)
