No Matter How Angry Irish Fans Get, Lincoln Riley Proves Notre Dame Wanted To Cancel USC Rivalry

Sorry, Notre Dame fans, but your school backed out of the rivalry with the USC Trojans. Cue the angry emails.

The flood of angry emails has focused around a few former Notre Dame players, as well as some unaware former USC players, who've focused on comments SC head coach Lincoln Riley made in 2024 about putting his team in the best position to win a title. When talking about keeping the schedule as is, he said. "If you get in a position where you got to make a decision on what's best for SC to help us win a national championship vs. keeping that, shoot, then you got to look at it." 

These comments have been widely misunderstood and misreported by sports media outlets, particularly those who are connected to the Irish program. What Riley meant was that the SC administration could look at when the game was scheduled in the season, particularly with the new reality of traveling from Los Angeles to Big Ten road games half a dozen times each year. SC is the only school in the Big Ten, and one of the only associated with a major conference anywhere in the country, to play road non-conference games in the middle of the season. It's a major disadvantage that adds to what's usually an already difficult schedule. 

Riley clarified later on that he did want to play the Notre Dame game continuously, where it "makes sense."

"My very first thought was I get to coach OU-Texas," Riley said. "When I decided to take the USC job, my first thought was I get to coach USC-Notre Dame. Do I want to play the game? Hell yeah. I'm hopeful we can get to the point where it makes sense. The two schools are in radically different situations, one is in a conference."

That's where the "makes sense" part comes into play. Notre Dame has no scheduling concerns. The Irish have no possibility of a conference championship game to worry about. They can play the game whenever, wherever, without it heavily impacting their season. Which is precisely what head coach Marcus Freeman said just a few months ago.

"It’s pretty black and white for me," Freeman said. "You want my opinion? I want to play them every single year. When? I don’t care. I don’t care when we play them: Start of the season, middle of the season, end of the season. I don’t care.

"I want to play USC every year because I think it’s great for college football: that rivalry, USC-Notre Dame. Before I even got to Notre Dame, everybody watched that game. Everybody remembers moments from that game that just stick out in their mind."

Well, as Riley's comments this week exposed, that was not even remotely accurate.

Head coach Marcus Freeman of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Backed Out Of USC Rivalry

There are very obvious reasons why USC would prefer to play the Notre Dame game early in the season. USC in the 2025 regular season traveled roughly 14,600 miles, roundtrip, to play its schedule. The Trojans went 1,800 miles to Purdue. 1,700 miles to Illinois. 1,815 miles to South Bend. 1,270 miles to Nebraska, and 740 miles to Eugene. In 2024, they had road trips to Ann Arbor, Minnesota, Maryland and Seattle. In a year in which they hypothetically make the Big Ten Championship Game, that would mean another ~1,800-mile trip to Indianapolis.

Notre Dame meanwhile, traveled a total of 9,500 roundtrip miles in the 2025 regular season. 1,140 miles to Miami, 575 to Arkansas, 775 to Boston College, 337 to Pittsburgh and 1,922 to Palo Alto. That's a massive difference, particularly with the Stanford road trip not being, shall we say, the toughest game on the schedule. Oh, and that game against the Cardinal has yet to be officially added to the schedule in 2026, even though it would be in South Bend. Why? Who knows, maybe the Irish administration doesn't want to have any long road trips moving forward in order to make the path to the playoff easier.

All this is to say that there's a massive disparity in travel that SC now has to deal with. That's not Notre Dame's fault, of course, but it's reasonable for USC to ask for a compromise by playing the game in Week 0. Instead of adding a long road trip in the middle of a season filled with them, every other year, they could then play the remainder of their non-conference slate in the ensuing weeks. Those would likely be easier games at home. 

Again, for the Irish, this makes no difference. They have no specific reason to care when the game is played. Freeman said as much. And in new remarks this week, Riley said that they took the Irish at their word. And then Notre Dame failed to live up to their word.

"It's pretty simple, we both worked for months to try and find a solution. Notre Dame was very vocal about the fact that they would play us anytime, anywhere," Lincoln Riley said Monday. "Obviously, them not having a conference affiliation gives them an ability to be pretty flexible in their scheduling. We went back, Jen Cohen our AD, went back to Notre Dame a couple weeks ago with a scenario and a proposal that would extend the series for the next two years. We took Notre Dame at their word that they would play us anytime, anywhere. 

After the proposal was sent out, the Irish rejected it. USC made an offer to continue the game, Notre Dame said no. Only one side said they would continue playing the game in 2026. It was USC. Somehow, this is USC's fault. When Riley talks about moving the game around the schedule, that means he and the SC administration want to cancel it. When Freeman says he'd play the game anytime in the season, he doesn't speak for the administration. The excuses never end.

Irish Clearly Did Not Care If Rivalry Game Continued

Another point that was brought up by outside observers is that the Irish already had another game lined up, implying that they were always heading towards canceling the series. 

RELATED: Was Notre Dame Planning On Backing Out Of SC Rivalry All Along?

Riley noticed that too.

"That proposal was rejected," he continued. "Not only was it rejected, but five minutes after we got the call, they announced they had scheduled another opponent. Which I'll give them credit, that might be the fastest scheduling act in college football history."

It's obvious what happened. The Irish, for reasons known only to themselves and a fanbase looking for excuses, did not want to play the game in Week 0. While "negotiating" with USC, they were lining up the replacement game with BYU over the past few weeks. The Trojans thought they were negotiating towards an agreement to continue the series, which is why they had no new opponent ready to announce five minutes after the announcement. The Irish were not negotiating towards an agreement to continue the series, being unwilling to compromise or make even the slightest concession. An awe-inspiring series of events given Notre Dame's special treatment from the College Football Playoff, lack of conference affiliation, and easier travel schedule. 

Clearly frustrated by the blame being placed on USC by fans and players who live in the world of college football that existed 30 years ago, Riley straight up said the Irish backed out.

"So, I know there's been a lot of back and forth on it. I know college football has changed a lot, but that fact is very, very clear that this can all be settled very quickly," Riley added. "Had Notre Dame lived up to their word on playing us anytime and anywhere, we'd be playing the next two years, and looking ahead after that and hopefully continuing the series. 

"They did not follow through on it, thus we are not playing them the next couple of years. We're hopeful something can be worked out in the next few years for the future. We at SC, would love for the game to continue, and we have no problems in following through on our promises in the future."

He'll be criticized for saying this by Irish fans and likely even former USC players who, as usual, have little idea what they're talking about. But he's right. The Irish turned down an offer to follow through on their statements. Repeating that: the IRISH turned down the offer. 

But…It's USC's fault that Notre Dame turned down its offer. It's USC's fault that the Irish had lined up a new team while negotiating with USC. It's USC's fault that Marcus Freeman said that the Irish would play the game anytime, anywhere. It's USC's fault that Notre Dame will now receive playoff guarantees no other program gets, despite remaining independent. It's USC's fault that the Irish realized they could schedule themselves into a playoff berth by guaranteeing 10-12 wins with cupcakes, then avoid the pitfalls of a potential conference championship game loss that others have to deal with. It's USC's fault that Notre Dame finds it financially beneficial to remain without a conference affiliation. 

What's Notre Dame's fault? Nothing, apparently.