15 years ago this past October the defending national champions in USC came to Notre Dame ranked first in the nation while the Irish were an upstart squad ranked in the top ten.
What followed was one of the greatest games college football has ever seen as the top ranked Trojans survived by the skin of their teeth and remained unbeaten with a 34-31 win.
It’s been 15 years since that game and Notre Dame Stadium hasn’t hosted a game nearly as big since.
Until now.
Trevor Lawrence or not, No. 1 Clemson travels to South Bend on Saturday night for what will be a heavyweight fight between two of the nation’s top four teams.
Clemson might not be coming off a national championship like USC was in 2005 but they played in the last two title games, winning it all two seasons ago and feature the best quarterback in the college game with Trevor Lawrence as well as a running back as talented as any in the nation in Travis Etienne.
Lawrence won’t be playing Saturday as he continues to recover from COVID-19 but it doesn’t take away the fact that Clemson is still plenty loaded with talent, even if they had to have their biggest home comeback in program history to get by Boston College on Saturday.
Games like this used to be the norm when I was far too young to understand or appreciate it.
From 1988-1993 there were nine separate occasions that Notre Dame Stadium played host to a match-up between two top ten teams. For comparisons sake, under Brian Kelly the only battle of two top ten teams that Notre Dame Stadium has played host to was the 2018 Irish win over Stanford.
What used to be common place for Notre Dame fans to see on campus has become rare.
15 years ago when I took off in the middle of the night from Chicago’s western suburbs to get to South Bend for that incredible USC weekend, I never in 100 years thought I’d be in my mid-thirties, be married and have a child by the time a game anywhere near as big was played at Notre Dame Stadium again.
With that in mind let’s remember this week to enjoy the hell out of being the epicenter of college football for the next week. Even without Trevor Lawrence dressing for Clemson, this is the biggest game at this historic venue in 15 years.
Let’s enjoy the next few days as we lead up to the Saturday night showdown and heck, why not shock the world on Saturday night?
It’s Clemson week.
Welcome to it and enjoy.