With the Pac-12 moving to a conference-only schedule, the Trojans will not be playing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for the first time since 1945. They didn’t play in ’45 because of World War II. In fact, the Trojans didn’t play the Irish from 1943-45. That was the last time the two teams did not meet in the regular season. To talk about this psychic blow, and this unwelcome void on the 2020 schedule, Trojans Wire reached out to Nick Shepkowski, editor of Notre Dame Fighting Irish Wire site.
1. How is the cancellation of the USC game being received in South Bend?
Disappointment but understandable. Not only will it be strange to not have USC (or Stanford for that matter – played every year since 1997) on the schedule, what’s even odd is the Irish will be playing what could very likely be an entire ACC schedule despite remaining independent.
2. USC fans have been saddened by the loss of a key rival game. What’s the general feeling by the fans and players about not playing this game for the first time since 1945?
Disappointment. There might not be any love loss between the two programs, but historically speaking the two are as dependent on each other as any rivals in college football are. Without the long history with each other the past of both programs struggle to reach the blue blood caliber both are in. Midwestern and Southern California people might not see eye to eye on much, but I’m fairly sure I speak for both parties when I say that missing out on this rivalry for a year just sucks.
3. How will the loss of this game affect the Irish in their bid for a postseason shot, if at all?
If anything it helps. USC was supposed to be better this year — yeah, we’ve heard that before — but that was probably Notre Dame’s third toughest game in 2020 behind Clemson and Wisconsin. Even in recent undefeated seasons (‘12, ‘18) that trip to LA on Thanksgiving weekend has brought a couple real scares against some pretty formidable USC squads.
4. How badly do you think conference-only scheduling will have an impact on the way we process the postseason as a whole?
No way to judge conference superiority if all they do is play themselves. I think this year especially you have to expand the playoff and have every conference champion in because there is simply no way to actually tell the strength of any conference if no OOC games are played nationwide.
5. Let’s be honest: How excited were Irish fans to play Clay Helton one more time?
It’s nice to finally know what it was like when USC got to take advantage of playing Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis all those years. Y’all miss Coach O yet? Whoops.