CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson Director of Athletics Graham Neff and Clemson Football announced today that Clemson and Notre Dame have agreed to a 12-year annual home-and-home series between the Tigers and Fighting Irish spanning the 2027-38 seasons.
“Even in just the last decade, matchups between Clemson and Notre Dame have produced incredibly memorable moments and games,” Neff said. “We have immense excitement for the creation of this 12-year series between these two premier programs, as we know these will be must-see matchups for fans at Memorial Stadium and Notre Dame Stadium as well as television audiences nationwide.”
“We strive to consistently create a football schedule that positions us for success in the College Football Playoff, and that goal requires us to form historic partnerships like this one with Clemson,” said Notre Dame Vice President and James E. Rohr Director of Athletics Pete Bevacqua. “This rivalry has already produced some of the most memorable moments in recent college football history, and our fans deserve these matchups to continue to make those indelible memories.”
The series will feature two of the nation’s winningest programs in both recent history and college football history. Clemson ranks 13th all-time with 808 wins and three national championships, including two in the last nine seasons. Notre Dame ranks fourth in total victories with 962 and has 11 national championships. Since 1970, Notre Dame has 467 wins and Clemson has 458, and both teams have earned three national championships in that span.
Since the inception of the College Football Playoff prior to the 2014 season, the schools have combined for 10 CFP appearances, including seven by Clemson and three by Notre Dame. Both squads qualified for the playoff in 2018, 2020 and 2024, and Clemson claimed additional berths in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019.
Notre Dame will be just the fourth non-conference FBS school Clemson has faced at least 12 consecutive years. It will be Clemson’s first new such series since 1973-87, when Clemson faced Georgia 15 consecutive years. Clemson had previously faced Georgia Tech as a non-conference foe every year between 1962-77 and South Carolina from 1971-2019 following the Gamecocks’ departure from the ACC.
For Notre Dame, this will mark the first time that the Irish have started a series of 12 or more games since 2002. Notre Dame played Michigan 18 consecutive years from 2002-19. The 12-game series with Clemson will be just the third such series Notre Dame has started in the last 35 years.
Clemson is currently riding a streak of 14 consecutive seasons with nine or more wins, the nation’s second-longest active streak and the fourth-longest streak in major college football history. Notre Dame has recorded a streak of eight straight seasons with at least nine wins, the nation’s third-longest active streak.
Excellence in the classroom has also been a common denominator between the two institutions. Only three schools have won the national championship and the AFCA Academic Achievement Award in the same year: Notre Dame in 1988, Alabama in 2017 and Clemson in 2018. Notre Dame and Clemson were two of seven schools to earn the AFCA Academic Achievement Award this past season.
THE SERIES
Clemson holds a 5-3 lead in its series with Notre Dame and is one of just six schools to hold a winning record against the Fighting Irish with a minimum of two games played. The others are Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon State and Nebraska.
The two schools have met six times since 2015, including four meetings in the regular season and two in the postseason. The schools have split the four regular season meetings since 2015 with the home team winning each contest. Clemson is 2-0 in the series in the postseason, taking home victories in the College Football Playoff National Semifinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl in 2018 and the ACC Championship Game in 2020.
At least one of the teams has been ranked in the top 15 in the nation entering all eight previous meetings, and both teams have been ranked in the top 15 in five of those contests, including three meetings of top five teams between 2018-20.
The series began with a two-game home-and-home series in 1977 and 1979 that was executed by legendary athletic directors Frank Howard of Clemson and Moose Krause of Notre Dame.
Notre Dame came to Clemson in 1977 as the nation’s fifth-ranked team and defeated 15th-ranked Clemson, 21-17, behind a fourth-quarter comeback engineered by Joe Montana. The game featured 26 future NFL players, and Notre Dame went on to win the national championship that year.
Two years later, Clemson won at Notre Dame on Senior Day, 16-10. It was just the third time in 40 years Notre Dame had lost on Senior Day. Clemson overcame a 10-0 halftime deficit and took the lead on a 26-yard touchdown run by Billy Lott. At age 31, Clemson coach Danny Ford became the second youngest coach to beat Notre Dame in Notre Dame Stadium, a distinction he still holds.
The two schools did not meet again until 2015 following the ACC’s scheduling agreement with Notre Dame. Clemson’s classic 24-22 victory featured 38 future NFL players, the most total future NFL players in a game at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium to date. In a downpour from the remnants of Hurricane Joaquin, Clemson’s defense held Notre Dame on a two-point conversion attempt with just seven seconds remaining to secure the victory.
Clemson won its third consecutive game against the Irish in the 2018 Cotton Bowl in the College Football Playoff. The second-ranked Tigers beat the third-ranked Irish, 30-3. In the first matchup of undefeated teams in CFP history, freshman Trevor Lawrence threw for 327 yards and three touchdowns, and freshman Justyn Ross recorded four catches for 148 yards and two of the scores.
The schools met twice amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when Notre Dame played as a member of the ACC and competed for a conference championship for the only time in its history. No. 4 Notre Dame defeated No. 1 Clemson, 47-40, in double overtime in the teams’ regular season meeting in South Bend, ending Clemson’s 36-game regular season winning streak. However, Clemson dominated the rematch in Charlotte in the ACC Championship Game, earning a 34-10 win to secure the Tigers’ sixth-consecutive conference title. The teams comprised two of the four College Football Playoff participants that season.
The schools traded home victories in 2022 and 2023. In 2022, unranked Notre Dame beat a fifth-ranked and previously undefeated Clemson team in South Bend, 35-14. A year later, 4-4 and unranked Clemson returned the favor, beating 12th-ranked Notre Dame in Clemson, 31-23, in a victory that pushed Dabo Swinney past Frank Howard for the most head coaching victories in Clemson history.
Clemson Athletic Hall of Famer and Notre Dame graduate Tim Bourret contributed to this release.
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