Rice University announced recently that they will be playing one road game at Notre Dame during the 2014 season.

It is unknown yet on which date the game will be played.

The Fighting Irish have played Rice 4 times in history, with Notre Dame winning all of the games and outscoring the Owls 147-16.

The last meeting between these two schools was in Notre Dame's 1988 national championship season. The Irish won that game 54-11 sandwiched in between tight victories over Navy and Penn State.

Odds are the Rice game will be added as the first game of the season. If it is, the 2014 will look something like this:

vs. Rice

vs. Michigan

vs. Purdue

OPEN

@ Syracuse (Meadowlands)

vs. Stanford (date not set yet)

@ Temple (Lincoln Financial)

OPEN

@ Arizona State

@ Navy

vs. Pittsburgh

vs. Northwestern

OPEN

@ USC

Thoughts:

1) At first glance, this is a very manageable schedule. Does that upset your or do you breath a sigh of relief? I tend to fall on the latter side.

2) 1 team needs to be added and there is chatter that the games with Pitt and Syracuse might be in jeopardy, due to those programs moving to the ACC. I've also heard that the game against Army in Orlando is off---any word on that?

3) The start of the schedule is unusual for Notre Dame with so many home games. If Rice is the opener that's three straight in South Bend which hasn't happened in God know's how long. That is followed by 4 "road" games as it stands now---two of which will be played in NFL stadiums---with a third (Navy) likely being moved to an NFL stadium as well. I put the Stanford game in there because it will probably be placed in there somewhere to break up the travel.

4) Swarbrick will likely have to add at least one top 40-ish program before this schedule is set, and possibly two if Pitt or Syracuse are dropped. But who? And where?