Report: Georgia & ND Working on Football Home-and-Home Series

According to Jeremy Fowler at CBS Sports the long drought of Notre Dame not playing SEC teams in the regular season may be coming to an end in the future. His source says the Fighting Irish are finalizing a home-and-home series with Georgia, possibly for the 2018-19 seasons.

When reached Tuesday, Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity acknowledged verbal communication with Notre Dame about a potential series but stressed there's no agreement in writing and, thus, no reason to get too excited.

McGarity added Georgia is always talking with schools about scheduling.

When asked about the 2018-19 dates, McGarity said meetings for later this decade have been discussed.

"I think it'd be great for the University of Georgia if we were able to make it happen," McGarity said.

Great news if this ends up working out, right? I have to say Georgia would have been in my top 5 teams for Notre Dame to schedule in the future and certainly one of the most appealing out of the SEC. I also like the extra focus of another game in the state of Georgia even if it doesn't expand Notre Dame's footprint outside of the ACC region. There should be plenty of games against Georgia Tech in the state in the future but it's still a really important place for recruiting.

How does this possible series fit into Notre Dame's schedule?

For 2018 we'd be looking at 5 ACC teams plus road games against Northwestern, USC, and Navy with a home game against Stanford.

For 2019 we'd be looking at 5 ACC teams plus road games at Texas and Stanford with home games against Navy and USC.

It'll be interesting to see where these games fit into the seasons. The Bulldogs have an annual late-season matchup with Georgia Tech which would make games against Notre Dame in November unlikely. I seriously doubt Georgia is going to come to South Bend in the last month of the season.

With the Irish opening the 2019 season at Texas I would imagine that would be the year to play Georgia in South Bend. Which means it's quite possible Notre Dame opens the 2018 season in Athens.

If this series gets done it would be Notre Dame's first regular season game against a SEC team since 2005 when the 8th ranked Irish easily dispatched Tennessee in South Bend 41-21. The Irish have faced LSU (2006) and Alabama (2012) in the post-season since 2005 and lost those games by a combined score of 83-28.

Notre Dame and Georgia have only met once before during the 1980 season finale in the Sugar Bowl. That night in New Orleans saw the top ranked Bulldogs led by Herschel Walker defeat No. 7 Notre Dame by the score of 17-10 to secure Georgia's second and most recent National Championship.

If this series goes down it will be Georgia's first visit to the North since 1965 when the Bulldogs beat Michigan in Ann Arbor.