Notre Dame Trying To Emulate Ohio State; Schedules Toledo For 2021

Notre Dame has a lot of aspirations. Each year, the goal for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program is to make a spot for itself in the College Football Playoff. While Notre Dame has yet to accomplish that feat, they were supposed to in 2014, and had a real shot in 2015. It probably won’t happen this year (sorry to be a spoiler).

Good teams that are looking to accomplish something great without already having already done so- look to the teams that have for ideas and inspiration. Now here comes the inspiration...

Yep, Notre Dame is dipping into the MAC for the third time in 100 years. Laugh if you want, but the Ohio State Buckeyes have been scheduling Ohio-based MAC schools for well over 100 years- schools like the Toledo Rockets.

This is not a joke.

Notre Dame will play Toledo in South Bend in 2021. The rest of the schedule looks like this:

9/6 @ Florida State
9/11 TOLEDO
9/18 PURDUE
10/09 @ Virginia Tech
11/20 GEORGIA TECH
11/27 @ Stanford
NAVY
SOUTHERN CAL
NORTH CAROLINA
@ Virginia

That’s 10 schools, so if my math is correct, that leaves two more opponents left to schedule for 2021 (our current recruiting class might see these games as 5th year seniors).

Now, if you’re still thinking that scheduling a team like Toledo is boring or no big deal, to win championships teams need games like this scheduled. I mean and offer no disrespect towards Toledo here, but if we are just being honest, Toledo isn’t a power five team and can be used as schedule padding. I’m just saying what you are all thinking.

One other thing might be obvious here. Toledo could be the Shamrock Series opponent if that ever really becomes a thing again. YOU’RE LOOKING LIVE AT NOTRE DAME VERSUS TOLEDO IN BEAUTIFUL CLEVELAND OHIO AT FIRST ENERGY STADIUM.

Believe it.