Notre Dame Football: Irish will head to Gator Bowl to take on South Carolina

The bowl game lineups are set, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have accepted an invitation to play the South Carolina Gamecocks in the Taxslayer Gator Bowl according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy.

Both Notre Dame and South Carolina finished the regular season with 8-4 records, and they both took down the Clemson Tigers — which are headed to the Orange Bowl to play the Tennessee Volunteers (the most orange of bowl games).

Opening odds from DraftKings Sportsbook are coming soon.

Notre Dame is 1-2 all-time in the Gator Bowl

• 1976 (W) Notre Dame 20 — Penn State Nittany Lions 9
• 1999 (L) Notre Dame 28 — Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 35
• 2003 (L) Notre Dame 6 — NC State Wolfpack 28

While many Irish fans were holding out for a game against Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers, we still get an SEC opponent and one we don’t normally get to see Notre Dame play. The two schools have only met four times (1976, 1979, 1983, 1984) with Notre Dame holding a 3-1 record over the Cocks (ND lost to SC in 1984 in South Bend).

Notre Dame is 7-6 all-time in bowl games against current SEC teams.

We’ll obviously have much more about this game in the coming weeks, but I think it’s one of the more interesting bowl matchups outside the New Year’s Six.