It’s official. ESPN is coming to Notre Dame for week one of the 2018 season to see the Irish and Wolverines battle under the lights of Notre Dame Stadium. After it being rumored for week’s, the official GmaeDay twitter feed made the announcement on Saturday afternoon.
This will be the 29th appearance for Notre Dame on ESPN’s flagship college football show. It will be just the 9th time, however, that ESPN will come to Notre Dame’s campus. The last time ESPN came to Notre Dame was back in 2012 for the Notre Dame – Stanford. ESPN was treated to a thriller that day.
Notre Dame’s most recent appearance on GameDay came just last year when the ESPN crew was live from Miami. The Hurricanes ended up blowing the doors off of the Irish that November night. Hopefully this time around Notre Dame puts on a much better showing.
Overall, Notre Dame has not fared well when involved in a game featured on GameDay. The Irish are 12-16 in their 28 appearances with the last win coming in 2015 when GameDay was live from Philadelphia for the Notre Dame – Temple showdown on Halloween. Prior to that Temple game appearance, I actually wrote on the recent history of Notre Dame on GameDay not being kind.
Back in 2012 prior to the Stanford appearance, I wrote on the full history up until that point in time if you want to read through all of Notre Dame’s appearances from 1993 through 2012.
Notre Dame’s history against Michigan when GmaeDay is on hand is particularly unkind. The Irish are just 1-5 against Michigan in six appearances on GameDay when facing the Wolverines. Four of those six contests, however, came on the road at Michigan Stadium. At Notre Dame Stadium, the Irish are 1-1 with a narrow loss in 1994 and a comfortable victory over the defending national champions in 1998. The last two Notre Dame – Michigan games at Michigan received GameDay treatment.
ESPN has made infrequent trips to South Bend for GameDay over the years as they generally prefer venues where they also have broadcast rights. Since 2005, ESPN has only come to Notre Dame twice – Stanford 2012 and USC 2005. The last drought being seven years before this recent one of six years.
Notre Dame is 4-6 under Brian Kelly in games featured on GameDay. He started 3-1 on GameDay before the BCS Title game started a 4-game losing streak.
ESPN has taken a lot of heat this week for their coverage – or lack of coverage – of the Urban Meyer scandal, but regardless of your opinion of the network, appearances like these are good for the program. They become even better for the program if Notre Dame wins the game. And just as a reminder, the last time Notre Dame hosted Michigan, the Wolverines failed to score a single point.
Whores at the gates. Hooray.
Before He got the AD job at USC, I always loved seeing Patrick Capper Haden do commentary at the NBC home games. He always had this little smirk on his face. I think He enjoyed it very much commenting on Irish home games. I think He would have done it for free.
As far as autographs are concerned and Duranko will like this. One of my brothers who happens to be the biggest Notre Dame fan on the west coast was at Notre Dame/USC game at So. Bend. The USC team bus starts to unload. There is Mike Garret as AD and my brother poses with photo with Him. That photo made it my brothers Notre Dame Wall of Fame.
Come on in, we’ll show you what we can do. Ratings SOAR when the Irish are in a skirmish. Keep the O.
Gameday just makes it that much better. So I’ll watch at my Mother’s house in South Bend (she will be 90 next week). My brothers and I can watch until 5:30 p.m. Then go out to ND. So we go to Legend’s Friday before the Pep Rally, instead of Saturday. I’ve always liked the show, but too often I don’t see much of it because I’m at an ND game. We could watch it on some monitor out there in the ACC or something, or we could see some of it live even…but if I’m going to watch it I’ll really watch, at home, as in a Notre Dame bye week. And I’ll still see enough of it live…I think they’re on and off all the way to kickoff, aren’t they?
I’m not doing the broadcast crew any favors by saying this, but I have Bob Griese’s autograph on a @Purdue program. I saw him get out of the ABC RV in the Gold jacket of ABC. So I went over there and asked him to sign my program, obviously. Then, a million of his own home fans saw what I’d gotten, and they all wanted it too, probably more than me. I felt bad for him, but he was a gentleman until they were all gone. So will there be a Michigan announcer there? It’s even better when the media are there.
BGC ’77 ’82
BGC, always ys loved Patrick Capper Haden doing color work for NBC at Notre Dame home games. He always had that little smirk on his face. You knew he loved doing this and probably would have done it for free.
One of my brothers and Duranko will love this is the biggest Notre Dame football fan of SoCal. He loved going to So. Bend to see the Irish/ Trojan game. He could write a book getting into altercations with Trojan fans. Anyway, the Trojan bus just got in and out came Mike Garrett AD. My brother posed with Mike and that photo made it to my brothers Notre Dame Football wall of fame.
Don’t know much about Notre Dame/ Purdue series. But, what everyone got a laugh out of was the Rome and Everett table overturning incident.