Miami Interested In Helping Fill Notre Dame Football’s 2020 Schedule

In the last week, Notre Dame has lost three games from its 2020 schedules as conferences across the country are scrambling to try to salvage a college football season this fall.  For the first time since the Big 10 was the first domino to fall in a “conference-only” schedule movement, we have news of a program wanting to add someone to add Notre Dame to its schedule – the Miami Hurricanes.

According to a report from the Miami Herald, the Hurricanes would be very interested in playing Notre Dame this fall.  Miami lost one of its out of conference games again Michigan State last week too.

“We will work with the ACC on creating the best schedules possible for our programs,” James said in an email to The Miami Herald on Saturday. “If the opportunity for a match up with ND is presented, we would be thrilled to have that game added to our 2020 schedule.”

Miami’s contest with Michigan State was set for September 26.  Notre Dame is currently scheduled to travel to Winston Salem to take on Wake Forest that day.  Given that’s an ACC game, though, there could be some flexibility there if Notre Dame ends up playing an ACC-only schedule this fall.

The ACC has not officially announced it will be playing only conference games yet as the Big 10 and Pac-12 did, but it seems likely that is their next move.  If they do, Miami will have a whole three more bye weeks in September to fill up.

Facing Miami wouldn’t exactly be a one for one replacement for the Wisconsin game or make up for losing traditional rivals USC and Stanford, but the two programs do have a lot of history.  Most recently, Notre Dame walked into a buzzsaw in Hard Rock Stadium in November 2017 and had their playoff hopes demolished in front of a nationally televised audience.

All-time, however, Notre Dame holds an 18-8-1 record against Miami in 27 contests.  Before the beating they took in 2017, the Irish had won four straight against Miami dating back to 1990 when the two schools ended what had become a bitter and hostile rivalry.

Of course, all of this is predicated on there being a 2020 football season, and with each passing day since the Big 10’s announcement last week, there has not been any sort of positive news indicating a season is more likely than not.

Even this hypothetical game against Miami seams like fantasyland right now when the state of Florida just set the dubious record of most single case diagnoses of coronavirus for any state in the country – surpassing the old record of New York’s that looked like it would be the highwater mark of this pandemic months ago.  Florida, however, has asked every other state to hold their beer as the cases skyrocket and their hospitals fill up.

How do Jack Swarbrick and Brian Kelly even contemplate facing any team program from the state of Florida right now while keeping the safety of their players in mind? It seems highly, highly unlikely right now, baring some sort of massive change in the next few weeks.  Unfortunately, the trend lines are going in the wrong direction right now.

Football-wise, this would be a great matchup not just for Notre Dame but for college football.  The two have a fascinating history, and even though Miami was only 6-7 last year, they are expected to be much improved this year with the addition of transfer quarterback D’Eriq King.  Right now, though, it seems like this could all just be speculation that is all for naught.