As Notre Dame scrambles to clear a logjam in their ’14 football schedule, news from our friends at CSNPhilly.com give us an update on another big change. With the Irish set to open the regular season against Temple in just over a month, Notre Dame planned on returning the favor with a visit to Philadelphia to play the Owls at Lincoln Financial Field. While that game is still set, it’s been pushed back a calendar year to ’15 to accommodate the Irish.
A source confirmed to CSNPhilly.com that Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick and interim Temple AD Kevin Clark have agreed to push their game a year, helping Notre Dame out in their first season playing a five game ACC schedule. Temple will now open next season with a trip to Vanderbilt, per the report.
For Notre Dame, that gives a bit more flexibility in a schedule that still needs some work. After the highly publicized barking of ASU athletic director Steve Patterson, the Sun Devils and Irish have kept their date for next season, with Notre Dame visiting Tempe in November.
That still leaves a few deck chairs to rearrange, with games against Rice and Northwestern tentatively set for next season as well, in addition to ACC dates with Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina and Wake Forest. (Syracuse, not an ACC member as well, was already penciled into the ’14 schedule with a game at the Meadowlands.) Notre Dame already received quite a bit of attention for putting their rivalry with Michigan on hold.
Notre Dame doesn’t comment on schedules until they’re finalized, but Swarbrick has openly discussed the challenges of making preexisting commitments work with the new scheduling pact with the ACC. But the move of the Temple game seems like one of the final chess pieces that need maneuvering.