Notre Dame doesn’t comment on schedules until they’re officially complete, but it appears that Temple plans to announce a three-game series with the Irish, according to a report by the Philadelphia Daily News.
Here’s more from the report, which hints at a neutral-site game to be held in Philadelphia:Temple will announce on Thursday that its football team has scheduled what is believed to be a three-game series with Notre Dame, sources familiar with the situation have told the Daily News.
One of those will be held in Philadelphia, although the sources weren’t sure of the timetable for either that or the ones in South Bend. Notre Dame’s schedules for the next two seasons are already set, so the earliest it could start is 2013.
The last time the Fighting Irish played here was 1993, when it beat Navy at Veterans Stadium (58-27).
The Owls already have a similar arrangement going with Penn State, which will visit Lincoln Financial Field this season. The Nittany Lions were last here in 2007. Not shockingly, it was a sellout. The Notre Dame date will be as well. And even if a large portion of the crowd figures to again be rooting for the away team, it’s still a major coup for a program that usually draws in the mid to high teens. And the games at Notre Dame will be on national television, since the Irish have their own network. The one in South Philly should at least be shown regionally. You can’t put a value on that kind of exposure.
This will be the Irish’s first game against Temple and the series could open the 2013 season at home for the Irish. While some may gripe about a program like Temple showing up on the Irish schedule, this is certainly not the same program that was stuck in the gutter through most of the past few decades. Under head coach Al Golden, the Owls won 17 games over the past two seasons before he left for the Miami Hurricanes coaching job.
New head coach Steve Addazzio also has ties to the Irish, spending three seasons coaching in South Bend, working with the offensive line, tight ends and special teams from 1999-2001.