Notre Dame, Texas Cancel 2019 and 2020 Football Games

By Kevin Kelley -

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Texas Longhorns have canceled their football games in 2019 and 2020, FBSchedules.com has learned through an open records request.

Per an invoice dated July 10, 2014 from The University of Texas at Austin to the Notre Dame Athletic Department, games in 2019 and 2020 were canceled and Notre Dame owes Texas a cancellation fee of $150,000.

Back in 2010, Notre Dame and Texas announced a four-game, home-and-home series. The two were scheduled to meet in South Bend on Sept. 5, 2015 and Sept. 12, 2020 and in Austin on Sept. 3, 2016 and Aug. 31, 2019.

According to a copy of the original four-game series contract, the cancellation fee is $150,000 if “notice of cancellation is received two years or more before the scheduled date of the cancelled game.” That fee goes up to $500,000 if the notice of cancellation is received “more than one year but less than two years” and $1 million if received “one year or less” from the date of the canceled game.

After we tweeted the Notre Dame-Texas 2019-20 cancellation earlier today, Notre Dame Insider confirmed the news.

The two schools still plan to meet in 2015 and 2016 on the aforementioned dates.

The cancellation of these two games stems from Notre Dame adding Georgia to their football schedule in 2019. With five ACC games, USC and Navy, plus Georgia and Stanford on the road, the Irish no longer had room on their slate to play a road game at Texas.

Notre Dame senior associate athletic director for media and broadcast relations John Heisler told the South Bend Tribune in June that the Irish were attempting to move the games rather than cancel.

“We’re hopeful that we can move those games somewhere down the road into the next decade,” Heisler said. “We’re trying to create as much variety as we possibly can and let our fans see as many teams as they can.”

Obviously Texas didn’t want to move the games out into the future leaving Notre Dame no option but to go ahead and cancel.

Steve Patterson, the athletic director at Texas, is no stranger to contract issues with Notre Dame. When he was A.D. at Arizona State, he reached a settlement with the Irish to save their 2014 game in Tempe but agreed to cancel the return game in South Bend in 2017.

The cancellation of these games leaves Texas with no announced non-conference opponents in 2019 and 2020. Guess who else doesn’t have a game scheduled yet for 2020? Texas A&M.

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Comments (37)

Texas wouldn’t “rather play U. Incarnate Word”. UT has had exactly one FCS team on the schedule since you could consider a team FCS or 1-AA and has Notre Dame and Cal for 2015-2016 (along with 1 C-USA team each year), USC and Maryland for 2017-2018 (along with UCF in 2017), Arkansas in 2021, Ohio State in 2022-2023, and Michigan in 2024 and 2027. They’re not avoiding the Aggies for lightweights.

However UT (and many of their fans) WOULD probably prefer to see Florida State (who they’ve never played), Florida, LSU, Oregon, or Alabama (who seems unlikely since they’ve played exactly 2 home/home series since 2003… but maybe a neutral site game I guess)… maybe Penn State if they start getting things back on track as their the marquee game. Perhaps teams like NC State, Syracuse, Minnesota, Northwestern, or Vandy as second games (since they’re a handful of teams that Texas actually has losing records against). Michigan State (who Texas has never played in football), Virginia Tech (who has a winning record against UT as well), and Stanford (who won the last meeting between the two teams and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth the way it happened) would all be candidates as well, though it’s a little tougher to peg them as “marquee” or as “second” games this far in the future since they’ve all been top-tier at some points and not at others recently.

If NONE of those big marquee names are available… then, sure, we could look at A&M. I have no issue playing them… in fact I think that ALL of A&M’s longstanding rivalries should still be being played every year… but a series with Oregon, Florida, or LSU just sounds more exciting. A series with Alabama or Florida State has larger national implications. Texas vs A&M would get hyped because of the absence of the series, but in any of these match ups were to align with the teams being top-tier… the national match ups would generally get even more buzz.

These comments and the sentiment that goes with them are exactly why Texas A&M left the Big 12 behind. Now an SEC contender, there is no reason to play an irrelevant football team from Austin. With that said, by 2020, UT will likely be on an upswing as they only play Oklahoma and the other 9 teams in the Big 12 wait 10 (let’s see how many teams in 2020). A&M should play t.u. just to give them an idea of how far the gap between the teams has become. ESPN could replay the massacre on the Longhorn network to try and recoup lost TV money and Aggie nation would just move on as if nothing had changed because if you have not heard #WRTS!

It’s time to schedule Texas-Oregon (2025/26), Oklahoma-Oregon (2023/24) and Alabama-Oregon (2022) at neutral site Levi’s Stadium.

I dunno, Ricky. I think Alabama has a long-term commitment to Florida Atlantic that would make that difficult.

Kevin, I wouldn’t call it a “contract issue.” There’s a provision in the contract that the games can be canceled. ND canceled, per the terms of the contract. Now, if they refused to cough up the $150k, that would be a contract issue.

Texas needs to play BYU again (home and home)…. just redeem themselves. BYU also needs the games in 2016 and 17.

Notre Dame is a bunch of chicken pluckers.They should be forced to join a Power Conference in order to qualify for ANY BOWL GAME and/or THE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES.Football wise the ACC does not qualify as a Power Conference.

I’d rather see my Longhorns play home/home series than neutral site games. I’m not against them playing a neutral site once in a while when there’s an odd gap between home/home series (that happened this year because Arkansas asked to postpone further the 2nd half of their series with them and they needed a decently big name on the schedule, so they scheduled UCLA in Arlington), but I like having big teams play here in Austin, and I like the opportunity to go check out the opposing stadiums, tailgating, traditions, etc…. at least as long as the experience isn’t as bad as it was at Ohio State. Winning was fun. The crap that went on before and after the game sucked.

Wow I remember just a couple of years ago, these four games were suppose to be proof of the fact ND wanted to create a yearly rivalry with Texas. Along lines of those with Stanford and USC, giving them permanent access to the Texas recruiting area. Orangebloods even went so far as to claim it was part of a larger plan where ND was going to join the Big12. The only two truly national teams finally creating a permanent partnership. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

When did Texas become a national team? They do sell a lot of TShirts but don;t they usually spend the year trying to get in the Alamo Bowl and watch OU carry the Big 12 conference.

ND does want a presence in Texas!~ that’s why they scheduled A&M for a two game series – t.u. loses two games, A&M picks up two games!~ longhorns are used to that in the Big12-2-2+2!~ GigEm!~

Maybe ND should put some work into fulfilling its commitment to schedule BYU to two home-and-home series (4 games). It appears what ND says and what ND does are two different things,

Until ND joins a conference proper, they will not receive the blessing of many CFB fans. But I doubt they care about that. ND is a narcissistic program.

If Alabama will only play marquee games at neutral sites, then play a game at Levi’s Stadium. The Tide’s SEC ‘brethren’ has more balls as to scheduling. Between Alabama, Notre Dame and Texas I don’t know which program is more narcissistic.

If you mean “marquee games” as in large national attention or a very big game that can make or break a season, I would agree. I don’t think Levi’s Stadium plays a neutral site game (I may be mistaken) but may in the future. That game may be played by two teams from the PAC-12 or BIG-12. I don’t think Alabama, Notre Dame or Texas are arrogant, I just think the game is changing a little or a lot, these teams are just trying to stay big in name so kids will come & play for them & as in “brethren” & more balls of scheduling, I have not found that to be true.

When the Big 10 refused to consider ND in the 20’s, ND looked around and said “We’ll take all comers, East coast to West coast, we’ll take a train and come to you.” Teams like USC, Nebraska, Army, Navy etc, stepped up. ND built the first nation-wide audience. It is a private national university, so recruiting needed national exposure and travel. ND has been successful at both without needing to be part of a conference. By successful I mean in terms of wins, win percentage, championships, Heismans, All-Americans, players drafted into the NFL, athlete graduation rates and revenue. If you had none of these things and still had the revenue, one could argue you still wouldn’t need a conf. But when you’ve had all these successes, after having taken a huge chance in the 20’s by going it alone, why join a union?

Agree with most of what you said, until the last sentence…ND never really decided to “go it alone” the 20’s. In fact they struggled to make ends meet for decades. In the 30s they tried to join the Great Western Conference (now the Big Ten) but were blackballed by Michigan and Ohio State (largely due to anti-Catholic sentiments that were prevalent at that time). One of the reasons ND has chosen to favor continuing series with Purdue and Michigan State is because those 2 schools kept ND on their schedules back in the 30s when UM and tOSU threw ND to the curb. Along came WWII and ND (a school of 700-800 men) would have closed down if not for the US Navy turning the campus into a large officer training facility (pre-cursor to NROTC). Following the war and the return of Frank Leahy from the Navy (along with a lot of war-hardened vets) is when ND took off both on the field and off (financially). Up until that time, going it alone was not what ND needed or desired. The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s unfortunate, but eventually, ND will be forced to join a conference for football purposes. Scheduling is going to be difficult if not impossible. Disney/ABC/ESPN abhors the fact that they have not televised a game from South Bend since 1991…hates it!!!! America despises anyone or anything that is “different”. It always strives to make everyone and everything look and feel the same…for better or for worse. It does so out of a false sense of “fairness”. Rightly or wrongly, most college football fans believe that ND has an unfair advantage with it’s NBC TV deal. The truth is that they would have made more money joining the Big Ten with its colossal BTN deal. They chose the deal the ACC offered them for reasons other than money that made more sense and were in keeping with the overall mission of the University of Notre Dame. However, it’s just a matter of time until the powers that be force ND to water down it’s brand, built almost primarily due to it’s ability to be an independent, and look just like every other college football/athletic program….sad.

Well, I did a little quick research on future schedules (nothing series) and think that Texas scheduling a home-and-home series for 2019-2020, is narrowed down to Arizona State (Pac-12), Nebraska (B1G), Wisconsin (B1G), Auburn (SEC), Missouri (SEC), and Texas A&M (SEC).

Those are the best home-and-home series that I could see, that would be available for the Texas.

I’m not that deep into each schools, or any one school, scheduling or feeling towards another school, so I’m hoping to get some replies on this message. I LIKE TO SEE WHERE OTHERS STAND.

Ole miss vs Texas 2019-2020 would be awesome……..Texas fans loved the Grove and ole miss loved Austin for the 2012-2013 series.

Doesn’t surprise me in the least.The Domers are overrated sissy pants who like to think they are way better than they are.After all they cancelled the last two games with the mighty Wolverines didn’t they in favor of playing the mighty ACC Teams.To have this sissy pants school even in consideration for a big time bowl game or the National Title is an absurdity but then what do expect from the NCAA.?

The Fighting Irish just don’t want to fight the big guys anymore. Stay Independent, and keep getting rid of the better opponents one way or another. And the Notre Dame “backs out” beat goes on………..

You guys are crazy! Look at what their schedule included coming into this season…Mich, Stanford, USC, ASU, Florida State, Louisville. Northwestern too. Regardless of how each team’s season played out, you can’t tell me they don’t schedule tough. Next Year it’s Texas, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Stanford, USC. Georgia, Ohio State, A&M, Mich State, Miami va Tech all on the docket down the road. Give me a break. Haters always gonna Hate.

“Backed out” of Texas games to play Georgia is a step tougher, not easier.

Wow, it is funny to see how many t-sippers are still sore about A&M leaving the Big-12. The fact of the matter is the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry is no different than most state schools. Oregon-Oregon State, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, Florida-Florida State, Georgia-Georgia State, etc. These are great rivalries for their state and the fans love it. Texas A&M has all along said they would welcome the rivalry to continue but Texas will have nothing to do with it. Either they don’t want their fans to have the experience of playing against their hated rivals or they are just plain scared.

why doesn’t it surprise me that the chicken head golden domers canceled at least part of another series.they’re looking for paisies to pad the record of their irrelevant somoke and mrrors football program.

Texas is rebounding … Notre Dame would rather face Georgia than a Texas team clicking on all cylinders. Fear is what caused them to drop those 2 games and nothing more.

Old article read but so funny. People spending sooo much time and energy talking about a team they claim has no relevance. Hmmm Hook’em. Step children of both conference’s.

The Domers are sissy pants.They’re looking for High School like JV teams to play so they can beat the snot out of them.No respect AT ALL,NOT ONE BIT,for these frauds.