Notre Dame’s Shamrock Series To Take Hiatus In 2017
According to ESPN reporter Heather Dinich, Notre Dame will have a one-year hiatus from its Shamrock Series game in 2017 before planning to return to that recent tradition in 2018. Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick revealed this news on Wednesday during this spring’s College Football Playoff meetings.
The Shamrock Series began in 2009 with two objectives: host a home-away-from-home game in a major metropolitan market (also preferably a fertile recruiting area) and play that outing in an iconic venue, or a relatively new state-of-the-art facility. Notre Dame is 7-0 in these contests, which began versus Washington State in 2009 at Alamodome in San Antonio — where this year’s Shamrock Series also will be held Nov. 12 against Army West Point.
In between, the Irish played Army in New York’s Yankee Stadium (2010); Maryland in Washington, D.C. (2011); Miami in Chicago’s Soldier Field (2012); Arizona State in Dallas’ Cowboys Stadium (2013); Purdue in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Field (2014); and last year Boston College in Boston’s Fenway Park.
“In all likelihood, we will not do one in ’17 because that’s the opening of the Crossroads and we want to maximize the number of home games, but we anticipate doing it in subsequent years,” Swarbrick told Dinich.
Notre Dame’s $400 million stadium renovation known as Campus Crossroads, announced in January 2014, is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2017.
The 2017 schedule will feature seven home games for the first time since 2010, Brian Kelly’s first season as head coach of the Fighting Irish. It sets up as follows, with the bye week and the home game versus USC not officially yet announced:
Sept. 2 — Temple
Sept. 9 — Georgia
Sept. 16 — at Boston College
Sept. 23 — at Michigan State
Sept 30 — Miami (Ohio)
Oct. 7 — at North Carolina
Oct. 14 — Bye or USC
Oct. 21 — Bye or USC
Oct. 28 — North Carolina State
Nov. 4 — Wake Forest
Nov. 11 — at Miami
Nov. 18 — Navy
Nov. 25 — at Stanford
In Swarbrick’s office is a photo of the 1913 Notre Dame team led by head coach Jesse Harper, who assembled a national schedule that season with trips to Army, Penn State, St. Louis and Texas in November that helped put Notre Dame on the national map. The Shamrock Series is a reflection of that tradition, and Swarbrick has no plans to halt it permanently.
“Since Coach Harper built Notre Dame football, there is clarity about its purpose to promote the university,” Swarbrick told BlueandGold.com last summer. “It’s to benefit the university, and there are few things we do that help do that as effectively as the Shamrock Series.
“It has far exceeded my expectations. People now plan their years around it, want to know when it is and where it is because they’re going to take vacation time. Our ability to go into those communities and really introduce Notre Dame in powerful ways through Mass in prominent Cathedrals, social service projects, academic seminars — it is doing everything we wanted to do and more. It’s a very important part of our future.”