After calling a halt to their longstanding rivalry, the USC Trojans and Notre Dame Fighting Irish are talking again.<\/p>\n
The USC-Notre Dame game has appeared to be yet another casualty to the rapidly changing world of college football where storied rivalries have been cast aside int he pursuit of more money and more power. Not even a bid from Netflix could bring the two sides back together.<\/p>\n
But now recent reports have indicated there could be renewed interest and momentum<\/a> towards restoring the rivalry. But if you listen to Colin Cowherd, he has a specific reasoning<\/a> why. It\u2019s because Notre Dame has come \u201ccrawling\u201d back to USC because they are running out of good teams to play on their schedule.<\/p>\n \u201cUSC and Notre Dame are talking again because Notre Dame came CRAWLING back\u2026 USC has all the leverage.\u201d@colincowherd<\/a> reacts to reports that the Trojans and Fighting Irish are in talks to resume their rivalry pic.twitter.com\/TgExJ7pUiP<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Herd w\/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) May 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cUSC and Notre Dame are talking again because Notre Dame came crawling back,\u201d Cowherd said.<\/p>\n After talking about the changing landscape of college football amidst rivalries coming and going, Cowherd proclaimed USC has \u201call the leverage\u201d thanks to playing in the Big Ten.<\/p>\n \u201cMoney is rolling in at USC. They don\u2019t need another cold weather game in October sandwiched between the Buckeyes and the Hoosier games, Penn State and Oregon games, they don\u2019t need it. Notre Dame needs it. Because Notre Dame has discovered as the Big Ten has added Oregon, Washington, USC, and as the SEC has added Texas and Oklahoma, it becomes superconferences. And now because of NIL, even Vanderbilt and Indiana are good. So nobody wants to play Notre Dame,\u201d Cowherd added.<\/p>\n In fairness to the Irish, this has been the conventional wisdom for why they have to join a conference for decades, specifically the Big Ten, and it hasn\u2019t happened yet. However, the Big Ten hasn\u2019t fully committed to laying down their trump card and preventing conference teams en masse from playing the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame has future games planned<\/a> against Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, and Indiana.<\/p>\n On the SEC side, they have games on future schedules against the likes of Alabama, Texas, and Florida just to name a few. When you consider the mandatory ACC games that Notre Dame plays and traditional games against some of the service academies, there aren\u2019t that many slots to fill. But then there\u2019s the whole matter of whether the Irish even needs to really worry about scheduling the likes of USC with their special College Football Playoff exemption<\/a> and a coming expansion to 24 teams.<\/p>\n Yes, everyone in the sport wants the Notre Dame-USC rivalry to resume. But is Notre Dame really\u00a0that pressed to resume talks or as desperate as Cowherd makes it out to be? It\u2019s also worth considering just how plugged in Colin Cowherd<\/a> is to the SoCal scene and USC in particular. When USC first joined the Big Ten, Cowherd straight up advised the school<\/a> to halt their rivalry with the Golden Domers because of their new conference schedule. So maybe this should be taken with a large pinch of Pacific Ocean sea salt.<\/p>\n \t