Unfortunately, recent college football realignment â there's more this year with the new-look Pac-12 back in action â and expansion of the College Football Playoff field have led teams to look out for themselves more than ever. And it has helped kill some of the sport's best annual rivalries, few of which were more historic than Notre Dame vs. USC.
While the schools will not meet in the 2026 season, I do want to break down the DraftKings head-to-head win total projection and a few thoughts on each program. Notre Dame at -2.5 wins for the 2026 regular season head-to-head is priced -160, and USC +2.5 is +125.
Bet on Notre Dame vs. USC win totals at DraftKings, where new users get $200 when they spend $5+:
This rivalry began in 1926 and had played 96 times since then â including annually since 1946 other than the 2020 COVID season. But they won't meet again, short of a bowl game, likely until at least 2030. Naturally, both sides blamed the other for not renewing the rivalry contract. Now that USC is in a tough Big Ten, it wanted to play this game among the first few weeks of the season when most schools play the entirety of their non-conference slate.
This matchup traditionally had been played in October when in South Bend â the "Bush Push" game is an all-timer â and at the end of the regular season on Los Angeles. Notre Dame apparently had no interest in moving the game up. And clearly the school had a backup plan in the works for a long time as it quickly scheduled a home-and-home with BYU starting this year in Provo. The Irish and Cougars happened to be the top two at-large teams left out of last year's College Football Playoff field.
As a football independent with only five games a season technically spoken for with the ACC, Notre Dame has a ton of scheduling flexibility and had no problem keeping Navy on the slate. USC doesn't have much flexibility playing nine Big Ten games.
It's obviously hard to determine a college football team's strength of schedule, especially in this transfer/NIL era. If we just want to go by combined opposing winning percentage from last season, then the Irish have a huge edge. Their foes were a combined 73-80 (.477) in 2025, while the Trojans' foes were 91-66 (.580).
In early May, CBS Sports' Brad Crawford ranked USC's schedule as the eighth-toughest nationally this season via different metric. Notre Dame wasn't among Brad's 12 listed.
There is no question that the Irish will be a preseason AP Top 10 team and maybe Top 5 as they are +650 second favorites for the national title and have the Heisman Trophy favorite in returning quarterback CJ Carr (+700). They have only four true road games with two at neutral sites.
Coach Marcus Freeman's club opens on Sept. 6 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay as an early 20-point favorite against Wisconsin. The only realistic losses I see are Oct. 17 at BYU and Nov. 7 at home against Miami, but the Irish opened -10.5 on the lookahead lines vs. the Cougars and -7 vs. the Hurricanes.
Remember, for this year the Fighting Irish are guaranteed a playoff spot if they are in the Top 12 of the final rankings. Notre Dame was the first team out of the 2025 field at No. 11. Its win total is 11.5, with the Under at -215. To go unbeaten, it is +160 with No at -192. As long as the Irish don't go worse than 10-2, they should get in and are the biggest favorites to make the playoff at -700.
USC opens Aug. 29 as a 35.5-point home favorite against San Jose State. Under coach Lincoln Riley, the Trojans leads all FBS teams with 15 returning starters, including a national-high nine on offense topped by QB Jayden Maiava, who is +2500 for the Heisman.
With all the hubbub surrounding Riley, USC really has won nothing substantial under him and his seat is certainly warm. The Trojans play five road games and four are tough travel: Rutgers, Penn State, Wisconsin and Indiana. The last is the regular-season finale at UCLA.
And the home slate is no picnic with Oregon, Washington and Ohio State all visiting the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; the only seemingly sure home conference win is against Maryland. That's a hard slate, so we should forgive USC for scheduling SJSU, Fresno State and Louisiana out of conference.
USC's overall win total is 8.5, with the Under at -138, and just in Big Ten games it is set at 5.5. That's obviously going to be the key because the Trojans will be 3-0 out of conference. I just don't see more than nine victories against that slate and another year of missing the playoff â that's a -360 favorite, while making it is +270.
Notre Dame is my pick on this prop, and I think playing it to finish unbeaten offers decent value. In an ideal world, both schools make the playoff and face off in the first round to keep the rivalry going and remind people why it's so important and should be back.
