Notre Dame, Michigan State announce home-and-home series for 2026, 2027

The Michigan State vs. Notre Dame football rivalry will soon be renewed. The two teams have agreed to a home-and-home series for the 2026 and 2027 seasons, it was announced on Thursday.

Notre Dame and Michigan State will meet at Notre Dame Stadium on Sept. 19, 2026 and Spartan Stadium on Sept. 18, 2027, with the Megaphone Trophy on the line.

Kickoff times and TV details for the matchups will be announced at a later date.

The two programs have met 79 times in all, with the most recent meeting coming in 2017. Notre Dame earned a 38-17 win in East Lansing that year.

The rivalry started in 1887, and the winner of the game has received the Megaphone Trophy every year since 1949.

Both teams now have new coaches from the most recent meeting. Mark Dantonio was the head coach for the Spartans in 2017. He was replaced by Mel Tucker, and Jonathan Smith is now the MSU head coach.

As for the Irish, Brian Kelly was the head coach in South Bend in 2017, but he left to go to LSU. When he did, ND promoted Marcus Freeman to head coach.

Michigan State is coming off of a disappointing 4-8 season. Notre Dame finished with a 10-3 record in 2023.

EA Sports ranks Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium as No. 21 in Toughest Places to Play rankings

The Spartans will be playing in a difficult environment when they face the Irish in 2026.

Notre Dame is home to some of the richest history in all of college football. That includes their venue that now has one of the better field advantages in the entire sport.

EA College Football 25 ranked Notre Dame Stadium at No. 21 in their Toughest Places to Play. That’s due to how they factored in historical stats such as home winning percentage, home game attendance, active home winning streaks, team prestige, and more.

Notre Dame Stadium was built in 1930. That has this fall being its 94th being in use for the Fighting Irish. Since then, they’ve played 449 games there with the teams posting a record of 335-109-5 (.752)

The space underwent development in 1997 and then again two decades later in 2017.

With those efforts, the program’s games can now hold a capacity crowd nearly 81,000. Beforehand, they could only hold around 59,000 but the $50 million expansion added over 21,000 seats.

Notre Dame Stadium came to be in the penulimate season under Knute Rockne. He got to coach for one season there after working his first dozen years there at Cartier Field. However, many of his touches on the initial designs, including those of the original engineers, remain today.