Urban Meyer details how Notre Dame scheduling philosophy has evolved

Notre Dame has taken some ugly losses in recent years, to teams the Irish expect to be beating. Be it Marshall, a Stanford team that finished 3-9, or Northern Illinois, some surprising teams have upset Notre Dame.

But once upon a time, Notre Dame wasn’t even playing such foes. The schedule, as one-time Notre Dame football assistant Urban Meyer recalled, revolved around playing the top teams in the nation, all across the nation.

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“I mean, the scheduling philosophy was, because I remember asking, ‘Why are we playing these teams?’ And they break the country in four quadrants, this is what I was told by an assistant athletic director. And you pick the best teams in those four quadrants,” Meyer said on “The Triple Option” podcast. “Because there’s something called subway alumni at Notre Dame. Notre Dame is a small school, Mark. Only 6000, 7000 students. But they’re subway alums, which means they’re not actually graduates, but there’s Notre Dame fans everywhere. And Notre Dame feels an obligation to go to the four quadrants of our country and go play.”

Meyer continued, noting the sort of regional and national powerhouses that the Irish would play.

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“So when you think about Notre Dame’s schedule of old, they’d play, obviously USC, Stanford, Washington, Arizona State and the best teams in the West. Then you go in the Southwest, you’d play Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and the great teams there. And then you go to the Southeast and you’re playing Miami and Florida State. And then you go to the East and you’re playing Penn State and back when Syracuse — looks like Syracuse is coming back on — and Boston College. I remember asking, ‘Can we play a MAC school? Or every once in a while get a breath?’ And they said, ‘We don’t do that.'”

That trend started to shift, though, under former head coach Brian Kelly.

And Meyer thought it made sense to soften up the schedule, especially as making the BCS title game or getting in the College Football Playoff — both things done easiest by just going 12-0 — became the goal. But it certainly leaves the door open for some ugly losses like the one the Irish took this past weekend.

“I believe Brian Kelly changed that scheduling philosophy a little bit, which made sense because the BCS, now the playoff era, the objective is to get into the BCS or the playoff or now the 12-team playoff,” Meyer said. “So it’s interesting and, you know, I really like Marcus Freeman. He’s a friend, he’s a young coach. That’s a tough first job, man. But when you look at Marshall, that Stanford loss and Northern Illinois, I’ve been on the backside of we were picked to win by a lot and we lost and it’s devastating man, it’s devastating.”