Friends, we have reached peak college football offseason. Media silly season is in full bloom, the usual obsessive psychopaths are printing their laziest slander, rumblings abound about the future of the postseason, and absolutely nothing fun beyond recruiting is happening. All of this means many of us are starting our countdown to September already, and can’t wait to see Notre Dame back on the football field.
One of my self-appointed roles in my time here at OFD has been to track Notre Dame’s results
against first-time opponents; regrettably, there are no such opponents on the 2026 slate. So in the spirit of helping us all turn our attention toward the season and actually talk football here instead of speculating about political drama contrived by people who hate football and themselves and yet somehow also run the sport, I thought it would be fun to look back at the last time Notre Dame played each of the familiar foes on its upcoming schedule. While there are going to be some painful moments here (you’ve already thought of one) this should mostly be a fun trip down memory lane that we’ll take one week at a time before the season starts. This week, we’re leading off with a banger.
Week 1: Wisconsin Badgers
Last matchup: Sept. 25, 2021 – Notre Dame 41, Wisconsin 13.
To be honest, this game is the true genesis of this article series because it’s such a classic. Meant to be the back half of a pair of neutral-site games pitting the Badgers against the Irish in NFL stadiums in each team’s backyard, this clash at Soldier Field became the opener after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Lambeau leg to this coming season. It was a ranked-on-ranked matchup, as the undefeated Irish at #12 took on a Badgers team that was still #18 despite sustaining a close loss to Penn State in week one.
For the first three quarters it played out like that, in a physical affair where both teams struggled to move the ball (Kyren Williams finished with just 33 yards rushing on 18 carries against a formidable Badger front seven). But then, lightning struck. If you ever need to point someone to the game-changing effect dynamic special teams play can have, look no further than Chris Tyree’s kickoff return for a touchdown with 14:01 remaining in the game, with the Irish down 13-10. Cue the obligatory Gus-Johnson-going-ballistic clip:
From there the floodgates opened, as it turned out new defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was pretty great at his job. A perfectly timed strip-sack on Wisconsin’s next possession opened the door for then-third-string quarterback Drew Pyne, playing as a result of injuries to both Jack Coan and Tyler Buchner, to find Kevin Austin for a touchdown that put the Irish up 24-13. Another stop and field goal drive made it 27-13, and Freeman’s defense delivered the killing blows from there. Back-t0-back Badger drives yielded pick-sixes off Graham Mertz by Jack Kiser and Drew White, and suddenly what had been a close defensive battle became a thrashing. Brian Kelly became the winningest coach in Notre Dame football history, and that of course remains a lovely footnote that we will all cherish forevermore. Amen.
While what was at the time a jaw-dropping result became less impressive as the season went on (the Badgers hobbled on to a respectable, but disappointing 9-4 and were clearly inferior to a Notre Dame team that finished 11-2 and no. 8 in the final AP poll), it is still incredibly satisfying to look back on five years later for a number of reasons.
First, the way the game unfolded was perfect. It stayed close long enough to provide the thrill and excitement of fourth-quarter heroics but quickly turned into a rout, allowing fans to bask in the joy of the sudden domination without the ennui that accompanies the second half of a traditional blowout. All of this made it an immensely enjoyable game to watch, one of those games where you remember exactly where you were and how you felt when it happened.
Then there is the matter of what happened to Wisconsin in the aftermath. It’s hard to imagine given what’s become of the Badgers in the past few years, but in 2021 they were still thought of as a strong challenger on the national stage, riding a years-long run of mostly excellent play through the back half of the 2010s. They had won at least 10 games in five of their previous seven seasons with four Big Ten title appearances (do not ask them what happened in those games) and a couple major bowl wins, back when those were still mattered. The not-home and not-home series between them and Notre Dame was fully intended and expected to be a daunting, marquee matchup in each season, and it was treated that way in the lead-up to this game. But not only were the Badgers exposed against the Irish, they have still never recovered from their unraveling that day at Solider Field.
While the Badgers still had hope in conference play after this game, it effectively ended their chances on the national stage. Those chances have never since been revived. After the aforementioned decent finish in 2021, the Badgers have ranged in subsequent seasons from mediocre to godawful, the zenith of their achievements a Las Vegas Bowl victory, and have posted losing records in the last two seasons. This has happened despite their hiring Freeman’s former boss, who many had tapped as the next big thing and a natural successor to Kelly at Notre Dame – a coach who many believed the Irish would regret not getting when he went to Madison after the 2022 season. Obviously there were plenty of bigger factors at play, but it’s not at all unreasonable to look at this game as effectively the end of Wisconsin’s run as a national contender, which is a pretty powerful hangover for what was at the time just a sound win over a good-not-great opponent.
(Of course one could argue the joke is also on us here, as all this Badger decline has culminated in the long-awaited Lambeau game finally arriving and being treated as a joke, but I’m not going to be a downer about this).
I’d also be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the special place this game occupies in OFD lore. I’ll spare the details but for those of you who weren’t following us then, let’s just say the interactions of staff and posters here with Wisconsin counterparts in cross-posted articles with our Badger sister site revealed some…tendencies among the faithful there that we hadn’t expected, as torrents of vituperative insults were unleashed for the crime of thinking the Irish would win the game. Obviously the Internet is the Internet and I don’t hold any ill will toward Wisconsin in general, but let’s just say it was pretty satisfying to know certain individuals were hurling TVs through their trailer windows as Mertz threw more touchdowns to Irish defenders than his own receivers.
All of this is to say – this was an incredibly fun game which I hope you have enjoyed revisiting here. Full highlights below, and onto next week:
