Newsstand: USC coach Lincoln Riley reveals whether he would like to continue Notre Dame rivalry

On Wednesday, Southern Cal coach Lincoln Riley made his pitch to keep the battle for The Jeweled Shillelagh Trophy alive. At Big Ten Media Day, founder of The Inside Zone, Matt Fortuna , asked Riley if he would like to keep the Notre Dame rivalry game on the schedule now that USC is in a new conference. Here is what Riley said:

“I would love to,” Riley said. “I know it means a lot to a lot of people. The purist in you, no doubt. Now if you get in a position where you got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship vs. keeping that, shoot, then you got to look at it.

“And listen, we’re not the first example of that. Look all the way across the country. There has been a lot of other teams sacrifice rivalry games. And I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen. But as we get into this Playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we’re in this new conference, we’re going to learn something about this as we go and what the right and the best track is to winning a national championship, that’s going to evolve.”

The Irish and Trojans have faced each other every year since 1946, except when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its height in 2020. Before 1946, they had played each other 17 times.

Notre Dame holds a 51-37-5 record in the series. The Irish take on Southern Cal in Los Angeles this year on Nov. 30.

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