Big Ten Media Days: Lincoln Riley wants more USC-Notre Dame; Preston Stone's Northwestern intro

Notre Dame football: Marcus Freeman & players talk Blue-Gold Game

Marcus Freeman, Eli Raridon and Luke Talich talk the 2025 Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium.

All the reshuffling of schedules, conferences and playoff formats in college football has placed one of the sport's best traditions in peril: the USC-Notre Dame game.

The contract for a rivalry that dates to 1926 expires after their game in 2026.

Both schools have expressed a willingness to lock down more games, but differences over how many appear to be holding up the negotiations.

USC’s move to the Big Ten gave the Trojans less flexibility on their non-conference schedule. Big Ten teams have nine conference games and only three open slots.

Speaking at Big Ten media days Thursday, Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said he was, of course, hopeful that the series will continue. But not at any cost.

"I want to play the game. Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons I came here," Riley said. "But, also, my allegiance and my loyalty is not to Notre Dame, and it’s not to anybody else. I’m the head football coach at USC, and I’m going to back USC."

Some of the uncertainty revolves around the College Football Playoff.

The Trojans have lost six of the last seven against Notre Dame. If CFP leaders decide to award four automatic bids to the Big Ten, which is the conference's preference, a long-term deal to play the Irish might be more palatable to USC. A system with more at-large bids, however, would make it more difficult, from a CFP standpoint, to absorb a non-conference loss.

Northwestern video vibes

Preston Stone is a good ol’ Texas boy who starred in high school for Parish Episcopal and then spent four years at SMU. After entering the transfer portal following last season, however, he finally got to visit a team he once admired from afar — behind a video-game controller when he was 11 years old.

"For absolutely no reason whatsoever, when I was a little kid playing NCAA 14, I would always be Northwestern," Stone said. "They had really cool black uniforms and they had a fast quarterback in Kain Colter, who I used to love playing with in the game."

So, after touring the campus and meeting Wildcats coach David Braun and offensive coordinator Zach Lujan, Stone was sold on transferring from the Lone Star State to Evansville, Illinois.

"Facilities are incredible, I think we have the best indoor in the whole country," Stone said. "You could feel a level of sincerity from coach Braun. That was just different. And first meeting coach Lujan, you could tell from the first couple minutes with him, how incredibly smart of an offensive mind he is. I knew that if I came here they were going to set me up for success."