Notre Dame Football Stats: USC Series by the Decade

After years of rumblings, Notre Dame and USC have officially put their football relationship on break status.

Since 1926, the two programs have met 93 times. The Irish led the series heading into the recently announced pause, with 51 wins. The Trojans had 37 wins and five of the matchups concluded with ties. 

The most recent break in the series was during the 2020 COVID season. In the five games they’ve played since that gap, Notre Dame has dominated 4-1 with an average differential of +11.2. The Irish’s only loss during the period was a 27-38 defeat in 2022. The Irish’s most substantial victory came in the following season when they bested the Trojans 48-20. 

Before the 2020 missed game, Notre Dame and USC hadn’t missed an annual matchup since the 1940s. The two programs did not see each other during the three-year period between 1943 and 1945. And while the Irish have the overall edge in the series as well as in recent games, both teams have had some high highs and low lows over the decades.

So let’s do a stroll down stats lane to help hold us over until ND and USC reconcile their differences. 

The Early Period: 1926-1939

The Notre Dame-USC football rivalry began in 1926. The Irish won that first game 13-12 and the two teams played every year through 1939. It was a period defined mostly by parity. Notre Dame won 50% of the 14 matchups and USC loss six with one game ending in a tie (1936; 13-13).  The Irish’s biggest victory during this Early Period was +27 in a 1930 shutout.  Their worst outing was a -19 shutout in 1933.  No team scored more than 27 points in a single game and there were five overall shutouts, with ND being on the wrong end in three of those.

The 40s

The Irish had a significant edge throughout the 1940s. It was an abbreviated period but Notre Dame won six of the seven games, with one ending in a tie (1948, 14-14). The smallest win margin for Notre Dame was +2 (20-18) in 1941. They ended the period with their highest differential, +32 in a 1949 shutout. But they scored the most points, 38, during a 38-7 victory in 1947. 

The 50s

The two programs got back to a full decade of football games during the 1950s. And it was another period where the Irish had the edge, winning seven of the ten games. Notre Dame pulled off two size-able victories during the period. The first was a +34 (48-14) win in 1953. The second was a +28 (40-12) win in 1957. The Irish suffered a -22, 20-42 loss in 1955. The beginning and of the period were characterized by low scoring affairs while both teams scored a lot through the middle.

The 60s and 70s

The 60s and the 70s was one of the series’ most competitive periods. USC was dominant in the big picture, winning 55% of the period’s football games.

The Irish began the 60s with consecutive shutouts of the Trojans, 17-0 in 1960 and 30-0 in 1961. Things flipped in 1962 and USC walked away with a 25-0 shutout of ND. The teams exchanged victories in 1963 and 1964. Then Notre Dame pulled away, landing a 28-7 win in 1965 and then a +51 shoutout, the biggest differential during the period, in 1966. 

Two of the period’s matchups were ties. The first ended with a 21-21 score in 1968 and the second ended with a 14-14 score in the following season, 1969.

But USC largely dominated from 1967 onwards. Notre Dame achieved a +9, 23-14 win in 1973 and a +30, 49-19 victory in 1977. 

The 80s

The Irish bounced back in the 1980s, winning seven of their ten matchups with the Trojans. They dropped the first three games of the decade but notched a +21 (27-6) victory in 1983. The program’s most significant win was a +34 (37-3) outing in 1985.  Between 1983 and 1985, Notre Dame outscored USC 83-16.  The Trojans closed the margin with a -1 (37-38) loss in 1986.  Between 1987 and 1989 the Irish outscored the Trojans 81-49. 

The 90s

Notre Dame won six of the ten games played during the 90s. The Irish won the decade’s first four matchups and the 1994 game ended with a 17-17 tie. ND then pulled off a +28 (38-10) victory in 1995 but suffered three consecutive losses, including a 10-0 shutout in 1998. They closed out the 90s with a slim +1, 25-24 win in 1999.

The 2000s

The 2000s was USC’s decade. They claimed victory in eight of the ten games played against Notre Dame.

The Irish began the period with a +17 (38-21) win in 2000 and followed that up with a +11, (27-16) win in 2001. Then USC won every remaining game through 2009. There were three, consecutive -31 differential games between 2002 and 2004. Notre Dame closed the gap with a -3 differential in 2005. And then USC outscored the program 154-54 in the four games played between 2006 and 2009.

The 2010s

Notre Dame found redemption in the 2010s, winning seven of the ten games played. The programs exchanged wins-losses up until 2017, with some narrow Irish wins and size-able USC victories. The Trojans notched a +14 win in 2011, a +35 win in 2014 and a +18 win in 2016. Across that same span, the Irish’s average win margin was +6.75.  But things shifted in ND’s favor from 2017 onwards. The Irish won 49-14 in 2017, 24-17 in 2018 and 30-27 in 2019. 

There’s a ton beyond these very high-level stats and it really sucks that we’re going to have wait out this “pause.”  What do you think was Notre Dame’s strongest during period?