Notre Dame at Ohio State gets prime-time slot to open the season
Notre Dame will open the 2022 season in prime time. The Irish’s Sept. 3 game at Ohio State will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC, per a Tuesday release. ESPN’s College GameDay will be in Columbus for the game as well.
If offseason top 25 rankings are any indication, it will be a top-10 or even top-five matchup. Ohio State appears in the top five of nearly all early top 25s and frequently at No. 2. Notre Dame has been ranked as high as fifth and often in the top 10.
The game is the first half of a home-and-home series that will bring the Buckeyes to South Bend in 2023. The two teams last played in the 2015 Fiesta Bowl, which Ohio State won 44-28. Their last regular-season meeting was in 1996, a 29-16 Ohio State victory at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame last played at Ohio Stadium in 1995, losing 45-26. Ohio State leads the all-time series 4-2.
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Marcus Freeman makes his regular-season debut as Notre Dame head coach in the stadium he played in as an Ohio State linebacker from 2004-08. He began his coaching career as a grad assistant with the Buckeyes in 2010. He coached in Ohio Stadium as a visitor in 2019 as Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator.
Notre Dame also opened at night last season, at Florida State on a Sunday. The Irish played half their regular-season games in prime time, two at home and four on the road. They won all of them.
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Eight of Notre Dame’s regular-season games now have kickoff times. The Irish announced start times for their six home games and the Shamrock Series in April. The home games against Marshall (Sept. 10), Cal (Sept. 17), UNLV (Oct. 22) and Boston College (Nov. 19) will kick at 2:30 p.m. ET. The home meetings with Stanford (Oct. 15) and Clemson (Nov. 5) are at 7:30, as is the game against BYU in Las Vegas (Oct. 8). All will be televised on NBC.
Kickoff times for road and neutral site games against North Carolina (Sept. 24), Syracuse (Oct. 29), Navy (Nov. 12) and USC (Nov. 26) will be announced at a later date.
