There are rivalries that require explanation.
Notre Dame–Miami is not one of them.
Notre Dame has Michigan because of history, USC because of geography-defying tradition, Navy because of institutional gratitude, and Miami because—at least for a few spectacular years—the two programs seemed to genuinely despise each other.
That is a different category.
This Saturday, unbeaten No. 1 Miami comes to South Bend to play a 7–1 Notre Dame team that still has every meaningful postseason goal in front of it. The matchup matters because both teams are excellent. It matters because the winner will have a résumé-defining victory. And it matters because last winter the College Football Playoff selection committee managed to take a rivalry that had cooled considerably and dump approximately five gallons of gasoline on it.
But before we get to the committee, we need to go back to the beginning.
And then to the part where Miami spent several years beating the hell out of Notre Dame.
Before Anyone Hated Anyone
The first Notre Dame–Miami game was played in 1955 at the Orange Bowl.
Notre Dame was ranked fifth. Miami was not yet Miami in the way we now understand the term. Paul Hornung threw two fourth-down touchdown passes and the Irish won 14–0 in front of more than 75,000 people.
For the next quarter-century, the series was mostly just another game on Notre Dame’s national schedule.
In fact, Miami served a fairly practical purpose.
Notre Dame liked finishing seasons somewhere warm. The Irish could play USC in Los Angeles one year and Miami in South Florida the next, thus combining football with the apparently timeless human desire to leave South Bend before winter became fully operational.
The schools agreed to a long-running home-and-home series beginning in 1971. Notre Dame generally dominated it.
From 1971 through 1980, the Irish won all ten meetings. Scores included 44–0, 38–7, 48–10, 40–15 and 32–14. Miami was not a rival so much as a late-season destination where Notre Dame occasionally committed a felony against the scoreboard.
Then Miami figured out football.
That changed things rather dramatically.
Welcome to the 1980s
Howard Schnellenberger built Miami into a national champion in 1983. Jimmy Johnson took over afterward and turned the Hurricanes into one of the fastest, most talented, most swaggering and most aggressively disliked teams in college football.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, was entering the final stages of the Gerry Faust era.
The results were unpleasant.
From 1981 through 1987, Miami went 5–1 against Notre Dame and outscored the Irish 184–51 in those six games. The five Miami wins came by an average of roughly 27 points. From 1983 through 1987 specifically, Miami outscored Notre Dame 133–20.
There was a 20–0 shutout.
Then 31–13.
Then came 1985.
Gerry Faust had already announced his resignation when Notre Dame traveled to the Orange Bowl for his final game. Miami won 58–7.
Fifty-eight.
To seven.
Jimmy Johnson’s Hurricanes continued throwing the ball late enough that the game became part football result, part blood feud origin story. Lou Holtz arrived shortly afterward with a very clear understanding of the problem he had inherited: if Notre Dame wanted to become Notre Dame again, it needed athletes capable of standing on the same field with Miami.
Holtz recruited accordingly.
And by 1988, both teams were loaded to a degree that seems almost fictional now.
The Most Talented Game Ever Played?
There is no universally accepted database category called “Most Ridiculous Collection of Future NFL Players on One College Football Field.”
There should be.
The 1988 Notre Dame–Miami game would have a very strong case.
A broad accounting of players on the two rosters who were eventually drafted or appeared in NFL games puts the number at roughly 66 future NFL players—about 33 on each side. The exact total changes slightly depending on whether the definition includes undrafted players who later made active rosters, but the larger point is not remotely in dispute.
The sidelines were absurd.
Notre Dame had future NFL players such as Andy Heck, Tim Grunhard, Ricky Watters, Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, Derek Brown, Rodney Culver, Todd Lyght, Chris Zorich, Pat Terrell, Frank Stams, Michael Stonebreaker and many more.
Miami countered with Cleveland Gary, Steve Walsh, Randal Hill, Leon Searcy, Bill Hawkins, Bubba McDowell, Jimmie Jones, Russell Maryland and a defensive tackle named Cortez Kennedy, who would eventually become an eight-time Pro Bowler and Pro Football Hall of Famer.
And here is the ridiculous part:
The 1989 rematch may have been even deeper.
Notre Dame retained most of the young core from 1988, while Miami likewise returned a staggering amount of professional talent and added another championship-caliber class.
Depending on how broadly one counts future NFL roster players, the combined 1989 sidelines land somewhere around 70 future pros.
If those two games are not literally the two largest collections of future NFL players ever assembled for a college football game, they belong in a very short conversation.
Which makes what happened in 1988 even more extraordinary.
Catholics vs. Convicts
By October 15, 1988, Miami was No. 1.
Notre Dame was No. 4.
Both were undefeated.
Miami had won 36 consecutive regular-season games and 20 straight on the road. Notre Dame had spent years being humiliated by the Hurricanes and finally had a roster capable of doing something about it.
Then a T-shirt turned the game into mythology.
Notre Dame students Pat Walsh and Joe Fredrick produced shirts reading:
CATHOLICS VS. CONVICTS
The phrase played off Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and Miami’s renegade national reputation, including highly publicized arrests involving two scholarship players who had already been dismissed from the Hurricanes program.
It was catchy.
It was inflammatory.
It was unfair.
And it was absolutely perfect fuel for a rivalry that already required very little additional help.
The shirt became wildly popular—and, even at the time, deeply controversial. It was reductive, racially loaded and unfair to a Miami roster that was considerably more complicated than the caricature.
But subtlety was not a defining characteristic of late-1980s college football.
The teams fought in the tunnel before the game.
Then they played one of the greatest games in the history of the sport.
Notre Dame forced seven Miami turnovers. Pat Terrell returned an interception 60 yards for a touchdown. Frank Stams seemed to spend the afternoon personally ruining Steve Walsh’s life. Miami kept coming anyway.
With 45 seconds remaining, the Hurricanes scored to make it 31–30.
Jimmy Johnson went for two.
Walsh threw toward Leonard Conley.
Terrell knocked the pass away.
Notre Dame won.
Miami’s 36-game regular-season winning streak was over. Notre Dame went on to finish 12–0 and win the national championship. Miami finished No. 2.
There have been bigger games in Notre Dame history.
There may never have been a more intense one.
Round Two
A year later, the roles were reversed.
Notre Dame arrived in Miami No. 1 in the country, riding a school-record 23-game winning streak.
Miami was No. 7.
The Hurricanes won 27–10.
And the game contained one of the most famous third downs in college football history.
With Miami leading 17–10 in the third quarter, the Hurricanes faced third-and-43 deep in their own territory.
Third.
And forty-three.
This is normally the point where the offense accepts its punishment, calls something safe and sends out the punter.
Craig Erickson instead completed a 44-yard pass to Randal Hill.
Miami continued the drive, scored a touchdown and eventually ended Notre Dame’s winning streak. The Hurricanes finished the season as national champions.
For Notre Dame fans, it remains one of those plays that exists less as a memory than as scar tissue.
Then came 1990.
No. 2 Miami arrived in South Bend.
No. 6 Notre Dame beat the Hurricanes 29–20.
Rocket Ismail returned a kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown. Craig Hentrich kicked a Notre Dame-record five field goals. The Irish defense forced turnovers and held Miami to three second-half points.
And then, almost unbelievably, the series stopped.
Not forever.
But the annual rivalry was gone.
The hatred had burned hot enough that both programs were apparently willing to give it some space.
Twenty Years Later
Notre Dame and Miami did not meet again until the 2010 Sun Bowl.
The Irish won 33–17.
Notre Dame crushed Miami 41–3 in Chicago in 2012 and won again in South Bend in 2016.
Then came 2017.
Notre Dame arrived in Miami ranked No. 3.
The Hurricanes won 41–8.
Turnover Chain. Night game. Hard Rock Stadium losing its collective mind.
For a younger generation of Notre Dame fans who had missed the 1980s, that night provided a useful historical reenactment of what Miami used to feel like.
Then the rivalry went quiet again.
Until last year.
Catholics vs. Committee
Notre Dame opened the 2025 season at Miami.
It was CJ Carr’s first college start.
On the road.
At night.
Against a ranked Miami team.
Notre Dame lost 27–24.
At the time it was a frustrating opening-night defeat. By December it had become something considerably more consequential.
Notre Dame and Miami both finished the regular season 10–2.
Notre Dame spent the entire CFP ranking process ahead of Miami. In the penultimate ranking, the Irish were No. 10 and Miami No. 12. Neither played during conference championship weekend.
Then BYU lost the Big 12 Championship Game.
The committee moved Miami ahead of BYU.
And suddenly—apparently for the first time all season—the committee decided Notre Dame and Miami were now close enough to compare directly.
Committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said the group went back and rewatched the August game.
The head-to-head result became the deciding factor.
Miami jumped from No. 12 to No. 10.
Notre Dame fell from No. 10 to No. 11.
Miami made the playoff.
Notre Dame did not.
There is a perfectly defensible argument for Miami.
They played.
Miami won.
Scoreboards should matter.
The problem was not that the committee ultimately considered head-to-head.
The problem was the sudden discovery that head-to-head mattered after six weeks of rankings in which Notre Dame had consistently been judged the better team.
Miami had losses to Louisville at home and SMU on the road. Notre Dame’s two losses were the three-point opener at Miami and a one-point game against Texas A&M. After starting 0–2, Notre Dame won ten straight games and outscored its remaining opponents 440–143.
For months, the committee effectively said the full résumés outweighed the opening-night result.
Then, on Selection Sunday, it said: actually, remember August?
The timing was extraordinary.
The logic may have been defensible.
The process was ridiculous.
And Notre Dame fans, being a famously calm and emotionally balanced group of people, took it extremely well.
And Now They Come to South Bend
Which brings us to Saturday.
Miami is unbeaten and ranked No. 1.
Notre Dame has one loss, with every meaningful postseason goal still intact.
The Hurricanes are good enough to win a national championship.
So is Notre Dame.
You can find plenty of X’s-and-O’s reasons this game matters.
Miami can score.
Notre Dame can defend.
Miami has an explosive passing game.
Notre Dame has an offense capable of leaning on opponents physically and producing explosive plays of its own.
Fine.
We can spend the rest of the week talking about all of that.
But this game does not need a schematic sales pitch.
It has enough baggage already.
The first meeting was played more than 70 years ago because Notre Dame wanted a warm-weather game in Miami.
Then Miami became Miami.
Notre Dame got embarrassed.
Lou Holtz recruited an army.
The schools produced perhaps the two most talent-dense games college football has ever seen.
Students printed an infamous T-shirt.
Players fought in a tunnel.
Pat Terrell knocked down a two-point conversion.
Miami converted third-and-43.
Rocket Ismail ran a kickoff back 94 yards.
The rivalry disappeared.
Miami humiliated Notre Dame again in 2017.
And last December, a committee room somehow managed to reopen the entire argument.
College football scheduling has become increasingly transactional.
This game is not.
There is history here.
There is irritation here.
There is still enough unresolved nonsense lying around to fill an equipment truck.
And somewhere, inevitably, somebody is already printing another T-shirt.
Maybe Catholics vs. Convicts belongs in 1988.
Maybe Catholics vs. Committee belonged in 2025.
Saturday night needs neither.
It needs only the two names on the helmets.
Notre Dame.
Miami.
Once upon a time, that was enough to make the entire sport stop what it was doing and watch.
It might be again.
