Notre Dame travels to Miami to open the 2025 season on Sunday night in South Florida. Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish came tantalizingly close to a national title last season and look to take the first step toward capturing the program’s first national title since 1988 against the Hurricanes.

The 1980s gave us the rivalry’s spine. Notre Dame, with its gleaming golden helmets and cathedral mystique, the standard-bearer of tradition. Miami, with its brashness, its speed, its sideline swagger, the face of college football’s rebellion. The collision was never quiet—it was violence dressed in shoulder pads, culture against culture.

The road to a national championship has often included a regular-season win in this series for Notre Dame football and the Miami Hurricanes.