Wisconsin football: Notre Dame at Lambeau Field scheduled to open the 2026 season

After the 2020 matchup was postponed due to COVID19, the Wisconsin Badgers and Notre Dame Fighting Irish have announced that they’ll play at Lambeau Field on September 5, 2026.

(If you want to see the #brand synergy in action, click through to the Twitter thread.)

The two Midwestern powers will play for the seventeenth time this year on October 16th at Soldier Field. The series started in 1900 when former Badger Pat “The Kangaroo Kicker” O’Dea coached the Fighting Irish as his first job out of college. He scheduled a return to his alma matter to get absolutely wrecked, 58-0. It’s important to note that O’Dea was Australian, and imagining that accent with old-timey slang and rhythms is sending me.

The 2026 game at Lambeau will be the decade anniversary of the 2016 upset over No. 5 LSU, which was a perfect day. Relive some highlights of that game now please! Ryan Connelly blowing up that screen was amazing, wasn’t it?

While it’s unfortunate that the teams couldn’t play in back-to-back years, Wisconsin will be doing enough of that with upcoming series against Washington State starting next year, and a little ol’ program known as the Alabama Crimson Tide coming to Camp Randall in 2024. Every other Wisconsin non-conference slot has been spoken for for the next five seasons now.

Wisconsin’s other non-conference opponents for 2026 are held in Camp Randall. September 12 features the Western Illinois Leathernecks with the Pitt Panthers playing September 19. The Big Ten has not announced their conference schedule yet, so as it stands right now Notre Dame knows it’s playing more Big Ten opponents in Wisconsin, Purdue, and Michigan State than any of those teams.

Wait, UW is playing two major programs in the same year?