Lobos add Notre Dame to 2019 football schedule

Head coach Bob Davie won’t need a season ticket to watch his former team Notre Dame play in 2019.

In fact, Davie will be on the opposite sideline against the Fighting Irish, coaching his current New Mexico team. UNM announced on Thursday that the two teams will play in South Bend, Indian, in 2019. The Lobos will receive $1.1 million for playing the Fight Irish, with $50,000 payable this year.

Davie, who was the head coach at Notre Dame from 1997-2001 and was an assistant coach three years prior, said he had been working on getting a game with Notre Dame for some time.

“It’s been in the works for a long time. Notre Dame just from my experience in my eight years, they do a lot of research on teams they play. Probably more than any school in the country to some degree,” Davie said. “The teams that they bring into South Bend, Indiana, they’re very selective on the scheduling. It wasn’t something that wasn’t done overnight.”

UNM has some high-profile names coming up on its schedule in the next five years. The Lobos will play at Rutgers in 2016, at Texas A&M in 2017, at Wisconsin in 2018, at Notre Dame in 2019 and at USC in 2020.

All of those games are “guaranteed” which means UNM will get paid to play those contests. UNM will receive about $5.1 million from 2016 to 2020 for participating. Wisconsin already gave $100,000 to UNM last year.

“Since I’ve come to New Mexico, we’ve really worked to get our schedule right. We’re still going through a period that the last two years we didn’t have a guaranteed game,” Davie said. “We’re going to get a million dollars every year from here on by going to play one of those teams.”

Notre Dame is one of the most widely renowned college football teams in the country. The Fighting Irish have the highest winning percentage in college football at .732, boast the most national championships with 13 and have more Heisman winners (seven) than any other team.

The matchup will be the first-ever meeting between UNM and Notre Dame.

“This is an exciting game for our program, against one of the all-time great programs in the history of college football,” Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs said in a release. “The atmosphere around Notre Dame football will be a tremendous experience for our fans and our student-athletes. Notre Dame has a tremendous history, and our head coach was a part of that history, which makes this game even more special.”

Thomas Romero-Salas is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @ThomasRomeroS.