SOUTH BEND – When Lincoln Riley received a call from Bob Stoops in 2017 letting him know he would succeed Stoops as Oklahoma head coach, Riley’s first thought was that he would get to be a head coach for the Red River Rivalry against Texas.

“(That was) literally before calling my dad, calling my wife, anybody,” Riley said.

Now the head coach at Southern California, Riley has insisted for months that he feels the same way about the rivalry between Notre Dame and USC, that the battle for the Jeweled Shillelagh is one of the reasons he wanted to coach the Trojans, that rivalries mean “a great deal to anybody who cares about college football.”

And yet, tonight, Riley might preside over the last game between his program and the Irish for some time. The clash between No. 13 Notre Dame (4-2) a

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