Notre Dame and Northwestern have agreed to a two-game football series that have the schools facing each other in 2014 and 2018.

The first meeting will be in South Bend with a return date in Evanston four years later. It will be the first time the Irish have played at Northwestern campus since 1976.

The last meeting between the schools came in the season opener on Sept. 2, 1995. The Wildcats, coming off a 4-6-1 season, stunned the eighth-ranked Irish 17-15 in South Bend. Northwestern eventually went unbeaten in the Big Ten that season to earn their first Rose Bowl trip in 47 years.

Notre Dame holds a 37-8-2 edge in the all-time series that goes back to 1889.

Brian Kelly cited Notre Dame's strong alumni base and recruiting connection to the Chicago area as reasons to play Northwestern.

"It just makes sense," Kelly said on the Mike & Mike in the Morning radio show. "Chicago is for us a very important recruiting area as it for every Big Ten school, but in particular Northwestern. For us to get together on our end we wanted to see that this happened. And we wanted to make sure we went to Evanston because I think that's an important point in this whole thing, too, is not to do it at a neutral site, but to do it on Northwestern's campus."

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