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Notre Dame will face Rutgers in the Dec. 28 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in the first meeting between the schools since 2002, though they could have been regular opponents if a series agreed to in principle in 2005 to play 10 games hadn't been cancelled.

(Khampha Bouaphanh/Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

It will be 11 years between games for Rutgers and Notre Dame when the teams meet in the Dec. 28 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, but had things turned out a little differently a few years ago they would have been more familiar opponents.

The schools agreed to a series in 2005 that was originally announced as six games starting in 2010 -- though former Rutgers athletic director Bob Mulcahy said it was actually supposed to be a 10-game series.

It was abruptly cancelled in 2008 before ever getting started because Notre Dame wanted all of the Rutgers home games in the series played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, not in Piscataway, Mulcahy said today.

"The series was agreed to in principle," Mulcahy said. "(Former Notre Dame athletic director) Kevin White and I agreed to a 10-game series -- five home and five away -- but it fell apart because Notre Dame didn't want to play any games at Rutgers. They wanted the games in (East Rutherford).

"I told them no. I was willing to play one or two (at MetLife), but we had just upgraded our stadium and I wanted to play games on campus."

Rutgers was in the midst of a $102 million overhaul of its facility, now High Point Solutions Stadium, at the time.

"It was our feeling that we didn't want to play those home games at the Meadowlands," Mulcahy said. "It wasn't fair to our fans. We were giving up homefield advantage."

The series, announced as six games at the time, was cancelled on April 28, 2008.

Rutgers and Notre Dame have played four times -- three since 1996. Two of those were at Notre Dame Stadium (the last one in 2002), the other in Piscataway in 2000. The Fighting Irish won those three games by a combined 149-17.