On Saturday, two of college football's most memorable rivals will meet on the field in one of the biggest games of the season.
Miami and Notre Dame are no stranger to matchups with major stakes. It's part of why the game tends to come with a heightened intensity -- the Hurricanes and Irish don't play every year, but when they do play, there's usually quite a bit on the line.
There's also, of course, the historical foundation of the rivalry -- a stretch of several games in the 1980s and early 1990s that produced a number of iconic showdowns, including one so famous that it became the subject of a 2016 ESPN 30 for 30.
But notable Notre Dame and Miami games aren't exclusively found in 1980s history books. When the two squads square off in South Bend on Saturday night, they'll do so with recent memories in mind as well.
Here's a refresher on the most iconic games in the intense series between two of the sport's premier programs.
1955: Notre Dame 14, Miami 0
Before there could be legendary matchups, there had to be a first meeting. Notre Dame and Miami's history starts in 1955, when the two met for the first time in the Orange Bowl.
Fittingly, it featured two squads well-adjusted to winning ways: The Irish had won 10 straight, while the Hurricanes had come away victorious in 10 consecutive home games. It was Notre Dame that prevailed in the inaugural game, winning 14-0 behind a pair of touchdown passes by future Heisman winner and No. 1 NFL draft pick Paul Hornung.
1985: Miami 58, Notre Dame 7
The late '80s meetings between the two teams might be the most famous, but a large part of why the tension in those games was high stems from a fuse that was lit in 1985. Miami routed Notre Dame, racking up nearly 60 points in what was the Irish's worst loss in decades. The disastrous defeat ended the Gerry Faust era in South Bend, and left a particularly sour taste in the mouths of Notre Dame.
"We won 58-7, and they accused us of running up the score, but we didn't run up the score. They did. They played so poorly, and we emptied the bench," then-Hurricanes coach Jimmy Johnson told ESPN in 2017. "We played every substitute we had throughout the whole second half of the ball game, and they criticized us for blocking a punt. They only had 10 players on the field when we blocked the punt. It wasn't our doing that ran up the score, it was their poor play that ran up the score. But that kind of built it up."
1988: Notre Dame 31, Miami 30
After another Miami win in 1987, by 1988 Notre Dame was raring to land a blow of its own. And when the two teams met in South Bend that October as the No. 1- and No. 4-ranked squads in the land, fanfare was through the roof. The game became known for a T-shirt that made the rounds ahead of the game -- emblazoned with the infamous tagline "Catholics vs. Convicts" -- and animosity unsurprisingly ran high. A fight even broke out in the tunnel before the teams took the field.
"You know that concrete tunnel at Notre Dame? Rocket [Ismail] climbs up the side. He looks like Spider-Man. I'm going, 'No! No!' He jumps off the wall onto one of the Miami players and he's trying to hit his helmet with his hand. He came off the top rung, no fear. I'm like, 'You've got to be kidding me?'" then-Irish assistant Pete Cordelli recalled. "When we went back in the locker room, he goes, 'Did you see me? I wore that guy out. I won the fight.' I said, 'Let me see your hands.' His knuckles were bleeding. He said, 'I won the fight.' I said, 'You didn't win anything.'"
Regardless of if anyone won the pregame fisticuffs, it was Notre Dame that prevailed on the field, stopping a potential go-ahead 2-point conversion by the Hurricanes in the game's final seconds to secure victory in an instant classic that seemed to have it all, from controversial calls to a photo finish.
1989: Miami 27, Notre Dame 10
The next year, it was Miami's turn to exact revenge. This time Notre Dame entered hostile territory as winners in the rivalry and defending national champions, and the crowd in South Florida was amped up.
"I remember going to the Orange Bowl, and our locker room was kind of underneath the Orange Bowl, and two hours before the game, I hear this foot stomping and the whole place is packed, screaming and yelling," Dennis Erickson, Johnson's successor as Hurricanes coach, told ESPN. "This is two hours before everyone comes out and warms up. It was unbelievable. I've never been in a game like that."
Miami rewarded its fired up crowd by regaining bragging rights in the rivalry, taking home a 27-10 victory spurred in part by a remarkable third-and-43 conversion in the second half with the game tied.
1990: Notre Dame 29, Miami 20
By 1990, the rivalry was on the outs with regards to future scheduling, and the teams arrived motivated accordingly.
"The week of the game in '90, we had a feeling that this was going to be it, that the administration made a decision that this was going to be it. As coaches, we didn't want to lose to Miami if this was the last time we played them. All we could think about is we're not in a conference, only time we're going to play Miami is if it's a bowl game," Cordelli said. "So we prepared our guys like, 'Fellas, this is the last time. Let's get after their ass.'"
Get after it, the Irish did. Notre Dame continued the rivalry's revenge theme in that era, avenging its loss the previous year and securing the final win in the series for the next two decades.
2017: Miami 41, Notre Dame 8
The matchup eventually made its return in the 2010s with a handful of meetings brought about by bowl tie-ins and a three-game regular season series renewal. The Irish won the first three games of the rivalry's modern act -- a 2010 Sun Bowl win and a pair of triumphs in 2012 and 2016. But it was the Hurricanes who delivered the most brutal of blows in 2017, crushing then-third-ranked Notre Dame in Coral Gables for a statement win in a top-10 primetime showdown.
2025: Miami 27, Notre Dame 24
After another brief hiatus, the rivalry returned to finish off Week 1 of the 2025 season on Labor Day, and the matchup didn't disappoint. Miami built up a 21-7 third quarter lead, then responded to an Irish comeback with a game-winning field goal with a minute remaining. The game became particularly notable later in the season, when the two schools both found themselves in the hunt for at-large bids in the 12-team College Football Playoff. Ultimately, after weeks of being ranked behind Notre Dame, the committee made a late switch and it was the Hurricanes that received the nod, going on to make the national championship game.