It’s the Sun Bowl for Notre Dame against Oregon State

It took forever on Sunday, but finally we learned the fate of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for this upcoming bowl season, and it’s the Sun Bowl against the Oregon State Beavers.

For months, bowl projections for Notre Dame had them in either the Reliaquest Bowl or the Pop Tarts Bowl with the former being against the LSU Tigers. The thought of playing Brian Kelly and his new team intrigued a lot of Irish fans, but the craziness that happened in the final College Football Playoff rankings caused a lot of unplanned moves by the bowls.

Notre Dame has a short history in the Sun Bowl and a short history against Oregon State. The Irish have memorable losses to the Beavers in the 2000 Fiesta Bowl and the 2004 Insight.com Bowl. The last time the Irish played in the Sun Bowl, was back in 2010 and the Irish put a hurting on the Miami Hurricanes after a snow storm hit El Paso the night before.

None of this is what we wanted, but this is what we get.

Something else we won’t get is Beavers QB D.J. Uiagalelei. The former Clemson Tigers QB is in the transfer portal again — so there’s that.