The subject of Notre Dame sure does bring up a lot of emotion from Hokie fans.

That’s understandable. It brings up a lot of emotion from a lot of fan bases. There are the usual reasons that college fan bases around the country dislike Notre Dame: The college athletics world kowtows to the Domers too much, Notre Dame has an overinflated sense of their own football worth in the modern market place, NBC pays them too much money, etc.

But for many Hokies, their dislike of Notre Dame is also personal. Not “personal” by the strictest definition of the word, but “personal” because of the history between Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, or as a matter of fact, the lack thereof.

Virginia Tech hasn’t played Notre Dame much at all in college athletics’ two marquee sports, football and men’s basketball. Up until the year 2000, in the first 108 years of Virginia Tech football and the first 92 years of Virginia Tech basketball, the Hokies played Notre Dame just that once. You might remember it: in 1973, the Hokies beat the Fighting Irish in the NIT championship game, back when the NIT meant something.

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