ASU Football: Notre Dame Game Back On For 2014

Arizona State's persistence paid off in a big way Tuesday with the news that Notre Dame was able to straighten out its scheduling conflict to make room for their 2014 visit to Sun Devil Stadium.

Here's what ASU Athletics Director Steve Patterson had to say about the exciting development in his Pitchfork post piece:

"We're pleased that Notre Dame was able to resolve its scheduling issues in a way that allows it to play at Sun Devil Stadium in 2014," said ASU Athletics Director Steve Patterson. "The game will now be played on Nov. 8, 2014. Our entire Sun Devil family-season ticket holders, fans, students, alumni-and our entire community here in the Valley have been looking forward to playing Notre Dame in Tempe since the original agreement was signed in 2008.

While the game at Notre Dame in 2017 has been canceled, what is most important to us is that the game in Tempe has been saved. Under a separate agreement we also play Notre Dame at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on October 5, 2013.

These are exciting times for our football program and having a special opponent like Notre Dame travel to ASU will make for another memorable experience."

As Patterson touched on, the game is now being played two weeks later than originally scheduled. But this is certainly a huge turn of events since it was only two months ago that Notre Dame first told Arizona State officials that the Irish didn't want to travel to Tempe due to the program's move to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

In the end, it seems that ASU officials were able to pressure Notre Dame to honoring their original contract with some legal heat. According to the Arizona Republic's Doug Haller, the contract stated that the games could only be canceled due to "an act of God, a national crisis, or other events beyond the control of the host institution." And clearly their general bemoaning at the idea of traveling out west does not fall under any of those categories.

While not being able to settle on the 2017 game is certainly disappointing, today's announcement should still be considered a huge win for ASU athletics. This 2014 matchup with Notre Dame will undoubtedly result in millions of dollars in revenue for the program since this is easily one of the biggest home games for Arizona State football since the turn of the century.

What are your feelings about this development, ASU fans? Post your praise for Steve Patterson and company below in the comments.