Navy-Notre Dame series might make stop in San Diego

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Navy football fans

San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium is about 2,700 miles from the U.S. Naval Academy, but it might as well be the Midshipmen's home away from home.

With numerous Navy and Marine Corps bases in the area, San Diego is teeming with Navy supporters and the Mids have been a welcome fixture at the Poinsettia Bowl in recent years.

Navy is giving up that bowl tie-in as it sheds its independent status to join the American Athletic Conference, but the Mids have their eyes on playing another high-profile game in San Diego.

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If athletic director Chet Gladchuk gets his way, Navy will host Notre Dame in San Diego in the 2018 installment of the schools' longstanding rivalry.

"San Diego is a magnificent Navy city and has shown great support for our football program over the years," Gladchuk told the Capital Gazette. "We want to continue to be visible in the San Diego area because of the natural fan base and also because it benefits recruiting. With the Poinsettia Bowl now out of the picture, a regular-season game makes sense."

The game would essentially be run by the San Diego Bowl Games Association, which administers the Poinsettia Bowl, and that group's executive director is enthusiastic about the possibility.

"We already have a very solid foundation of Navy fans, and I think the opportunity to see Notre Dame play in San Diego for the first time would be very exciting for football fans in the area," Mark Neville said.

Navy and Notre Dame have met 88 times since 1927. They generally alternate games in South Bend, Ind., and larger facilities on the Eastern seaboard because the Mids' home stadium seats only about 34,000. Recent Navy "home" games have been played at NFL stadiums in Landover, Md., Baltimore and East Rutherford, N.J.

Those three sites also have hosted the annual Army-Navy game, so playing at an NFL facility is nothing new to the Mids. The same goes for Notre Dame, which has a national fan base and played three regular-season games in NFL stadiums last season.

If Navy and Notre Dame end up in San Diego, that still won't be the farthest afield they've traveled for a game. The two teams opened the 2012 season in Dublin, with the Irish rolling to a 50-10 victory.

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Marc Lancaster is a senior editor at The Sporting News