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Cal hasn’t played Notre Dame since 1967 and Saturday’s game in South Bend, Indiana would not have happened without the help of college football matchmaker Dave Brown.

“Dave is a genius at non-conference scheduling,” said Jay Larson, senior associate athletic director for administration at Cal.

Brown spent years arranging college football for ESPN, before leaving the network in 2015 to start his own company, a software-based outfit called Gridiron.

“A lot of what I work on is really solving people’s problems,” says Brown, 64, who lives in Austin, Texas. “I give schools all the (roster) options and they will make the decision.”

Brown said he has contracts with every FBS school in the country — and with most FCS-level programs. In 2018, he received a call from Notre Dame, who wanted to improve his 2022 home schedule with a game against a Power 5 team.

“I typed it into the computer and it showed that Cal could go out for a game based on the fact that they had five games at home during their conference,” said Brown. “That’s when the light bulb moment hit me.”

Larson remembers Cal got the call that summer. “Are you interested in a one-off performance with Notre Dame?” asked Brown.

Oh yeah, the Bears were definitely interested. And this is where Brown makes his money because Cal’s schedule had to be changed, just like others later.

The Bears’ original schedule for 2022 called for them to play UNLV this weekend. That game was moved up a week to make way for Notre Dame, meaning North Texas had to be convinced to postpone its September 10 home game against Cal to 2023.

“We only went back to North Texas for a year. That helped us,” says Brown. “If Cal had said we can’t go back until 2028, I think the phone would have died.”

The deal — which will pay Cal $1.9 million and will not include a return game — was finalized and announced in January 2020. It took so long because Brown and his computer had to solve a chain reaction of schedule adjustments that included 10 games and eight schools, Larson explained. from.

Other schools involved in the changes included Stephen F. Austin, Texas Southern, UTSA, and Wyoming, which emerged from negotiations with Cal in 2029 (in Laramie) and 2032 (in Berkeley).

The bottom line is that Cal (2-0) will face Notre Dame (0-2) for the fifth time ever, hoping to finally beat the Irish after defeats in 1959, ’60, ’65 and ’67.

The nine Cal coaches who preceded Justin Wilcox didn’t get a chance to test their teams against a legendary program that has won 13 national championships and spawned seven Heisman Trophy winners.

Wilcox called the opportunity “special” and noted that he grew up watching the Irish on TV. But this is a business trip, he stressed.

“Maybe one day I’ll look back and be a little more nostalgic about it, but right now it’s all football.”

Cal fans are raving about the game and Larson thinks the Bears could have nearly 10,000 supporters at the game, including those who bought tickets on the secondary market. Cal sold the 5,000-seat allotment in the visitor’s section, asked for 300 more, and sold them all. By comparison, the Bears only needed 2,500 tickets for Ole Miss in 2019 and less than 1,000 for TCU last season, he said.