The Sooners and Fighting Irish are tentatively scheduled to meet at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in 2012 and Notre Dame Stadium in 2013, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White revealed last week.

However, a formal contract still hasn't been signed, and likely won't be for a few years, said Notre Dame senior associate athletic director John Heisler.

"We have had enough of a scramble just trying to figure out the years and the dates," Heisler said.

In recent years, OU athletic director Joe Castiglione has said that the schools had a verbal agreement for a series. Castiglione said in 2004 that when he got to OU, he came across a letter of agreement, signed by both schools, that laid out discussions for a future home-and-home series.

OU athletic director Joe Castiglione told the Tulsa World in an e-mail Friday that, "We don't release anything until we have a signed contract." OU senior associate athletic director of communications Kenny Mossman confirmed in an e-mail to the World that "an agreement is in the works." Even though dates are set for the series, the contracts aren't yet finalized, because Notre Dame prefers not to sign contracts until a series draws closer.

"There's no particular reason to do a full-fledged contract until you get closer because by the time you get there, some of the language is going to be outmoded anyway," said Heisler. "We've been doing contracts like 2-3 years out anyway."

White was hired in 2000, but the schools have been trying to strike a deal since before Castiglione was hired at OU in 1998 – the year prior to the teams' last meeting in 1999.

Castiglione said in a 2004 interview that he had been working hard to add the Fighting Irish to OU's growing list of non-conference challenges. The Sooners played Oregon in 2004, Washington in '05, at Oregon in '06, host Miami this season, visit Washington in 2008 and travel to Miami in 2009. There are also home-and-home series set up with Florida State in 2010 and 2011, Tennessee in 2014 and 2015, and LSU in 2018 and 2019.

But because of the history of the two programs – Notre Dame has 10 national championships, Oklahoma has seven – the OU-Notre Dame series is viewed nationally as something special. Still, the schools couldn't settle on a date until recently.

Among Notre Dame's scheduling challenges, Heisler said, was discussion of entering the Big East Conference. UND is a Big East member in basketball and other sports, but fiercely maintains its independent status in football.

Heisler said Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese asked Notre Dame for some help in scheduling non-conference football games. The Irish already had long-time regional rivals in the Big Ten Conference, as well as series with USC, Stanford and Navy.

"We finally said, 'Are we going to be independent, are we going to join a league?' " Heisler recalled. "'Let's make that decision and then schedule that way.' "

White was in Daphne, Ala., last Friday to speak at the United States Sports Academy graduation ceremony. White was quoted in Saturday's Mobile Register that the Fighting Irish would take a two-year break from its Big Ten Conference rivals, in a sense replacing Michigan with Oklahoma and Michigan State with Arizona State.

Notre Dame last week announced plans to play Washington in San Antonio and an unnamed opponent in Orlando, Fla.

OU and Notre Dame have met nine times, and the Irish have won eight. Eight of the meetings came between 1952 and 1968. OU beat Notre Dame 40-0 in South Bend, Ind., in 1956. But the Irish one-upped the Sooners in Norman the next year, ending OU's NCAA-record 47-game winning streak with a 7-0 victory at Owen Field.

The previous OU-Notre Dame contest was OU coach Bob Stoops' fourth game as the Sooners' coach. OU led 30-14 in that game but the Irish overpowered the Sooners late in a 34-30 victory in South Bend, handing Stoops his first loss as head coach.