SOUTH BEND - The e-mails came at Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, with increasing persistence and frustration, concerning a 2010 football schedule that existed in rumor only.

“So much of this university, in terms of scheduling events, revolves around the Notre Dame football schedule,” he said. “Weddings, academic conferences, trustees meetings. I promise you, I exhausted the patience of the rest of the university on this one.

“But it’s one of those things you live with the frustration, because in the middle of this process, you can’t run around trying to explain the challenges. You just have to move forward.”

And this week, the final piece fell into place.

Western Michigan and Notre Dame jointly announced Friday that the Broncos would be part of the Irish 2010 schedule, meeting in football for the third time in history and the first since the third year of Knute Rockne’s coaching run (1920).

The teams are set to clash Oct. 16 at Notre Dame Stadium, originally penciled in as a bye week. But original plans for both teams were juggled, shuffled and in some cases, deleted, before the final unveiling.

The Irish open the 2010 season on Sept. 4 against Purdue. ND has seven true home games, three true road games, an off-site home game against Army at Yankee Stadium and a neutral-site road game against Navy at the new Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

The bye week now falls Nov. 6.

The three home games that the Irish won’t be returning are Utah, Tulsa and Western Michigan. It’s part of the annual puzzle Swarbrick inherited from former AD Kevin White’s 7-4-1 scheduling model.

Utah, a first-time Irish opponent, was already in place when Swarbrick came aboard. The next hole was filled by Tulsa, the first Conference USA team ND has scheduled while that particular school was a member of CUSA.

The Irish have played current CUSA members SMU, Houston and Rice when they were members of the now-defunct Southwest Conference, and Tulane when it was either in the SEC or an independent.

The athletic director at Tulsa is Bubba Cunningham, an ND grad, former Notre Dame administrator and former member of the Irish golf team.

“One of the things we’ve tried to do, as we look at fill some of these future holes, is reach out to the Notre Dame family,” Swarbrick said. “By family, I mean ADs from Notre Dame, coaches who have been at Notre Dame - folks who sort of understand what a special experience it can be for their student-athletes to come here.

“Another reason we reached out to Tulsa is because it’s a program we feel is quite good and plays in a part of the country we don’t normally have a presence in.”

The Western Michigan addition was much less methodical. The bottom line is, it’s a school that was able to make a very late shift in its schedule.

Swarbrick was of the impression that the 2010 ND schedule was finalized last July, but in August he found out that wasn’t the case.

“There was a school we thought we had scheduled that had a different understanding,” he said. “There was nothing sinister. Nobody did anything wrong. I think it was part of the athletic director transition at that school. They had different impressions, so late in the game, we had an opening.”

And only two possible dates to pitch - Oct. 16 and Nov. 6.

“We wound up talking to a number of schools who, frankly, put in a lot of effort trying to figure out how to make it work - calling other teams on their schedules to try to get them to move, getting conferences to try and change conference games,” Swarbrick said. “It was a pretty heartening experience to see how hard people were willing to try and figure out how to help us out and try and make it work.”

Ultimately, Western Michigan didn’t have those dates available, but the school was willing to do some shifting. Unlike when ND asked BYU to move a 2004 contest, the Irish didn’t end up having to deal with third parties. The San Diego State opener in 2008 and the Nevada opener this season were both the products of BYU moving the 2004 game.

Utah is ranked 18th in the current Sagarin computer ratings, higher than any school on ND’s current schedule, save USC (3). Tulsa is 65, Western Michigan 98 and Army 141 among the 245 FBS and FCS schools lumped into one ratings pot. The four schools that fall off the schedule next season are ranked as follows: Washington (29), Connecticut (52), Nevada (87) and Washington State (118).

Swarbrick is aware scheduling schools from the Mid-American Conference and CUSA are going to rankle some purists.

“My response to that is, ‘Look at the top 10 right now, and look at it in recent years,’ ” he said. “Last year it was Ball State that was on that remarkable run, and Buffalo had a great year. Certainly, it’s no surprise that TCU and Boise State are having the kind of years they’re having.

“That’s the landscape of college football now. And I know our fans are so savvy and they follow the games closely that they’ll understand that. The second part is we’re trying to maximize home games for our fans and our players. When you do that, you have to find folks that are willing to play you on a non home-and-home basis.”

And Swarbrick is already back to the drawing board, trying to put the finishing touches on the 2011 and 2012 slates.

“I have a high degree of confidence we won’t have an episode like this again,” Swarbrick said with a laugh. “The 2011 and 2012 schedules should be closed up by the end of this calendar year. I’m glad my boss understands what happened this year.”

2010 Schedule

Staff writer Eric Hansen: ehansen@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6470