Michigan cancelled their game with Arkansas (and paid $2 million) so that it could schedule its game with ND instead.
Stuff happens in scheduling, doesn't it??
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/...ies-20160/
ND had announced two games against Texas A&M after cancelling the Texas games, not TCU. This is a different deal.
http://www.scout.com/college/texas/story...notre-dame
ND originally asked Texas to move the games to later in the decade,but Texas said no, so ND cancelled them.
(Maybe Jack Swarbrick really didn't like Steve Patterson, who knows?)
http://www.fbschedules.com/2014/09/notre...all-games/
ND has recently scheduled Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M and Michigan, among others, and is trying to schedule TCU and an SEC school like Alabama or LSU.
It may be that it is just an issue juggling schedules that many years out an independent. Who knows?
BTW, I don't think that TCU writer understood exactly what a "Shamrock Series" game is. It is an ND home game moved somewhere else and is by contract televised by NBC.
I doubt that a true "Shamrock Series" game could be scheduled at Jerry's World, since that would involve a Big 12 team playing in Big 12 country, but with the game rights held by NBC and with TCU getting 5,000 tickets as the visiting team.
Now, perhaps a Shamrock Series game with TCU could work as a home and home series, with ND' s "home game" being in Atlanta or New York or New Orleans.