Will the 73rd version of Pitt/Notre Dame add to the legend of the longtime series?

From Jock Sutherland’s cold shoulder to Conor Lee’s right toe to those two No. 2 Irish jerseys appearing illegally on the field at the same time, Pitt-Notre Dame games almost always offer storylines worth retelling.

Pitt hopes to write more history Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind., where the Panthers (2-5) will attempt to upset the No. 14 Irish (6-2).

Pitt hasn’t won in South Bend since 2008 in a four-overtime classic when Shady McCoy ran for 169 yards and Lee kicked five field goals, including the decisive 22-yarder.

Perhaps having two former Notre Dame players in the starting lineup — running back C’Bo Flemister and linebacker Shayne Simon — will provide a boost the Panthers desperately need after losing five of their previous six games.

“Anytime you can go back to your alma mater, it’s pretty cool,” said Simon, who transferred to Pitt last year after graduating from Notre Dame with a degree in finance.

Simon said choosing to matriculate to Notre Dame from West Orange, N.J., made a lot of people in his hometown happy.

“I got a lot of love from the people back in Jersey,” he said, “because everybody likes Notre Dame.”

Flemister, who owns a degree in anthropology from Notre Dame, said a game’s venue doesn’t usually matter to him, but returning to where his collegiate career began is special.

“I did spend four years of my life, the first four years of my adult life (at Notre Dame),” he said. “I grew into who I am today there and had an opportunity to come (to Pitt) and showcase that even more.

“I came in with some of those guys. I’m always rooting for them. It will be fun to go in and compete against them.”

Flemister said he chose Notre Dame because he was thinking of his future.

“They preach four for 40, for the next four years of your life you build a huge network (for the next 40),” he said. “That alumni network is awesome. That was pretty much my deciding factor. I was looking 40 years down the road.”

Flemister, who ran for 105 yards last week at Wake Forest, was the leading rusher for the Irish at Heinz Field in 2020 when he ran for 48 yards and scored a touchdown in Notre Dame’s 45-3 victory, the most recent of the 72 games in the series.

Heinz Field (now Acrisure Stadium) was devoid of fans that day in the midst of the pandemic, but a crowd of about 77,000 is expected Saturday in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus.

Another dramatic Pitt-Notre Dame game played in South Bend occurred in 2012 before a crowd of 80,795 at Notre Dame Stadium.

Under first-year coach Paul Chryst, Pitt took a 20-6 lead into the fourth quarter against the fourth-ranked Irish. Pitt’s Kevin Harper missed a 33-yard field goal that would have won the game for the Panthers in the second overtime. By rule, Harper should have been granted a do-over because Notre Dame’s Chris Brown and Bennett Jackson both wore a No. 2 jersey onto the field.

But no one noticed.

“It was a coaching mistake,” then-Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. “We’ve got to do a better job, an oversight that can’t happen.”

Notre Dame eventually won, 29-26, in the third overtime and went on to play — and lose — in the national championship game against Alabama, 42-14.

Pitt has played only West Virginia (106), Penn State (100) and Syracuse (77) more often than Notre Dame, which holds a 50-21-1 edge in the series. But there have been stretches of history when Pitt made the Irish nervous.

The first and most dominant such period occurred from 1932-1937, when Pitt won five of six games, including four shutouts. The ‘36 game was played a week after Pitt lost to Duquesne, 7-0.

Pitt coach Jock Sutherland was so angry with his players over the loss to their crosstown rivals that he ignored them the week before they were due to play the Irish, a move contrary to what any coach would try today.

“He didn’t even come to practice the next week,” All-America tackle Ave Daniell said in author/historian Sam Sciullo Jr.’s book “Pitt Stadium Memories. “He let the assistants carry the ball. In the locker room, he didn’t say a word. He disciplined us. He knew what he was doing.”

Led by the legendary Marshall Goldberg who was celebrating his 18th birthday, Pitt won, 26-0, on its way to its seventh of nine national championships.

The next day, Pittsburgh Press sports editor Chet Smith wrote that the crowd of 75,000 at Pitt Stadium was “one of the greatest throngs ever to look down on a game from the towering reaches of the Oakland saucer,” according to “Pitt Stadium Memories.”

Continued Smith: “… the score — 26 to 0 — was no false criterion of the superiority of the victors.”

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi says he doesn’t read the newspapers, but he would be pleased if someone wrote something just as complimentary about his team after Saturday’s game.