It's here! The first College Football Playoff semifinal will take place tonight with (7) Notre Dame facing (6) Penn State in the Orange Bowl. Though both programs have storied pasts and aren't far from one another,

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What got the Nittany Lions to the College Football Playoff semifinals will be instrumental in getting them past the Fighting Irish.

James Franklin and the Nittany Lions are one win away from their first national title game appearance since 1986. First they'll have to defeat the Fighting Irish.

Both ESPN's matchup analytics and the betting odds are favoring Notre Dame. The Notre Dame vs. Penn State football game is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT start on ESPN on Thursday, Jan. 9. Sean McDonough is expected to do the play-by-play. Greg McElroy is expected to join him in the booth.

Though the two teams haven't met since 2007, Penn State and Notre Dame share a history that includes a number of notable clashes.

Here's a look at the series history between Penn State and Notre Dame heading into their College Football Playoff semifinal matchup.

The Penn State Nittany Lions were the most obvious candidate to benefit from the expanded playoff — they would have qualified for a 12-team field in five of the previous eight seasons — but James Franklin couldn’t have envisioned receiving such a straightforward path to the program’s first national title game in 38 years.