Who should Michigan schedule in place of Notre Dame?  Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

ANN ARBOR -- The Michigan football program's future schedule is about to get interesting. 

With the news earlier this week that Notre Dame has opted to cancel its annual series with Michigan after the 2014 campaign, the Wolverines and athletic director Dave Brandon now find themselves in an interesting situation moving forward. 

A position Brandon calls an "opportunity." 

"Now we're in a position where we can look at bringing in programs that can help us with strength of schedule, because I think that's going to help us with the new playoff system," Brandon said earlier this week on The Huge Show. " We can look at bringing in teams that have never been to Michigan Stadium before, which gives us a great opportunity to let our fans see a program they're not used to seeing and likewise give our fans a chance to travel to a place where we haven't played." 

Brandon said Michigan will likely seek out home-and-home series with high-level national opponents to replace Notre Dame, games that he hopes will bring both high excitement and high competition. 

Traditional Big 12 powers Texas and Oklahoma seem like unlikely opponents in the short-term, as both schools have full non-conference slates in 2015. 

West-coast power USC already has both Notre Dame and Texas A&M on its schedule for 2015 and 2016, and Oregon has a home-and-home scheduled with Michigan State in 2014 and 2015. 

As far as national powers that could realistically swing a Michigan home-and-home go?  Alabama is completely open in 2015, and only has Michigan State on the schedule in 2016 -- anyone for a Cowboys Classic rematch? 

LSU and former Michigan assistant Les Miles are pretty well booked up in 2015 and 2016 -- but 2017 and 2018 are wide open?  Could this become a reality?