The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are on the road in college football action today, taking on the Stanford Cardinal. The game is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on FOX. Currently the college football odds for the game have the Cardinal favored to pick up the victory.
Notre Dame and Stanford is one of a couple ranked matchups this weekend. Michigan and Ohio State meet up, Ole Miss takes on Mississippi State, Florida and Florida State play while Oklahoma will take on Oklahoma State as well.
This game, like nearly all of the other ones, has playoff implications. Notre Dame is ranked sixth overall by the committee, a win here over Stanford might catapult them higher. It would certainly move them up if any of the five teams ahead of them failed to win and beating Stanford on the road would obviously be a nice resume builder.
The Irish have played well under DeShone Kizer, but he's also made some mistakes. That's part of being a freshman quarterback with their tough schedule, though he has led the Irish to an average of almost 35 points per game by throwing 18 touchdowns, many to Will Fuller. The Irish ground attack has been stable with C.J. Prosise, but he's been a bit inconsistent the last three games as he has battle injuries. Stepping in has been Josh Adams, who is averaging almost seven yards per carry.
Stanford won't allow anybody to rip off that kind of yardage. The Cardinal have been very strong on defense (minus a few games) and a two-point loss recently to Oregon has them on the outside looking in to the college football playoff. Even so, the Cardinal find themselves in a good position with two games left to go. A win over Notre Dame would be the best for them all season, plus next week they will take on either UCLA or USC in the conference title game. A pair of wins, especially convincing, would be beneficial.
The Cardinal are a very strong team at home. Christian McCaffrey has been lighting people up all season and Kevin Hogan has been good at quarterback. The one thing that could hurt Stanford in this one is if Notre Dame builds up a nice, early lead and the Cardinal have to throw it consistently to get back into the game.
Look for David Shaw's team to play well on both sides of the ball. McCaffrey and the gang can have a big game against an athletic Notre Dame front, but also an Irish team that has surrendered almost 168 yards on the ground per game to opponents (though they have faced tough running teams in Georgia Tech and Navy).
Stanford will be too tough at home.
Free Pick: Stanford
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