With the season rapidly approaching and the schedule finalized for the Irish, we can now look ahead and try to figure out what the best case and worst case scenarios. Brad Crawford of 247Sports did that and it’s pretty obvious what the best case looks like for Notre Dame.
Going undefeated is the best case, beating Clemson twice, once in the regular season and the second time for the ACC crown. How great would it be to be one-and-done with conference play bringing the ACC trophy back to South Bend. 12-0 sounds damn good to all of us.
How about the worst case? The Irish are set up to win at minimum 7 games, but there are some traps along the way. Crawford sees the Irish potentially losing to Clemson, North Carolina and either Pittsburgh or Louisville. Let’s just say the Irish lose all four of those games. This would be a complete disaster, an outcome I just can’t see happening.
But let’s live in that world for a second, this scenario could happen if multiple things went wrong for the Irish. If quarterback Ian Book went down with a season ending injury in the opener against Duke, the depth just isn’t there to compensate for a loss of Book. How about an injury to safety Kyle Hamilton? Or linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah? Injuries to any of the Irish stars wouldn’t be ideal, but probably wouldn’t derail the whole season.
The worst case probably won’t happen, but meeting in the middle is a possibility. In this weird season, anything could happen, so prepare yourself for a while season of Notre Dame football.