Category: Notre Dame Football

Notre Dame Given Seventh Best Odds at 2020 National Championship

BetMGM has their updated 2020 national championship odds out and Notre Dame shows up pretty high on the list.

It feels like its a million years away but odds are out and have been wagered on in regards to college football’s 2020 national champion.  The site we use to track here at Fighting Irish Wire, BetMGM, has their updated odds out and Notre Dame’s odds show up pretty high on the list.

As everyone can probably imagine, 2020 Notre Dame opponent Clemson is the odds on favorite to hoist the College Football Playoff trophy at the end of the year with +225 odds.

Ohio State (+300), Alabama (+450), LSU (+650), Georgia (+900) and Florida (+1400) check in next.

Then you’ll find the Brian Kelly led Notre Dame Fighting Irish with the seventh-best odds at +2000 (20:1).

Odds via BetMGM. Access USATODAY Sports Betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated March 16 at 5:15 p.m. ET

Notre Dame’s biggest rival can be found with 40:1 odds as USC is actually tied with Oregon as the Pac-12’s best bets.  Notre Dame’s October 3 opponent Wisconsin also checks in at 40-1 while for whatever it’s worth, Michigan can be found a little further down the list at 50-1.

Want to get in on the action? Place your bet now at BetMGM.

-Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

PSA: A Notre Dame Highlight to Keep You Safe (March 16 Edition)

That’s why we will provide you a Notre Dame highlight to watch each day and think about for the rest of the day whenever you wash your hands.

These are crazy days we’re living.  I work my day-job in downtown Chicago and live in the suburbs and take the commuter train each day to work.  Immediately upon getting off the train the last week I’ve begun walking straight to the bathroom and washing my hands because God only know what germs are infesting anything, let alone public transportation.

Thanks to our friends at the Auburn Wire, we were just reminded that the CDC says you need to scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap in order for your hand-washing to take effect.  The Auburn folks offered a great way to pass that twenty seconds, which gets incredibly tedious after doing it dozens and dozens of times a day.

In that same capacity, we’re here for you at Fighting Irish Wire.  That’s why we will provide you a Notre Dame highlight to watch each day and think about for the rest of the day whenever you wash your hands.

Our first play?  Irv Smith carrying the entire Indiana football team to the end zone to start the 1991 season.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DEUN9LdMBA]

Alright, so the highlight runs forty seconds or so but the play takes about 20 seconds exactly from when the play starts to when the celebration in the end zone begins.  Play that in your head the rest of the afternoon as you hopefully keep the Coronavirus as far away from you and yours as possible.

Three Early Lines Released for Notre Dame’s 2020 Football Season

It’s early but BETFox released some betting lines on college football games in 2020, giving Irish fans three games to think about.

The College Football world never sleeps, even during this time when the COVID-19 has taken over the headlines. Yesterday FOXBet released a few of their lines for the upcoming 2020 season with three of the Irish’s game’s being given very early betting odds.

The first game on the docket and with a line is the Irish’s visit to Ireland to face Navy for the season opener on August 29th. FOXBet has Notre Dame the favorites against the Midshipmen, a two-touchdown favorite to be exact. With a line that is that large of a margin, it should be believed that the Irish should be able to handle Navy fairly earsy.

Their second game with a line is their contest against Wisconsin in Lambeau Field on October 3rd with a 7:30pm EST scheduled time. The Badgers are the early favorites in this game, although its just a field-goal difference for the two teams. With such a small line, this game is almost a pick-em, Wisconsin being the favorites most likely due to having the “home field” advantage. The Badgers do return their starting QB Jack Coan, but they will have to fill the shoes of star RB Jonathan Taylor, C Tyler Biadasz and WR Quintez Cephus.

The final game FOXBet gave odds to is when Stanford comes to South Bend a week after facing the Badgers, the Irish being a 10.5 point favorite. This game could be one where the Cardinal sneak up on the Irish, coming off a potential Top 10 matchup the week before, then facing a gutted Stanford team. The Cardinal has seen 14 players from last years roster enter the transfer portal and that lack of depth will clearly hurt them in this coming season.

One matchup that was not given a betting line is the contest against Clemson. At some point that game will get early odds as well, but at this moment FOXBet has not given one of the more anticipated games of the 2020 docket a line. Do you see the Irish getting a fair shake by FOXBet with these three early lines?

AP Writer Names Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly Top 3 Coach in Country

AP writer Ralph Russ ranked the Top 25 collegiate football coaches and was very high on Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly.

Although the NCAA has canceled all of their sports through the end of the academic year, there still will be conjecture as to who is the best coach in the NCAA. AP College Football writer Ralph Russo recently ranked his Top 25 coaches in the country.

The caveat here is that Russo does not rank first or second year coaches, otherwise the list would be somewhat different. Either way, to see Brian Kelly’s name along after Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney should make Notre Dame fan’s very happy about how high Russo is on the Irish’s leader.

Kelly in his tenure at Notre Dame is 71-37, and his total career record after previous stops at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and Cincinnati is 242-93-2. There are 21 wins that don’t show up on Kelly’s career record that were vacated as well and if you add in those wins, his time in South Bend looks even better at 92-37, the losses in those seasons are added into his overall record.

When you look at the 92-37 record, Kelly sports a .718 winning percentage, which might not be exactly what Irish fans are looking for, but after a disastrous 2016, Kelly make drastic changes to his coaching staff. Those changes have resulted in three straight 10 win plus seasons, an appearance in the College Football Playoff and Top 15 finishes in each year. Those are the kind of results most Notre Dame fans expect, and if Kelly can continue his recent trend of winning at a high level, Irish fans will be extremely pleased.

Notre Dame Cancels Spring Football Game

Notre Dame announced from their official football program Twitter account that the annual Blue-Gold spring game won’t take place

Earlier on Thursday the ACC Tournament and every other college basketball tournament was canceled. Brian Kelly also tweeted that the football program at Notre Dame had suspended operations for the foreseeable future in wake of Coronavirus.

It may have seemed inevitable after Michigan and Ohio State started the trend but moments ago Notre Dame announced from their official football program Twitter account that the annual Blue-Gold spring game won’t take place.

Again, hardly a surprise at this point but news nonetheless.

Notre Dame Football Suspends Spring Practice

Brian Kelly in a tweet announced the suspension of Notre Dame’s spring practices until further notice.

It seemed like a matter of time before the Notre Dame Football team took a leave of absence from its spring schedule. Head Coach Brian Kelly released a statement regarding his teams’ practices, as they will not return to campus for any activities after classes went remote yesterday.

This makes all the sense in the world, as the students and staff’s health at this current moment is their biggest concern. With the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC all canceling their basketball tournaments, the NCAA tournament in the air now, and schools across the country going to remote classes, Notre Dame is making the right decision. It is a tough one to make, but the correct one. People’s lives are at stake, not just inside the program but outside as well.

Notre Dame ’21 QB Commit Buchner to Transfer High Schools

California QB Tyler Buchner, a Notre Dame commit, will transfer to a new high school to finish career.

It was reported yesterday that Notre Dame commit Tyler Buchner, the top ranked recruit in the 2021 Irish class, will transfer from La Jolla High School to La Mesa Helix High School to finish out his career.

It was Tom Loy of Irish Illustrated who got a release about the transfer from the Buchner Family, as they explained why the move. It was due to Buchner’s “interest in enrolling early at Notre Dame” which makes plenty of sense, as Ian Book will graduate this after this year and the QB position will need a new starter for 2021.

Buchner has been a leader for his recruiting class, being active with other prospects around the nation in trying to lure them to South Bend to play with him. The changing of his high school will not effect this at all.

At the current moment it has been planned for the 2021 recruiting class to be making a visit to South Bend in a little under two weeks from now, but that remains to be seen how the Irish will handle visitors with the COVID-19 outbreak.

Notre Dame Cancels In-Person Classes

The University of Notre Dame announced Wednesday that in-person classes will be cancelled until at least April 13.

Notre Dame students are on spring break right now but won’t be returning to class next week and won’t be returning to class in a physical matter for at least a month.

The University of Notre Dame announced Wednesday that in-person classes will be canceled until at least April 13.  The university has also canceled classes for next week in order to prepare for all classes to move to the online format starting March 23.

Now to the question most Notre Dame fans have – what does it mean for the athletic teams?

The outstanding women’s lacrosse team played today, moving to 7-0 after defeating Vanderbilt 16-6.

The now-ranked baseball team is set to play this afternoon at Radford.

The basketball team begins play tonight in the 2020 ACC Tournament that is being held in Greensboro, North Carolina.

And according to Bryan Driskell of Irish Breakdown, the football team will continue with spring practice as scheduled.

Notre Dame’s Rees Transition to Offensive Coordinator Named Something to Watch by CBS

New Notre Dame Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees named one to watch by CBS Sports Dennis Dodd.

With spring practice starting around the country, CBS Sports Dennis Dodd recently looked at 20 things you need to watch across the country. It comes as no surprise that Dodd checked in on Brian Kelly’s team, but what might is that they are supposedly being overlooked.

Dodd goes on to day that Notre Dame is under the radar, noting that the Irish have won 10 games a year for three years in a row, something that hasn’t happened since 1993. It is just the second time that has happened in Notre Dame’s storied history, which probably comes as a surprise to many.

The biggest question mark Dodd sees for the Irish this spring is “Tommy Rees settling in as offensive coordinator.” Rees took over the offense for Chip Long, who was released prior to the Camping World Bowl, and promptly led the Irish to score 33 points against an Iowa State team that allowed almost 26 points per game. Rees’ transition from just being in charge of the quarterbacks, to taking over the whole offense is definitely something to watch.

Notre Dame’s Rivalry with USC Ranked Among Best in all of NCAA Athletics

Notre Dame against USC make top 10 list of rivalries in all of college athletics.

When you have a rivalry as heated as the Irish and Trojans have, it comes as no surprise that it is among the intense rivalries in the NCAA, on the gridiron or hardwood. Brad Crawford of 247Sports ranked the fiercest rivalries  in all of collegiate athletics and Notre Dame’s annual contest against USC was among them.

Ranked as the 9th fiercest, Crawford noted that the rivalry between the two schools “is defined by it’s series of high stakes meetings as two of college football’s most stories programs.” Crawford is right by that as the game normally has national implications for the winner of the contest.

In recent memory It has been the Irish who have owned the rivalry, winners of seven of the last ten, including the last three years in a row. Prior to that ten-game stretch, it was USC who owned the rivalry, winning eight of the ten games in the 2000’s.

The hated between the two schools is strong, which is why I believe that Crawford ranked it a bit too low. At worst USC/Notre Dame is a top 5 rivalry in all of major collegiate athletics, and clearly it is up for debate. This year’s game will be played in LA Memorial Coliseum and is the final game on the schedule for both teams. Although the time is undecided right now, it should be a prime-time match-up as both teams should be highly ranked coming into the season.