Tag: 2020 acc football

ACC reveals preseason projected standings

The media, 134 members total, gave their projections as to how the 2020 ACC season will play out. Find out where they place Notre Dame.

One week from today, we will all be excited, exploding with anticipation as the Irish are set to kick off their season the next day. Today, the results of the annual ACC media poll were released.

The Irish were the only other team to get votes to finish first, although Clemson got all except 2. If the projections are correct, the Irish and Tigers will face off twice, once during the regular season and again in the ACC Championship game.

Although the media members don’t project records, the 134 polled think the season will play out with the Irish at least having a chance for an ACC regular-season championship. Hopefully, they are wrong, or at worst the Irish split the games with the Tigers and give the College Football Committee something to think about when it releases the final rankings.

Clemson’s quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, was selected as the conference’s preseason player of the year. This isn’t a surprise at all, since most pundits have Lawrence as the projected first pick in next spring’s NFL draft.

Breaking: Notre Dame’s home start times for 2020 season

The home game start times for the 2020 Fighting Irish Football team have been announced.

The Irish have had their finalized schedule and now know the start times to their foray into the ACC during this odd 2020 season. Although it’s just the home games, it means that college football is creeping closer to it’s start.

No surprise that when the Clemson Tigers come into town, it’s going to be a night game. This contest is arguably the most anticipated game of the regular season, and you can probably expect ESPN’s College Game Day to be on campus as well.

Kickoff against Duke can’t come soon enough, as we still await the announcement of the road slate. This still is enough for us to get excited for the season to begin.

USA Today projects ACC’s records, Two CFP teams?

The USA Today’s Paul Myerberg details how he sees the ACC playing out this season.

The season is just around the corner and the USA Today’s Paul Myerberg wondered if the ACC could potentially put two teams into the College Football Playoffs.

The two teams Myerberg is referencing are Clemson and your Fighting Irish. He proposes that if the after the two teams meet in their regular season matchup in November they “could meet again for the conference championship in December holding just one combined loss. In that scenario, the case will be made that even the loser deserves a spot among the final top four.”

It’s hard to argue with his logic, but if either of the teams finish undefeated while the other team has two losses, it’s hard to imagine having a two loss team make the CFP. If Notre Dame and Clemson split their regular season  and potential ACC Championship games, then yes, both teams would have a very solid argument that they deserve to be in the four team tournament.

Myerberg then projects the ACC’s individual team records, as the Irish finish second behind Clemson, with a 9-2 record. Clemson, in his projections, goes undefeated and would get the number one overall seed in the CFP. The Irish be left at the altar as the 5th team, barely missing their second playoff berth in the last 3 years.

Hopefully Myerberg is incorrect in his assessment of the season playing out in the ACC. The ideal situation would see the Irish beat Clemson twice and leave no doubt for the CFP committee to include them in the final four. Hell, a split of the games would work, as that should be enough this year for both teams to make it. Let’s hope it’s one of those two and not how Myerberg see’s the season playing out.

Best case, worst case for Notre Dame in 2020

Find out what the potential best case and worst case scenarios for Fighting Irish Football in the 2020 season could be.

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.

ACC to make Final, Final decision on Fall Football Today

The ACC has a meeting set up for this afternoon to discuss fall football once again.

The ripple effects of the Big Ten and Pac-12 cancelling their fall football seasons continue as the ACC presidents will have yet another meeting to decide if going forward with the season is the correct thing to do.

This tweet is a bit deceiving however, as this meeting was already set up to get an update from their medical advisors. There seems like no need to worry about the ACC joining the Big Ten and Pac-12 in their cancellation of fall athletics.

There will be news coming out of this meeting however, but it will most like just involve a conversation on how each program is doing with their testing and tracing. As we know, the Irish Football team had 9 players miss the first scheduled practice for precautionary reasons after two players tested positive. The Notre Dame student body should be given some kudos as well, as they have been tested prior to their return to campus earlier this week with some very encouraging results.

With the student body having exceptional rates on their return to campus, it gives the football team plenty of hope that the community is doing their part to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to monitor this situation at Fighting Irish Wire and bring you any breaking news that comes from this meeting.

Satterfield: ACC plans to move forward regardless of others

With reports of the Big Ten cancelling the 2020 fall football season, it seems as if one ACC coach is confident his conference will play.

On a day where we have seen legit rumors of the Big Ten cancelling their fall football season, there was some potential good news in regards to the Irish and the ACC’s.

Satterfield is Scott Satterfield, the head coach of the Louisville Cardinals. Yes, he might think that the ACC will continue to charge on to a season in 2020, but the reality is that it is looking more and more like a full on cancellation of the season.

The face of the ACC players, Clemson’s quarterback Trevor Lawrence, along with Ohio State’s Justin Fields expressed their willingness to get on the field this year and compete. Both of them tweeted out the #Weareunited #Wewanttoplay last evening.

This all may end up being a moot point, as we all continue a wait-and-see approach to what will ultimately happen this fall. We hope there will be football, but continue to be prepared to be very lonely on Saturday’s in the coming months.

Does Clemson’s Xavier Thomas Redshirting Impact Notre Dame?

It seems like this is a loss for the Clemson Tigers, but is it really?

It came out yesterday that Clemson’s junior defensive linemen Xavier Thomas will be taking a medical redshirt this year and will not “play” for the Tigers. Thomas’ situation was scary, as head coach Dabo Swinney explained that Thomas was one of the many Clemson players to contract the Coronavirus, then after a quarantine contracted strep throat. The illness made an impact on Thomas’ physical well-being as he added 10-12 pounds.

While it may seem like the Irish are getting good news with Thomas not playing this year, that might not exactly be the case. His situation is different than some other collegiate stars who have opted out like Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons. Those players have given up their eligibility while Thomas is still a member the Tigers.

With the new redshirt rules this would enable Thomas to play in four games this year and still keep his extra year of eligibility. This is Swinney’s plan for Thomas this year, but the question remains which four games will he participate in? Looking at Clemson’s cakewalk schedule, the regular season really just see’s the game against the Irish as their only real competitive game on paper. The Tigers avoid North Carolina, but they will face Virginia Tech, the lowest rated ACC team inside the Amway Coaches poll powered by USA Today Sports.

The Tigers have been mainstays in the College Football Playoff’s and with their preseason number 1 ranking, another trip seems very likely. When you add in the ACC Championship game along with the potential of two more playoff games, it whittles down Swinney’s options for getting Thomas on the field. Games later in the year will give him more time to get physically in shape after his illness’, with the hope that the former 5-Star recruit will finally breakout, even in just 4 games.

If you go by my logic, there will be just one regular season game that makes sense for Thomas to play in, the first Saturday in November against the Irish. It may seem like Thomas’ decision to redshirt will help the Irish, but that might not be the case after all. We will wait and see how it plays out, but there is a very real possibility that Thomas will be in South Bend and play a role for the Tigers.

Initial thoughts on Notre Dame’s 2020 schedule

A few immediate thoughts regarding the Fighting Irish’s first ACC conference schedule plus one.

As the Irish venture into the ACC for the season, their schedule was finalized finalized this morning along with finding out where they landed in the Amway Coaches poll powered by USA Today Sports. Here are a few thoughts on how the schedule is set up the Fighting Irish.

Clemson is still the toughest test for the regular season as they came in #1 in the Amway Coaches poll. The addition of #19 North Carolina will be tough, but the Tigers are still one of the best teams in the country. Dabo Swinney has recruited very well and his team is loaded with top-end talent led by quarterback Trevor Lawrence. The Irish get an advantage by hosting the Tigers, but without fans, this might negate playing in South Bend.

Keeping on the Clemson game, the schedule sets up well for the Irish and they should be going into the November 7th game against the Tigers a clean 7-0. The most difficult game prior to facing Clemson will be Louisville, they will put up some points this season. Quarterback Micale Cunningham and wide receiver Tutu Atwell make up one of the best QB-WR tandems in the country, but the defense was atrocious last year. The Irish scored 35 points in the ’19 opener against the Cardinals which was two points over what their season average was last year. That effort put them 109th in the country and the Irish have plenty of time to find new skills position stars prior to that game.

The bye weeks come at a great time. We could nitpick a little bit about the six-game stretch between the first and last bye week, but it works out fairly well for the Irish. It would have been nice to see a bye before or around the Clemson game but having one in front of traveling to North Carolina is almost as good. Getting an extra week to prepare to go on the road and face a Top 25 team is ideal.

All in all, the Irish seem to have path that doesn’t pose many roadblocks to get back to Bank of America Stadium and compete for the ACC Championship. A split of the Clemson and North Carolina games while taking care of the rest of the lesser opponents would put the Irish at 10-1 which should be enough to be one of the top two teams in the ACC. Let’s hope it works out that way, with the Irish getting a chance to play for a conference title for the first time ever on December 12th and a College Football Playoff berth.

Notre Dame/Wake Forest game to remain in NFL venue

With games being moved and canceled, Notre Dame has been made aware that they’ll still be playing in one NFL venue for the first time in ’20

A growing assumption around college football has been that games scheduled for neutral sites would be moved to campus venues for 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That was the case last week when the Notre Dame versus Georgia Tech contest was moved to Bobby Dodd Stadium on Tech’s campus, but one ACC opponent of Notre Dame’s is sticking with the game being played in a neutral, NFL stadium.

Notre Dame was scheduled to play Wake Forest on September 26 before the ACC schedule changes were announced last week.  Wake Forest officially announced Tuesday that the game, known as the Duke’s Mayo Classic this season, will remain on September 26 in at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

That will add to the list of venues Notre Dame has played a football game in and gives one of the ten dates of Notre Dame’s ACC games this season while Wake Forest will play their other official home games at their actual home, Truist Field in 2020.

If Notre Dame is to qualify for the ACC Championship Game in 2020 they’ll make a return to trip to Charlotte as Bank of America Stadium has hosted the conference title game s10 of the last 11 years.

The Irish are still yet to announce an opponent or date for their one non-ACC game that they’re allowed this season.

New report has Notre Dame as actual ACC football member in 2020

Notre Dame is college football’s most famous independent. Could that all be changing for 2020? One new report says it is.

When the Big Ten turned college football upside down a few weeks ago by announcing they’d only be playing conference games in 2020, many wondered what the fallout would mean for Notre Dame if more conferences followed suit.

Sure enough the Pac-12 quickly announced the same and before you knew it, Notre Dame had lost three of their 12 scheduled opponents for 2020.

We thought right away that Notre Dame’s sweetheart deal with the ACC would provide the perfect life raft and even proposed a 10 game ACC schedule for the Irish.

Now one report has Notre Dame not just playing an ACC schedule but joining the conference for 2020.

I don’t see how you could have Notre Dame be a member of the conference for the year, allow them a chance to potentially play in the ACC Championship Game but not allow them the conference’s bid to the Organge Bowl if they did end up winning the league.

Listen, I’m as ant-conference as any follower of Notre Dame or college football has ever been.  If it’s the only way to get games in 2020 though I’d be more than happy to it play out this way.

Think for a second how great it could be:

Notre Dame bashers get their wish and for one year the Irish are a member of the ACC.  Then Notre Dame goes and wins the ACC that season, takes their Orange Bowl (or hopefully College Football Playoff) bid and then go back to independence in 2021.

If you’re wondering what the one non-conference game would be I would assume Notre Dame would either keep their annual deal with Navy as long as the AAC allows for out-of-conference games by its member schools.  If not Navy then my money would be on Arkansas seeing as the ACC and SEC seem to have their heads largely in the same places in terms of getting football played this fall.

If Notre Dame ever had to join a conference for even the shortest amount of time this has the chance to be about as perfect as one could hope.