Tag: notre dame 2020 football schedule

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.

Notre Dame/Wake Forest still set for Charlotte, for now

Despite what Brian Kelly told Mike Tirico earlier this week, Notre Dame and Wake Forest is still set for Charlotte per the Wake Forest AD.

Earlier this week Brian Kelly made the media rounds.  On his stop with Mike Tirico on NBCSN, he mentioned that Notre Dame’s neutral site games in NFL stadiums may be moving back to college campuses in 2020.

That’s not the case for at least one of those games.

At least not yet.

Notre Dame’s contest at Wake Forest is scheduled to be played September 26 in Charlotte instead of at Wake’s home field.  Despite what Kelly told Tirico, Wake Forest’s athletic director says otherwise.

From the Winston-Salem Journal:

“We’re all ahead on Charlotte, excited about the opportunity,” Currie said. “Candidly, the demand for tickets would far exceed what we can fill at BB&T Field, especially if we have to take — as we would assume now — some sort of social distancing parameters.

“We’ll continue to evaluate the situation and obviously be in communication with (Athletics Director) Jack Swarbrick and the Notre Dame department.” – John Currie, Wake Forest Athletic Director

Bank of America Field in Charlotte has a capacity of nearly 2.5 times that of Wake Forest’s home, BB&T Field.  Even if only half capacity at games is allowed this football season the game would likely draw a larger crowd in Charlotte with those restrictions than it would on a regular game day at Wake Forest.

Swarbrick, Kelly and the rest of the Notre Dame athletic department might be trying to move games back to college campuses but it certainly doesn’t seem like that’s happening.

At least not yet.