Saturday’s season-opening tilt between No. 7 Notre Dame and No. 20 Texas A&M in College Station is a big game for two teams with College Football Playoff aspirations.
Because it’s a marquee matchup between two playoff hopefuls, the game will be in the spotlight. As such, the expert analysts and pundits are weighing in with Fighting Irish Wire doing so as well.
Tom Fornelli from CBS Sports has the game listed as one of his two games of the week — Georgia hosting Clemson is the other — and he has Notre Dame and Texas hitting the under of 46.5.
This is because Fornelli believes that the two defenses will dominate. Fornelli suggests that the Irish may struggle against the Aggies’ defense due to injuries on the offensive line and because new A&M head coach Mike Elko knows new ND quarterback Riley Leonard inside and out, having coached him at Duke.
https://twitter.com/tomfornelli/status/1829204555730440651?s=61&t=nW7PCouJbinxzoQ7zhCi_g
Meanwhile, Fornelli believes that the Fighting Irish have one of the best defenses in the country, and that will cause fits for the Aggies. As for who will actually win the game, Fornelli admits he doesn’t know.