Notre Dame vs. Miami Preview

             The #8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish battle the Miami Hurricanes Saturday night at Soldier Field in Chicago as part of the annual Shamrock Series. The Irish enter the game as heavy favorites, as they should. The Hurricanes have a respectable 4-1 record, but have not beaten a ranked team and was destroyed by #7 Kansas State. They have a porous defense that ranks 116^th in yards allowed and 100^th in points allowed. That, along with a middle-of-the-road offense, creates a team that is expected to be overmatched by Notre Dame.

            Many Irish faithful are worried this could be the game that ends Notre Dame winning streak. I really do not understand the apprehension. Notre Dame is clearly the better team. Miami has beaten some decent teams, but it’s not like they have any secret weapons that the Irish won’t be expecting. Their wins have come against teams with a combined record of 6-8 and their last two wins came by a combined point total of just 12. 

Keys for an Irish Victory

Pressure Stephen Morris- The junior quarterback is averaging over 300 yards passing per game and is really taking control of his young team. His only downfall so far is his four interceptions. Morris could be considered a mobile quarterback but should not scare the Irish. In fact, that should scare Morris since Notre Dame’s defense completely shut down Denard Robinson, one of the best running quarterbacks in the country. Morris likes to throw the deep ball, so the Irish will need to get to him quick before he can pick apart the young secondary.

Open up the Offensive Playbook- The Hurricanes’ defense is the worst the Irish have faced all season. They’re even worse than Navy who the Irish hung 52 points on. They have also allowed more points than any other opponent so far this season. This is the perfect game for Golson to prove that he is the sole quarterback and leader of the Irish offense. He has had two weeks to prepare for the Hurricane defense and should be ready for anything they throw at him.  Coach Brian Kelly has said the same. He is hoping to expand the playbook and have more variety in the plays that are called. It’s imperative that the offense gets into sync because the next three opponents on the schedule all have defenses ranked in the Top 15 nationally in yards allowed.

No Turnovers- This has not nearly been the kind of problem that it was last year when the Irish committed 15 turnovers in the first four games. This season the offense has only turned it over four times. They have been helped out a ton by the defense who has forced the opponents to commit 11 turnovers. As for Miami, this season they’ve turned the ball over nine times and forced 12 turnovers, six of those coming last week against North Carolina State.

This game comes right before a big matchup against the #18 Stanford Cardinal. You could consider the Miami game a “trap game” because it comes after a big win against a Michigan and is right before the Stanford game. I’m not buying into that though. The Irish and the coaching staff are mature enough to focus on this game and this game alone. They aren’t going to be looking ahead until the clock says 00:00.

Prediction: Notre Dame-31. Miami-6

National Preview

Last Saturday appeared to be a good week to go outside and enjoy the fall weather due to the lack of quality Top 25 matchups. However, there turned out to be quite a few good games. None was more exciting than the Baylor-West Virginia game though. The final score was 70-63 and nearly every offensive record for each school was broken.  

This week you don’t have to look hard for big time matchups. There are four Top 25 games with two of those involving Top 10 teams going head to head. There is also a plethora of supplementary games that are just as enticing as the games garnering national attention. With all that being said, it’s disappointing to say that outside of the ten games I’m picking there aren’t any games that I would worry about missing. Onto the picks!

Games are in order of scheduled start time. Winners in bold.

#24 Northwestern Wildcats (5-0) at Penn State Nittany Lions (3-2)

Virginia Tech Hokies (3-2) at North Carolina Tarheels (3-2)

#4 LSU Tigers (5-0) at #10 Florida Gators (4-0)

#17 Oklahoma Sooners (2-1) at Texas Tech Red Raiders (4-0)

Michigan Wolverines (2-2) at Purdue Boilermakers (3-1)

#5 Georgia Bulldogs (5-0) at #6 South Carolina Gamecocks (5-0)

#8 West Virginia Mountaineers (4-0) at #11 Texas Longhorns (4-0)

Miami Hurricanes (4-1) at #9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish

#21 Nebraska Cornhuskers (4-1) at #12 Ohio State Buckeyes (5-0)

#23 Washington Huskies (3-1) at #2 Oregon Ducks (5-0)

I went 7-3 last week in picks which puts me at 42-10 over the whole season. This week there are a few games that could go either way. Will Northwestern’s offense be able to move the ball against Penn State’s defense? LSU has not beaten any quality team and this will be their chance to prove themselves worthy of being in the BCS conversation. The Sooners are really struggling on both sides of the ball and Texas Tech is playing great right now. I believe Purdue is the most underrated team in the country and this is their chance to go out and get a big time win.  Georgia and South Carolina will be your typical SEC heavyweight bout and the winner will end up with an easy path to an SEC East championship. It will be interesting to see if quarterback Geno Smith can put up insanely good stats against a solid Texas defense. The Buckeyes are ineligible for postseason play but that isn’t slowing them down. Nebraska is a very balanced team and will give Ohio State and Urban Meyer a run for their money.