We knew last week already that the Notre Dame – Northwestern game was going to be a prime-time game, we just didn’t know the exact time. We do now. Notre Dame and Northwestern will start at 7:15 PM ET with the game being televised on ESPN.
Notre Dame enters the game 8-0 with Northwestern brining a 5-3 mark and sitting just outside the top 25 into the contest. Northwestern “upset” #20 Wisconsin over the weekend at Ryan Field where the Irish and Wildcats will play for the first time in over 40 years. I put “upset” in quotes because the Badgers have been vastly overrated all season but noone in the Big 10 wants to really admit it.
Northwestern also gave Michigan quite the scare earlier this season. In fact, the Wildcats held a 17-0 lead on the Wolverines at one point before coughing up the lead and letting Michigan off the hook. Which is weird right? Because the narrative amongst the college football pundits is that Michigan is some unstoppable juggernaut now and that Notre Dame is lucky to have played them week one right?
Anyway, it would have been nice if Northwestern cracked the top 25, but even if they did, it wouldn’t have helped the Irish much even if Notre Dame does take care of business next week. IF they do, the Wildcats would have fallen out of the top 25 just as fast as they entered it.
This game will be the shortest the Irish will travel the remainder of the year for an away game which shouldn’t make it too taxing on the players following this week’s cross-country travel to San Diego.
This will be the fifth time in nine games this season the Irish will play in prime time and will personally be the most inconvenient. As a participant in the 2018 NYC Marathon, I have a nice 4:00 AM wake up call awaiting me. That ought to mix nicely with a game that will likely end between 10:30 and 11:00 local. For my sake, please pray that there is not overtime like the last time these two squared off in 2014.
I was rebuked in another website for daring to suggest that the Irish 3 TD victory over Navy left a lot to be desired. But I digress.
Northwestern is a dangerous opponent, well-coached and disciplined, unafraid of and never intimidated by Notre Dame. Our objectives should be to walk away healthy with the W. Consider the pressure on these young men as the season progresses and they approach the enormity of what they can achieve – they know that with one serious lapse in any remaining game, it could be lost.
Is it “Offical” or “Official” time of the game? LOL!
Maybe I’ll find this game on radio. Anyone know? I will not succumb to pay tv. We get Amazon prime cause my Wife is a movie freak. When the Notre Dame game is on, She thinks I am weird staring at guys running around in space suits.
Get you own TV and subscription to cable or whatever.
Frank:
Good luck with you run in the NYC marathon.
Thanks Fitz! I am ready to rock 26.2 miles decked out in ND gear this weekend.
Notredame needs to blow these guys out but probably won’t. I like Notredames skilled players but I wish they had a blazer like Rondale Moore Will Fuller The rocket. When your offense is struggling players like that can bail you out plus you have to pay so much attention to them they open things up for everyone else.
Yeah, I’ve given up hoping for blow out wins in thse types of games. It seems when I think they should blow a team out they struggle. Navy was technically a blow out win but it didn’t feel like it. Despite our 22 point win it just felt like Navy kept hanging around and we were never really able to shake them. I kept hoping it would get to the point they could get some practice for the back-ups, including Jurkovec. But that never happened.
Damian, Navy was not a blow out win. The game was still undecided midway thru the 4 quarter with it only being a 2 score game. That is why the talking heads were saying ND held on vs Navy. To your other point about getting backups in the game, I too was hoping for this. I think we played some backups on defense to keep guys fresh but I wanted to see some more offensive backups too.
Yeah, true. I was trying to make the point that if someone just looked at the score you’d think on the surface that the Irish beat Navy pretty handily. But it wasn’t a rout in any other sense. At the end of the 1st half it looked like a rout was on, but then Navy seemed to get back into it and it was never comfortable after that, at least until ND scored it’s final TD that put it away finally.
They just never got far enough ahead in enough time to get significant back-ups on offense out there. At this rate we may not have to worry about Jurkovec getting his 4 games in this year.
Good luck on your race – looks like you will have great weather!
Thanks! An Irish win the night before will go a long way towards powering me through in the morning.