The #7 Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be featured on ESPN New Year’s Day when they battle the #2 Georgia Bulldogs at the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Kickoff is set for 8:45 PM ET.
Key Injuries
Notre Dame
DB Chance Tucker (ACL), RB Gi’Bran Payne (ACL), OL Ashton Craig (knee), DL Jordan Botelho (knee), DL Boubacar Traore (ACL), DB Ben Morrison (hip), WR KK Smith (collarbone) and DL Rylie Mills (knee) are all out for the season: LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (sprained knee) and OL Rocco Spindler. DB Jaden Mickey will miss the remainder of the season (transfer portal).
Georgia
QB Carson Beck is out for the season (UCL).
Betting Trends
- Notre Dame is 9-0 ATS in their last 9 games.
- The total has gone under in six of Notre Dame’s last seven games versus the SEC.
- Notre Dame is 4-1-1 ATS in their last six games while playing as an underdog.
- Georgia is 3-9 ATS in its last 12 games.
- The total has gone over in four of Georgia’s last six games.
Money Line and Total (Over / Under)
#7 Notre Dame (12-1) (11-2 ATS) at #2 Georgia -2 (11-2) (4-9)
Notre Dame outclassed Indiana in every facet of its first-round playoff win. The 27-17 victory over the Hoosiers granted the Irish an invitation to face the #2 Georgia Bulldogs on New Year’s Day in the New Orleans Sugar Bowl. Unfortunately, for Notre Dame fans, the price of admission came in the form of 6’5, 295-pound Rylie Mills. The All-American defensive tackle sustained a season-ending knee injury while sacking Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke during the first drive of the second half. His replacement will come by way of a committee. Reserve defense linemen such as Gabe Rubio and Donovan Hinish will get first dibs with the possibility of sophomore Armel Mukam and freshman Sean Sevillano Jr. seeing significant snaps for the first time all season.
“You can’t replace Rylie Mills,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman stated. “Yes, the production, but the leadership, a captain, very similar to what I said about Benjamin Morrison when he was out. You feel awful for him as a person, a guy who decided to come back, improve his draft stock, and be a captain. His value for this team is tremendous, and he’s done an excellent job as a football player and a leader, but you have to replace the production. You got to replace what he did for our defense in different ways. We have capable guys that will step up, that have stepped up all year, that we’re very confident in, and those guys will have a bigger role this week.”
The news of Mills’ injury came as a breath of fresh air for the Bulldogs as they will be starting backup quarterback Gunner Stockton in place of quarterback Carson Beck, who exited the SEC championship game with an ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) injury. In 13 games this season, Beck passed for 3,485 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He was 24-3 as Georgia’s starting quarterback.
On the other hand, Stockton will be starting for the first time in his collegiate career. After replacing the injured Beck, the red-shirt sophomore completed 12 of 16 passes for 71 yards, including one interception, while leading the Bulldogs to a 22-19 victory in the SEC championship game. Entering the game against Texas came on a whim, but that will not be the case heading into the Sugar Bowl.
“He got lots of reps before these practices, but he’s getting much more now,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said of Stockton earlier this week. “I do think knowing that, you know, when you get ready for an opponent like Notre Dame, you need time. We haven’t known who we were going to play for you know, I guess now what, 24-48 hours we’ve known, 72 hours. There’s certainly a lot of time in prep you can do to prepare for that. We prepared for some of that prior to that because we knew it would be within two opponents. But I think the biggest thing is just the competition at practice. You know, the situations we put him in, all those things allow him to get better as a quarterback.”
The line for this game opened with the Irish favored by 1.5 points. However, the line has shifted, and Georgia is as high as -2 at some books, with a total of 44.
Looking deeper at this game, Notre Dame’s offense will have little room for error as the depleted defense is running out of bodies. More specifically, Irish quarterback Riley Leonard will have to earn his keep on the ground and through the air. Expect the Bulldogs to play zone coverage on defense for most of this game, making it more difficult for Leonard to find open running lanes while also daring him to air it out. Throughout the season, Leonard has proven he can make important throws; however, it has not been on a consistent basis.
On the flip side of the ball, Notre Dame’s defense will likely do what it has done all season. It will play man coverage with its elite secondary, adding multiple stunts on the defensive line while bringing pressure all night long from its linebackers. On the one hand, pressure could serve as cancer to an inexperienced quarterback like Stockton, but being too aggressive and over-pursuing the ball carrier can be deadly to a defense. It is vital that Notre Dame’s linebacking corps is not overly aggressive on fake handoffs, etc. Linebackers such as Jack Kizer and Drayk Bowen cannot guess during this game because they will get gashed by Stockton and running back Trevor Etienne. Unlike Indiana, I expect Georgia to utilize its tight ends and intermediate passing game more across the middle to keep Notre Dame’s ultra-aggressive linebackers in limbo.
Due to a slew of injuries, Notre Dame may be unable to outphysical Georgia in this game as the underclassmen are not physically mature enough yet. However, Notre Dame can certainly outsmart them. Case in point was seen on the game film against Indiana. Safety Xavier Watts alerted true-freshman defensive back Leonard Moore pre-snap on what to expect from the tight end. That alert took away Indiana’s first receiving option to its tight end, which opened the door for Watts’s first-quarter red-zone interception as Rourke forced a pass to his second option instead.
Another example would be when Notre Dame found itself on its own two-yard line. Wide receiver Jayden Thomas notified Leonard of the nickel defender facing him, who needed to be pulled to the other side of the field. Leonard acknowledged that by subsequently motioning Thomas to the right side of the line just before running back Jeremiyah Love busted loose on the left side for his 98-yard touchdown run. Those are the details that are not shown in the stat line, but they do show in film, and unlike statistics, game films do not lie.
After all the Notre Dame injuries, including the loss of two all-Americans on defense and the weaker strength of schedule compared to Georgia, one would think the line on this game should be a touchdown at the very least. However, Georgia is only favored by two points. Oddsmakers are either in the giving season or they’re baiting bettors to take the low-hanging fruit. Every degenerate-gambling fiber in my body says Georgia wins by multiple scores here, but coach Freeman’s constant message to his recruits and players is to “choose hard”, so I will.
Pick: Notre Dame
