Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons the Irish will beat Michigan State

4. Notre Dame has a tough loss out of the way

Bear with me here, as this reason isn’t as much about a loss as it is about who they lost it to. Having a loss can, in fact, damage morale to a certain extent, but a matchup against an unranked Michigan State shouldn’t have the Irish seeing ghosts from their week two loss to the Bulldogs.

Notre Dame’s loss to Georgia certainly highlighted issues for the Irish, and it wasn’t until their week three thrashing of Temple that most fans put those issues to rest. However, the loss also gave the Irish reason to leave with their heads up as a one-point loss to ranked competition isn’t a small feat when compared to last year’s struggles.

Michigan State, on the other hand, has been battling it out with MAC competition, defeating both Bowling Green State and Western Michigan in weeks one and two. Neither win was particularly impressive, but you can’t fault a team for beating the team in front of them. Michigan currently has three ranked teams on their schedule in Michigan (8), Penn State (4), and Ohio State (10). This will be a good game for them to see how they measure up to legitimate competition.

However, the Irish have the edge here as they have already got that tough loss to a top-tier team out of the way. That should allow them to quell some of the nerves that come along with traveling to such a hostile environment as Spartan Stadium.