Notre Dame football lost in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff last year. Can it repeat an undefeated season and make it back?
Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish had a disappointing end to their season with a 30-3 loss in the Cotton Bowl against the Clemson Tigers.
While many had doubts about how competitive Notre Dame was going to be in the College Football Playoff, they did win every single regular season game. Additionally, Clemson ultimately beat Alabama and won the National Championship.
Posting another undefeated season is quite unlikely but not impossible. Let’s take a look at Notre Dame’s 2019 regular season schedule and go game-by-game.
1. Louisville (Sept. 2)
The Louisville Cardinals are coming off one of their worst seasons in years, winning only two games. However, we can attribute this poor performance to the departure of Lamar Jackson…we’ll call it, “the Lamar slump”. Recklessly, Bobby Petrino was fired after the 10th game of the year, and Louisville was left with Lorenzo Ward as an interim head coach.
Sept. 2 will be Notre Dame’s first opportunity to redeem themselves from their College Football Playoff loss. Additionally, it will be Scott Satterfield’s coaching debut for the Cardinals. Previously, he was the head coach of Appalachian State. While Satterfield has been quite successful at App State, he will be no match for Kelly.
Louisville still has a lot more rebuilding to get done in order to compete with this Notre Dame team.
Final: Notre Dame 28, Louisville 3 (1-0)