Notre Dame Football: Irish could run table in 10-game ACC schedule

As rumors swirl about the Notre Dame football joining the ACC’s 10-game season, we take a look at its odds of winning out against these familiar foes.

If you’re up to date with college football news, you know that Notre Dame stands in a sort of grey area as an independent team. Being by far and away the best program that still classifies itself as independent, the Fighting Irish usually schedule top tier opponents throughout the season, but don’t necessarily stick to one geographical area.

That being said, pretty much any conference has the best claim to this school and it seems like the ACC is the one looking to reach out right now.

This is mostly due to the fact that they already have six games scheduled with the conference for the 2020 season, only two away from the eight that normal ACC teams play. In all likelihood, 10 ACC conference games is what we’ll see for Notre Dame. This was further cemented when ACC commissioner John Swofford stated that the Irish would be included in a 10-game schedule if it happened.

The games that were already scheduled for this proud program were as follows: Clemson, Wake Forest, Duke, Pitt, Georgia Tech and Louisville.

To get a perspective of how Notre Dame has performed against this conference in the past, you can look at recent history. In 2019, the Irish played five ACC teams, winning each game relatively handily. The only struggle here was against Virginia Tech, where they came home with a one-point victory. In the previous season during their regular schedule, Notre Dame once again won out in their ACC matchups, going 5-0 in these games with an average margin of victory of over 23 points.

The concern begins to start for Irish fans when you take a step back into the 2018 season, a blemish in the ACC that couldn’t be ignored.

In early 2019, during Notre Dame’s first and only appearance in the College Football Playoff, they were completely embarrassed by Clemson. The Tigers dismantled the Irish 30-3 en route to a dominant national championship victory.

Before everybody sounds the alarms, Notre Dame was not alone in getting demolished by this team. Clemson stomped through every team in their schedule, including 11 out of their 15 victories being wins of at least 25 points. Their victims during this season included Texas A&M, Florida State, NC State, Boston College, and Alabama.

The next season, Clemson would play in their second consecutive national championship, this time losing to an LSU team that is largely considered to be one of the best teams of all time, which brings us to present day. Why am I talking about Clemson so much? Because they might just be Notre Dame’s only obstacle on their way to a 10-0 season.

If the Irish are going to beat Clemson, this is the year as they’ll return senior quarterback Ian Book along with an experienced offensive line. With new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, this offense will have somewhat of a fresh start and potentially a new angle in trying to score more than three points on Clemson.

On the defensive side of the ball, Notre Dame retains defensive coordinator Clark Lea, despite him nearly becoming the head coach at Boston College. They lose a bit of talent on the defensive side, but they’ll hold onto two contributing linebackers and strong young core.

This team has high expectations and will be expected to compete with Clemson.

Other than the Tigers, I don’t see anything in the way of these guys running the table in the ACC. They’ve proven that they can beat anybody that comes in their way and it’ll likely come down to this single matchup.