Clemson Setup, Traps, No Navy And More: Takeaways From Irish’s New Schedule
The bizarro world calls for a bizarre schedule cobbled together a little more than a month before its start.
Take two of Notre Dame’s 2020 slate does not include Navy for the first time in 94 years, has a path to a conference title, a game on a Friday and a home game in December.
And most of all, it’s not as challenging as normal. The ACC gifted Notre Dame the chance to be a one-year member, and again was generous in providing some new opponents. The 11-game schedule is full of quirks, nuggets, a couple traps and one potentially epic game with an ideal setup for the Irish. Here are some takeaways and numbers regarding it.
No Change With Clemson Setup, And That’s Fine By Notre Dame
Notre Dame gets to host Clemson in November, in what we assume will be chilly evening weather, as originally scheduled. It’ll assuredly get a primetime slot. And it may well be a meeting of two unbeaten top-10 teams.
Clemson is the No. 1 team in the coaches poll, released Thursday, while Notre Dame is ranked No. 10. If the Tigers remain there into November, they will be the first No. 1 team to come to Notre Dame Stadium since 2005, when USC beat Notre Dame in the “Bush Push” game. They’ve operated in a different atmosphere than the rest of the ACC in recent years, but their pre-Notre Dame schedule is particularly friendly.
Four of Clemson’s first seven games are against teams ranked outside the top 50 in preseason SP+. That seems likely to grow to five when Clemson announces its non-conference opponent. The two most difficult games are against Miami and Virginia, and both are at home. The Hurricanes will not have 2019 ACC sack leader and projected top-10 pick Gregory Rousseau, who opted out of the season.
The ACC had good reason to consider moving the game up, perhaps all the way to opening week. If the season is interrupted or canceled — which certainly cannot be ruled out — you’d want to maximize the chances the best game is played. It feels safer to assume games at the start of the year have a greater chance of taking place than late-season ones.
Weather can be an overblown factor, and in some cases meaningless, but if given the choice to have a team from South Carolina come to northern Indiana in September or November, the latter is the clear route.
The league even did Notre Dame a second favor by erasing the Tigers’ previously set off week before the game. They’ll play Boston College before coming to South Bend. Notre Dame, oddly enough, will play the Eagles the week after.
Trap Games Feel Manageable
Speaking of Boston College … that idea of playing that game a week after a classic game will evoke horrors of 1993, but let’s make one thing clear. The BC of 2020 isn’t the BC of that era.
The Eagles had three straight top-25 finishes from 1992-94. The 1993 team went 9-3. In the 2010s, though, they had one season with fewer than six losses. They’re 92nd in defensive SP+ entering 2020 and gave up the sixth-most yards per game in the Football Bowl Subdivision last year. First-year head coach Jeff Hafley did a masterful job running Ohio State’s defense in 2019, but life’s a bit harder when not fielding an entire starting defense of NFL Draft picks.
Elsewhere, Notre Dame plays at Pittsburgh Oct. 24. The Irish’s last two 12-0 regular seasons contained a home game against Pitt they nearly biffed after coming into it heavily favorite. The Panthers allowed 4.5 yards per play last year, fourth-best in college football. They have the pieces to be a dominant defense once again.
But they’re a similar story to Boston College, except on the other side of the ball. Pitt was 106th in yards per play in 2019 and lost a trio games where it allowed three or fewer touchdowns. One of those was to Boston College when Pitt scored only 19 points against that woeful defense. Even with eight offensive starters and the coordinator back, there’s a long way to go.
Breezy Start
Notre Dame can slumber through its first month and still have a chance at escaping without harm.
The first three opponents lost at least five games last year, and Duke (69th) has the highest preseason SP+. Western Michigan, a respectable Mid-American Conference program, should offer little resistance for even a semi-locked in or semi-healthy Irish team. And Wake Forest, even amid its recent run of four straight bowl games, is 81st in preseason SP+ after some important offensive personnel losses and couldn’t stay on the field with Notre Dame in 2018.
Notre Dame has an off week Oct. 3 before hosting Florida State. If presumed No. 1 wide receiver Kevin Austin misses a month with the foot fracture suffered in late July, that’s a survivable schedule without him. And if he’s out longer, Notre Dame has another month until it plays Clemson. It’ll need Austin and his upside to win.
A Bummer About Navy
Look, this isn’t exactly a fierce rivalry. Navy has won just 13 times in 93 seasons. Even last year’s meeting, the first when both were ranked since 1978, was a 52-20 Notre Dame pantsing of one of the Midshipmen’s best teams in recent memory.
But this series is about history, and Notre Dame is a program rich in it that embraces it. The longest continual intersectional rivalry ending its 93-year streak is a bummer. It’s cool to boast a series that predates the first Heisman winner and began before all states even required driver’s licenses.
The ACC’s rule that required the non-conference game to be played in the ACC team’s home state hindered the chances of this year’s game. Still, this felt like something that could have been solved if Notre Dame wanted to make it happen.
Non-Conference, Non-Challenges
Notre Dame picked Western Michigan as its non-conference opponent, preserving the originally scheduled Sept. 19 game in South Bend and a near-certain win.
Plenty of other teams scheduled Group of Five or Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) team, meaning Notre Dame won’t be at a strength of schedule disadvantage. Here’s a look at some of the non-conference opponents around the ACC: Liberty, Ohio, Samford, Charlotte, Miami (Ohio), Western Michigan, Old Dominion, UAB, Western Kentucky and VMI.
North Carolina and Clemson have not announced non-league opponents. Georgia Tech wanted a challenge and is hosting UCF.
Similarly, the Big 12 is allowing one non-conference game, and at least four teams have scheduled FCS teams as that opponent. The presence of non-conference opponents this year feels like a money grab (or more accurately, a money loss minimizer), especially after the SEC retracted to conference-only and squashed the ACC’s hopes of preserving the four annual rivalry games between the two leagues.
By The Numbers
39 The number of years since Notre Dame last played a Friday game. That will end this year with the North Carolina game scheduled for Black Friday. The Tar Heels are 19th in the preseason coaches poll and do not play Clemson, so this one could be a matchup of two teams with gaudy records.
If so, it’s likely to get a visible slot on a prominent ESPN channel. Thanksgiving week won’t be full of its normal rivalries. The Big Ten did not schedule games during it. The Pac-12 moved some of its best games up. This could have easily drawn an audience on a Saturday. But it should do fine on a Friday, too. Why not embrace the weirdness?
1 The number of ACC teams to avoid playing Clemson and Notre Dame. North Carolina State was the lottery winner there, and its path to erasing a 4-8 season is a lot easier. Anything resembling it this year will be a terrible look and sign of a free fall for a program that had 18 total wins from 2017-18 and 11 combined draft picks in 2018-19.
2 Open dates on every ACC team’s schedule. We can look at them now and determine who is helped or hurt by off week timing, but that’s a discussion that could easily be rendered pointless. They were strategically placed as flex dates in case games need to be moved if one team is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak.
4 ACC teams Notre Dame won’t play: Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech and North Carolina State. The Irish visit both Virginia schools in 2021, but do not play Miami until 2024 and North Carolina State until 2023.
1953 The last time Notre Dame played a home game on Dec. 5 or later. The Irish host Syracuse on Dec. 5 to end the regular season.
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