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Notre Dame-Duke: Game Week Is Actually Here

Notre Dame has played against much more renowned opponents in opening games than the 2020 Duke Blue Devils, who are coming off a 5-7 record and are only 10-22 the past four years in the Atlantic Coast Conference. This included a 38-7 whipping from Notre Dame last Nov. 9 in Durham.

However, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the 2020 opener might be as anticipated as any in Fighting Irish annals.

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Quarterback Ian Book rushed for a career high 139 yards on 12 carries at Duke last year, and completed 18 of 32 passes for 181 yards and four scores in the 38-7 win.
Quarterback Ian Book rushed for a career high 139 yards on 12 carries at Duke last year, and completed 18 of 32 passes for 181 yards and four scores in the 38-7 win. (Ken Martin)

After a spring and summer in which doubts were cast that there would be any college football at all this year, which was heightened by the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences cancelling their fall seasons, just reaching the starting line for this Saturday’s Sept. 12 opener and the ability to play football at all would be considered a form of victory in itself.

Of the 196 COVID-19 tests administered to Notre Dame’s football players last week, all were negative. Testing now will be done three times a week.

Originally, the Duke game at Notre Dame Stadium was slated for Oct. 31, the “warm-up act” prior to the Nov. 7 showdown at home with preseason No. 1 Clemson that promises to have College Football Playoff implications.

Instead, the other three Power Five leagues have adopted a conference-only model for the 2020 campaign in an effort to have any hopes of a football season. This included the ACC taking in Notre Dame as a full-time member for this year that includes a 10-game league slate.

That has created a favorable schedule that has more and more bookmakers and talking heads making Notre Dame a favorite to be among the four teams in this year’s College Football Playoff.

• Sports Betting.ag has Notre Dame fourth in the odds (12/1) to capture the 2020 national title, behind fellow ACC member Clemson (3/2), Alabama (5/2) and Georgia (10/1).

• Multiple national-tile winning head coach Urban Meyer, now with Fox Sports, tweeted, “I am all in on the Notre Dame bandwagon... at the end of the day I really believe Clemson and Notre Dame will be standing tall in the playoffs.”

• Long-time ESPN GameDay analyst Lee Corso has the Fighting Irish in the CFP with regulars Clemson, Alabama and Oklahoma — and colleague Desmond Howard even had Notre Dame upsetting preseason No. 1 Clemson on Nov. 7.

In order to accommodate the scheduling format, Duke was moved from Halloween to Sept. 12, the latest date for a Fighting Irish opener in 30 years (Sept. 15 versus Michigan in 1990).

It will be one of the most unique game-day experiences ever at Notre Dame Stadium since its opening in 1930.

In keeping in line with social distancing protocols, tailgating is prohibited while attendance will be restricted to only the student body, faculty/staff and family members of participating student-athletes from both teams (in a separate area). All attendees will be required to wear masks and practice physical distancing.

Twenty-percent capacity had been the popular estimation predicted, and indeed it will be exactly at that target with 15,525 maximum allowed in the edifice where the capacity is 77,622.

For the record, the lowest attendance ever in Notre Dame Stadium for a football game was the 6,633 on Oct. 15, 1932, a 62-0 rout of Drake. It came two years after the structure opened, and it was also at the height of the Great Depression when even a football ticket was too much of a luxury at a time of dire need for bare necessities.

The first game ever at Notre Dame Stadium was in Knute Rockne's final season (1930), and that thrilling opening-game win (20-14) over SMU in front of 14,751 propelled a run to his third consensus national title in seven years.

The game versus Duke also will mark the first time there will be less than 20,000 to attend an opener at Notre Dame since head coach Frank Leahy’s debut on Sept. 27, 1941, when 19,567 were officially counted in the 38-7 victory versus Arizona.

This year, attendance figures are irrelevant. Just the fact that “the games go on” is a refreshing diversion, provided no calamities arrive from it.

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