Irish Sports Talk: Notre Dame Football

With a new defensive coordinator and with Brian Kelly's stamp on the defense will the Irish be victorious against Syracuse? Syracuse offers some unique problems for the Notre Dame defense but with a rejuvenated Notre Dame team there is optimism for fans that the program can turn around.

Notre Dame is 1–3 after a loss to Duke. Defensive Coordinator, Brian VanGorder has been fired, but can the Irish defense recover with this mid-season switch?

This is our prediction episode where Reuben and Randall predict the score for Notre Dame vs Duke this Saturday including some keys to the game.

Texas falls for the first time this season, Michigan State has another big matchup, this time with #11 Wisconsin, and USC tries to bounce back from a 1–2 start with a win over Utah.

Matt Freeman from ISD joined the podcast to preview the Notre Dame vs Duke matchup.

In this episode we discuss Brian Kelly's decision to go for points at the end of the half with 30 seconds remaining as well as his decision to punt late in the fourth quarter. Some fans were complaining about a lack of passing the ball downfield in the first three quarters, but there's more to it than dropping back and throwing the ball in the air. Finally there's some really good things that Notre Dame did (Newsome's 71 yard punt) and some really ugly things (personal foul on Nicco Fertitta).

Here are our score predictions for Notre Dame vs Michigan State and a look at who the Irish opponents are facing in week 3.

This week #18 Notre Dame hosts #12 Michigan State for a top 25 matchup at primetime. The Irish are a 8 point favorite but the Michigan State offense poses some difficult challenges for the Irish.

Today's recap podcast features Mike Renner from Pro Football Focus and Matt Freeman from Irish Sports Daily. Mike answers questions on different Notre Dame player grades and what is included in some of the different positions graded. Matt helps answer questions facing the Irish after the 39–10 victory over Nevada. Notre Dame did cover the 28 point spread against Nevada although most of our Twitter followers (including us) didn't think they would. What was the reason for the Irish offense' slow start, who fills the shoes of Shaun Crawford, and why isn't there a complaint about the running back rotation? In previous years, fans were upset by Kelly's running back by committee approach but in the first two weeks of the season that has been the approach but there hasn't been much of a complaint—probably because it's been working.

A look at who Notre Dame's opponents are in week 2 of the college football season. For a full overview check out our week 2 overview article.

Notre Dame hosts Nevada for their first home game of the season. In this episode, we'll discuss the top players for Nevada as well as players to watch at each position for the Irish.

One of the two teams had success with the two-quarterback system. It wasn't the Irish. Kizer has set himself apart as the number one quarterback in the minds of the fans and while it's still very likely that both quarterbacks will play against Nevada it probably won't be swapping of series like it was in week 1. Texas, on the other hand, has 50 reasons to continue using the two-quarterback system. Questions are facing the Notre Dame defense and there's plenty of blame to go around, missed tackles, players missing reads, too few defenders in the box, and others.

Every week we'll look at each of Notre Dame's opponents who they're playing, who they played, and what direction is the team heading.

Notre Dame travels to Texas for a Sunday matchup. The line is surprisingly only 4 points. Listen for our keys to victory for both the Irish and Texas. A starting quarterback has not been named for either team and both teams are expected to play two quarterbacks.

In this episode, we go through a number of over/under predictions for both the offense and the defense for the 2016 football season. Tony joins the show to lend a hand with his predictions as well. There're a few things each of the hosts agrees on and that is that there will be a rusher that cracks 1,000 yards and that Finke will record more than 6.5 catches.