Coming off a season where Notre Dame played for a national championship, the Irish are getting ready for another season with high expectations. However, it’s not an easy path to living up to those expectations, starting with a tough road test against Miami in Week 1. Ahead of that game against Miami, ESPN analysts Louis […]
Coming off a season where Notre Dame played for a national championship, the Irish are getting ready for another season with high expectations. However, it’s not an easy path to living up to those expectations, starting with a tough road test against Miami in Week 1.
Ahead of that game against Miami, ESPN analysts Louis Riddick and Jordan Rodgers debated the Irish on Get Up. There, they had different feelings about Notre Dame as a College Football Playoff team and national championship contender for the 2025 season.
“I think this is definitely a possibility,” Louis Riddick said. “You have to love what Notre Dame really puts on the table as far as their defensive play. Obviously, offensively, they have to answer the bell here. They’re going to be able to run the football against anyone. You know they’re a downhill, blue-collar football team… I think the schedule sets up favorably for them.”
Notre Dame is entering the season with 10 games against Power Four opponents. Among those two Group of Five opponents is Boise State, who played in the College Football Playoff a season ago. On top of that, the Irish have three games ranked against teams in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll.
“This will be an interesting one to see because Miami is a football team — I would pick Miami to win this football game because I think on both lines of scrimmage right now, they are stacked. What it’s going to come down to is whether or not they can get the kind of quarterback play out of Carson Beck that they expect to get, given what they paid him and how they really went after him,” Riddick said.
“But, you look at their schedule here, hey, look. Obviously, Texas A&M always has a formidable roster and they are well coached down there. The rest of those games, I just don’t see one where they could get upset, and I think this could work out favorably for Notre Dame.”
For his part, Jordan Rodgers has more questions about Notre Dame, which makes him less confident in Notre Dame as a championship-caliber team. In particular, he called at Notre Dame’s youth at quarterback as CJ Carr takes over there as a major concern.
“I think they’ll make a Playoff run. Deep? I don’t think so. They have a starting quarterback who I think is gonna struggle. I’m with Louis. I would pick Miami in this opening week. You’ve got a quarterback making his first career start. Gonna make his first attempted pass of his career, going up against a quarterback in Carson Beck who is 24-3 as a starter. I think Carson Beck is going to remind people why a year ago we were talking about him being a Heisman hopeful and a Top 10 pick. Notre Dame has a couple of tricky games. A&M is going to be really, really good. I don’t know if enough people are talking about them. That game comes up quickly. At Arkansas is tricky,” Rodgers said.
“If they can get through the first four, five weeks of the season, absolutely, they can make a run to the College Football Playoff. Are they built to make a deep run? Well, they can run the football really well, play defense very well. Can the quarterback in CJ Carr just be good enough just to make that run? That would be my question.”
Notre Dame has a chance to answer these questions quickly. The Irish and Hurricanes open at 7:30 p.m. on August 31st.
Category: General Sports
