Buy or Sell: Notre Dame football will win nine games this year

By Greg Hadley | Aug 5, 2016

Oct 17, 2015; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish lines up to sing their school song after the game against the Southern California Trojans at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame defeats Southern California 41-31. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /

Bovada, an online gambling site, released its over/under for the win total of every FBS team a few days ago and had Notre Dame’s at nine. Is that a reasonable number?

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a series in which we will evaluate different arguments for an assertion that has been made about Notre Dame football.

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Las Vegas has spoken, and it thinks Notre Dame has about a 50-50 chance of topping last season’s win total. Bovada released its odds two days ago.

Of course, that’s just a general approximation of how the gambling site thinks Notre Dame will finish. They’re guessing the Irish will be right around that mark, and it’s not as though they have any special insight. In all likelihood, they came up with that number by viewing games against Michigan State, Stanford and USC as toss-ups, which is fair.

Interestingly though, USA Today released its preseason coaches’ poll a day later, and those rankings had the Irish at No. 9, ahead of Michigan State (No. 11) and way ahead of USC (No. 17), their toughest road game of the season. Stanford checked in at No. 7, but Notre Dame will face the Cardinal at home.

That would seem to suggest the Irish have a pretty darn good chance of winning at least one, maybe two, of those three games and pushing themselves over Las Vegas’s projection.

So who’s right? Will Notre Dame football win nine games this season?

Buy: First of all, there is no excuse I can think of for Notre Dame to not win at least nine games this season. That immediately makes buy the less attractive option.

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But the schedule just lines up so perfectly for the Irish to run the table outside of the games previously mentioned. None of its other opponents were ranked in the coaches poll, and only one of them will come on the road for Notre Dame. Potential spoilers such as Pitt, Duke and Miami (Fla.) will be going up against a Fighting Irish program that is 21-3 at home over the past four seasons.

So basically, if you buy Las Vegas’s pick, you think Notre Dame will lose to all three of its ranked opponents, as well as its bowl game. And that’s not an entirely crazy thing to think.

Firstly, Michigan State has an off week to prepare before coming to Notre Dame on Sept. 17. The Irish haven’t lost to the Spartans since 2010, but since then Mark Dantonio has built a juggernaut at East Lansing, taking Sparty to a New Years Six bowl in three consecutive seasons.

Second, Stanford possesses one of the most exciting players in college football, Christian McCaffery, who could very easily wreak havoc against Notre Dame’s young defense.

Thirdly, USC is always a dangerous opponent, especially on the road. With so few true road games this season, who knows how the Irish will respond to the pressure of a rowdy crowd and a Trojan team that features a sterling offensive line and dynamic playmakers like JuJu Smith-Schulster.

And lastly, Notre Dame hasn’t won a major bowl game since 1994. Most of their recent bowl wins have come in the wake of underwhelming seasons that resulted in cupcake opponents. If the Irish do win nine games, they’re not likely to be so lucky.

Sell: Rather than go game by game and give reasons why the Irish could win 10 or more contests this year (a schedule breakdown is coming soon!), let it suffice to say that Notre Dame is more than capable of winning at least one of the four games Las Vegas thinks it won’t.

The Irish have home field advantage twice, and the one time they do go on the road, they’ll be playing a USC team that has been in disarray for some years now. Despite some hits to the team’s depth since last season, Notre Dame still boasts an impressive amount of talent and could potentially have two of the best quarterbacks in the country.

Also, if you look at the coaches poll (and why not? It’s not as though Vegas knows more than the coaches. It’s the preseason and everyone’s just making educated guesses), you’ll see that no team has finished the season in the top 10 without at least 10 wins since 2002. So if the Irish live up to their No. 9 ranking, they’ll almost certainly end up in double-digits in wins.

Verdict: Strong sell. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and say Notre Dame is destined for the CFP just yet, but I think the Irish have more than enough talent and a favorable enough schedule to get at least 10 wins. As much as I think it’s unlikely the Irish will win all four against USC, Stanford, Michigan State and its bowl opponent, it’s just as unlikely they lose all four.

Next: Keep an eye on these freshmen in fall camp

Brian Kelly has brought the program to a certain level where fans can expect that many wins on a regular basis, which is impressive. The more interesting question then becomes: Can Notre Dame compete for a national title every year?

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