Slap the Sign
Fansided

Notre Dame Football: Key Offensive Matchups vs. Wake Forest

By Connor McJunkin

SOUTH BEND, IN - NOVEMBER 04: Brandon Wimbush #7 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish holds off Grant Dawson #50 of the Wake Forest Demon Deaconsas he runs for a first down at Notre Dame Stadium on November 4, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - NOVEMBER 04: Brandon Wimbush #7 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish holds off Grant Dawson #50 of the Wake Forest Demon Deaconsas he runs for a first down at Notre Dame Stadium on November 4, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 4
Next
Notre Dame football
WINSTON SALEM, NC – SEPTEMBER 13: General view of the game between the Boston College Eagles and the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at BB&T Field on September 13, 2018 in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Notre Dame football will visit Wake Forest on Saturday.(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

Week 4 is here and it presents a great opportunity for Notre Dame football to go on the road and improve to 4-0 vs Wake Forest. As always, there will be some great matchups to watch for when the Irish are on offense.

The good news is that the Irish are 3-0. The not-so-good news is two of those three wins were pretty ugly — and the criticism Notre Dame football has received from those games is deserved.

Notre Dame can’t ugly win every week and it’s no secret some question marks remain — mainly on the offensive side of the ball. We are a quarter of the way through the season and these question marks need answers sooner than later.

Is this the week it all comes together? I don’t know, but I do know Notre Dame can’t keep playing how they are and expect to win every game.

Notre Dame takes on a 2-1 Wake Forest team this week. It will be the first away game of the season for the Irish as they began 2018 with three straight home games. For Notre Dame’s offense, we are still waiting for a complete game to be put together. While the run game improved last week vs. Vanderbilt, the play-calling seemed to hurt the passing game, as Wimbush only threw for 122 yards on 13 completions.

On paper, Wake Forest’s defense is not great. They are currently ranked 108th in the country in yards given up per game with 457, ranked 120th in passing yards given up per game with 310, and ranked 65th in rushing yards allowed per game with 146. They’ve given up an average 28 points per game through the first three weeks.

This is a defensive unit that is replacing four starters from their front seven in 2017 but are returning most of their talent on the backend — only losing safety Jessie Bates III from a season ago to the NFL.

If games were played on paper, the Irish would be in a good position, but that’s not how this works. It will still come down to individual and positional matchups to determine the outcome of the game on both sides of the ball.

Here are the best matchups to watch for when Notre Dame is facing the Demon Deacon defense.

Home/Notre Dame Football