Notre Dame Football: Irish Look to Re-Focus after Bye Week

Notre Dame football heads into the final five games of the season undefeated and with a great chance to run the table to the College Football Playoff.

Notre Dame football didn’t play a game on Saturday, but thanks to some college football craziness, they climbed the polls. As the Irish head toward their upcoming game against Navy–a game that the Irish should win handily, Brian Kelly has an important job on his hands: Motivate the Irish to maintain focus against lesser opponents.

According to ESPN’s FPI rankings, Notre Dame has a 33.9% chance to run the table and win the rest of their games. That ranks them 6th among FBS teams, with only Alabama and Clemson having better odds to run the table. Of the teams remaining on Notre Dame’s schedule, USC has the best chance to beat Notre Dame, according to the same FPI stats. The Irish still have a 65.9% chance to emerge victorious over the Trojans.

As many have witnessed throughout the season, it’s hard to have a team that brings it throughout the week. Thus far, only a small handful of teams have been immune to a major letdown. Hopefully for Notre Dame, their only let down is a game that they won.

But as the Irish embark on a crazy travel journey that will see them go to San Diego, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, Notre Dame could be poised for another let down. A grueling travel schedule coupled with a slate of games that features only lesser opponents could be a recipe for disaster for the Irish. It will be a recipe the Irish will hope to avoid.

Coach Kelly has a few problems to figure out through the latter part of the season. Figuring out how to re-tool the offensive line following the season-ending injury to Alex Bars and finding out about the reliability of Notre Dame’s nickel package are among the problems Kelly must solve.

The biggest struggle Kelly might have, however, is figuring out how to motivate this team to remain in the present and not overlook lesser opponents in anticipation of what might come.

If Kelly can keep the Irish focused, however, the Irish have the opportunity to find themselves on college football’s biggest stage come the end of December. For more on this and other Notre Dame topics, check out the latest version of the Under the Dome Podcast.